My Infertility Story

This article was originally posted on Everyday Health

It is difficult to describe to the fertile world what infertility feels like and the profound and lasting impact that it has on your life.  I have been struggling with infertility for over a decade, and I work as an infertility counselor and advocate. Yet I still have trouble putting into words the pain and loss that struggling to conceive has brought to my family. A friend of mine from the infertility community described infertility perfectly in two words: soul crushing.

 

My husband and I married in our early 20s.  For the first two years of marriage, I was on birth

See this young bride?
Already unknowingly pretty infertile.

control, but we knew we eventually wanted a big family. When I was 24 I had my appendix removed, and after skipping a few birth control pills while in the hospital due to my surgery, I decided to stay off the Pill entirely. For the next two years we had no “happy accidents” and in fact my periods became quite painful.  I thought it might be time to check in with my gynecologist. I had a sinking feeling that something wasn’t right.

My gynecologist told me it was normal to have terrible periods and painful ovulation, that I had a “low pain tolerance” and that I was overreacting. She asked to see me again in 6 months and told me not to worry, that I would be pregnant in no time. I also got a lecture on how stress and anxiety could hinder pregnancy. She told me to “just relax.”

For the next 6 months my husband and I tried REALLY hard to get pregnant. I peed on every ovulation predictor stick I could find. I charted my basal body temperature and noted my cervical mucus. I slightly elevated my hips for at least an hour post-coitus. And of course, we made sure NOT TO STRESS OUT. I did not get pregnant, and my periods were getting worse. I went to my gynecologist’s office 6 months later and said I wanted a referral for a reproductive endocrinologist. 

I was officially worried. What if we could never have kids? We didn’t know anyone else at the time going through infertility. My husband came from a large family, so I was sure our trouble conceiving was my fault. I felt guilty and scared. All of a sudden, something that I took for granted all this time was so uncertain. All around me friends and family members were getting pregnant, some with their second and third babies. People kept asking us casually in social situations the heart-breaking question, “So, when are you guys going to have a baby? Come on! What are you waiting for?”

I remember sitting in the reproductive endocrinologist’s office with my husband for our first appointment. I felt physically ill. I felt like a failure for not being able to do what so many women do effortlessly. I felt alone. I felt broken. What if I couldn’t be fixed?

To escape I read Harry Potter. At least I
didn't have Voldemort chasing me.

That day was the start of a new era in our life--infertility treatments and all that comes with it. My reproductive endocrinologist’s office became my home away from home.  In the span of six years I had 3 IUIs, 3 IVFs and 34 embryos tested and I suffered 4 miscarriages. I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, which explained my painful periods along with a host of other problems that doctors could never explain.   I was also diagnosed with a balanced translocation, a genetic issue that causes the overwhelming majority of my embryos to miscarry.

In an ideal world, making a baby is a decision between two consenting adults.  Sex is meant to be an intimate and tender occurrence. When you struggle with infertility, making a baby is not a private affair anymore; it is a stressful, scientific experience now shared with receptionists, doctors, nurses, drug companies and ultrasound technicians.  For years, my life consisted of daily hormone injections and vaginal ultrasounds, speaking with surgeons and geneticists, and fighting with insurance companies.

Our whole life became a cycle of waiting. We waited to get approval from our insurance company in order to proceed with our IUI or IVF procedures. We waited for my medications to arrive. While going through a medicated cycle, I waited every morning in the reproductive endocrinologist’s office

Sad about our wedding anniversary & no baby
I convinced my DH to go to Trapeze School.

to get monitored. I waited that afternoon for the phone call to see what medications I had to use that night based on my tests results that morning. I anxiously awaited my next appointment to see how I was responding to the medications and see if I could go through with the procedure. After every IVF, I waited to see if our embryos that were formed were healthy. Most often they were not, due to my genetic translocation. If I was lucky enough to be able to have an embryo to transfer, I waited to see if the embryo was going to turn into a healthy pregnancy. Then I waited to see if the pregnancy test results were positive.  Twice I miscarried after getting positive results.

My husband and I were finally able to conceive our daughter with the help of our reproductive endocrinologist. We are incredibly grateful for our daughter, but I still feel sad for all we have gone through.  Struggling with infertility changed us.  We do not take life for granted and we do not sweat the small stuff. Yet, those stressful years always seem to be lurking in the shadows. 

April 20-26 is National Infertility Awareness Week. According to RESOLVE’s website, “Infertility affects 7.3 million people in the U.S. This figure represents 12% of women of childbearing age, or 1 in 8 couples.” Spreading awareness of infertility is critical. Patients mustn't feel alone like I did.  The general public must learn to be sensitive toward those who are struggling with infertility. Don’t dismiss their pain by saying, “Don’t worry, it will happen,” or “You can just adopt.” It may or may not happen for them; you do not know. They may end up adopting, or using an egg, sperm or embryo donor or even a surrogate. They may choose not to pursue other family building options after infertility. But that doesn’t mean they are not still hurting.

Me and my friends and fellow advocates at Advocacy Day!

 

Coming Home Empty Wombed: Our Final Infertility Journey

Three years ago, my husband and I found out that I have a translocation, which is a genetic mutation with the majority of my eggs that leads to recurrent miscarriages or a baby with fatal birth defects. Three months ago, my husband and I found out we are not able to have any more biological children. The first diagnosis was really hard to accept, but we were grateful that we finally had answers as to why I had suffered three miscarriages in a matter of five months. Our most recent news, though devastating, offered closure to a difficult eight year journey battling infertility.

Between the fall of 2008 and winter of 2009, my husband and I had gone through so much to get pregnant. Though conceiving my daughter in 2007 was by no means easy (we used IUI to get pregnant), I couldn’t understand why I kept miscarrying during that following year. In January 2009, my husband and I had tried, for the first time, using IVF to get pregnant that cycle. The doctor let my embryos grow for five days before transferring one into my uterus, and then he cryogenically froze the rest of them. At the time, I was grateful to not only have this one embryo implanted in me, but to have six others frozen for future pregnancies.

Needless to say, the IVF resulted in a miscarriage -- my third in five months. It was then that the doctors decided to send my blood work to be tested for a translocation, which they suspected might be the reason for all of my miscarriages. The translocation diagnosis came back positive, and the doctor said that the only option left for us to have another biological child was to undergo another IVF and then, when our embryos were three days old, get the embryos biopsied and tested for the translocation. If any of the embryos were viable, then they would be transferred to my uterus. I felt overwhelmed by the process, but grateful there was a solution. Geneticists and doctors seemed hopeful that I had a good chance of having a healthy baby with this option.

I asked my doctor about the embryos from my first IVF, the six I still had frozen. My doctor told me that they could not be tested because they were frozen on day five, which means they were too advanced to undergo the long test for translocation. If I just had the embryos transferred without testing them, I would most likely have yet another miscarriage or risk having a stillborn baby or a baby that would die soon after birth. We ultimately decided to keep the embryos frozen, with the hope that in time, medical advances would lead to the possibility of safely testing 5-day-old embryos for translocation.

Three years went by and my husband and I continued along an arduous journey. We had two more IVFs done, resulting in 28 biopsied embryos. We also had one naturally occurring pregnancy. All of the biopsied embryos had the translocation and were not viable, and the naturally occurring pregnancy resulted in my fourth miscarriage. We decided that we were done with IVF treatments. Now we only had the matter of our six frozen embryos to figure out.

According to my doctor, and many other doctors I consulted with, our only solution was still to transfer to my uterus three embryos at a time and hope they didn’t have the translocation and would lead to a viable pregnancy. Because I knew the odds were that they would not be viable, I was hesitant to sign myself up for a possible fifth and sixth miscarriage. Yet, I wasn’t ready to just assume they were not viable. I couldn’t just discard them. I still had a shred of hope; what if one of them were good? What if one of them would turn into the little person we were waiting for?

I tirelessly researched the internet trying to find another solution. I started reading about doctors in Australia who were routinely doing biopsies on five day embryos with great success. This gave me hope. I then found an amazing genetics lab in Chicago, called the Reproductive Genetics Institute. I contacted them immediately and talked to one of their genetic counselors. They are innovators in their field. They told me that not only do they routinely do biopsies on five day old embryos, but they had the facilities to test the embryos for the translocation and also transfer any healthy embryos, all on site. My dream from three years ago of testing the 6 frozen embryos was now a real possibility.

The process was not going to be easy. I had to prepare for an embryo transfer just in case there was a viable embryo after testing. Since I would be doing the transfer in Chicago, but preparing for the transfer here in New York, I had to work carefully with both teams of fertility specialists and make sure they were always on the same page. And we had to ship our embryos from New York to Chicago, which was scary and traumatizing. Talk about a fragile package!

The time leading up to our trip to Chicago was grueling and emotional. Physically prepping for the transfer was difficult for me. I had to take shots of pure estrogen, which didn’t agree with my system and left me very emotional and tired. Every day would bring more phone calls I would have to make to ensure that everything would be in place for our trip. Some of what I was trying to accomplish had never been done before in this way. But somehow the logistics all fell into place. I am grateful to the countless number of people who made this difficult ordeal easier by their professionalism, their sense of humor, their positive attitude and their compassion, especially to those at Westchester Fertility in New York and the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago.

Finally the time came to fly to Chicago. The first step in testing the embryos is unfreezing them and seeing if they survive the thaw. Right before we boarded the plane, we got word all six survived and were looking great. Upon arrival in Chicago, we waited in the hotel for the phone call from the Reproductive Genetics Institute. This call would tell us whether the 6 embryos that were being tested were viable. It would tell us once and for all if we had a shot at having any more biological children.

We had prepared the few people we told for bad news. The truth was that all of the pregnancies I had had, and all of the embryos that were tested, were not viable, so the chances werethat these would not be viable either. Our parents told us not to be so negative, to have hope. It could work out. The embryos could be good. We had one daughter already after all. If I was being completely honest with myself, I would have to admit that I really did have hope. On the flight out to Chicago, I couldn’t help but hope that I would have another passenger growing and hopefully implanted inside of my womb on the flight home. When I got pregnant with my daughter through IUI in 2007, I remember seeing six eggs in the scan right before the insemination. She ended up being one of those lucky six that made it. Now we had another six embryos being tested. One of them definitely could be lucky.

I also started to feel like I was in a Lifetime movie. We had been through such a difficult journey these past few years. Almost always in the movies, the characters hit rock bottom, but through perseverance, hope and determination, things seem to turn around. I had thoughts of the hundreds of people who all did their part to get me to this point, from the doctors and their staff, to the person making sure the embryos were delivered safely, to the flight attendant who got me to Chicago. This was it, the moment we all had worked for. I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to surprise our friends and family with pregnancy news around the holidays as I would be just ending my first trimester. I would then recount the epic story of how it all came to be.

My husband and I were watching "The Hangover 2" in our hotel room when we got the call, much earlier than expected. As if the movie wasn’t punishment enough, more bad news was coming our way. None of the embryos were viable. That was it. It was over.
Tears were shed for our lost embryos and ultimately for our lost dream of having a family in the way we always thought we would. We had been mourning this dream for a long time now, and mentally had expected this outcome. This was the final piece that was left to be resolved. This was our closure. We now had officially done everything physically and humanly possible to have more biological children. But it just wasn’t meant to be.

I was sad for weeks and both emotionally and physically drained from the whole experience. I have to say, though, that I also felt immediately grateful and relieved to be officially done with my journey with infertility treatments. I feel a lot lighter knowing that I am done with tests, shots, doctor appointments, arguing with insurance companies, dealing with pharmacies, surgical procedures and just feeling like my body is not mine. I have recently been talking to friends going through infertility and I can see the physical toll all of this takes on them. I was that person for over eight years.

Most of the crying I did in the hotel room in Chicago following the news was truly tears of gratitude for my daughter. I don’t know how she got here to us. She is amazing, healthy and happy, and she brings so much joy into the world. We are so very lucky to have her. If we choose not to expand our family through other ways, we still will have more love in our lives than we could have ever imagined. We are certainly blessed.

My husband and I had gone out to Chicago on a hope and a prayer that our crazy plan could work. We came home hoping and praying that time would heal our hearts and open them to whatever was next on our journey. Now that three months have passed since our return from Chicago, I can say that I am doing better. I feel stronger, more hopeful and happier than I have been in a long time. I am looking forward to a 2012 that doesn’t involve surgeries or daily vaginal ultrasounds. I was very happy to give away all of my maternity clothes. My family and I have two goals in 2012, to have more fun and to see where this broken road may lead us. And I have a feeling my Lifetime movie will not end here.

My Return To The Land Of The Living

So it has been way too long since I have last written. Dealing with my endometriosis (including having surgery) has made these past few months very difficult, and at times excruciating. I have spent most of these recent days just trying to keep on my own two feet, and when I had the energy, take care of my little girl.

Endometriosis is a disease where the tissue that lines a woman’s uterus escapes the uterine cavity and attaches outside the uterus. Every month during menstruation this tissue grows throughout the abdominal cavity, attaching to whatever it encounters along the way. The tissue sheds, just like during the “normal” menstruation of a woman without this condition, except the tissue in the abdominal cavity has nowhere to go causing significant problems. Unfortunately, the tissue that attaches outside the uterus causes scar tissue throughout the abdomen. The tissue can also form adhesions, which sometimes causes a woman’s organs to stick to one another and to the pelvic wall.

Five years ago, after many reproductive diagnostic tests, my reproductive endocrinologist diagnosed me with endometriosis. My doctor had suspected endometriosis because I have always had painful periods, which were getting worse over time and I had terrible stomach issues resembling irritable bowel syndrome, which became worse during menstruation. My doctor found adhesions and scar tissue growing on my lower intestines, on the surface of my uterus and on one of my ovaries. My endometriosis wasn’t severe, but even a mild case can cause pain and infertility. After my first surgery I had some amount of relief from the monthly pain and other symptoms. Unfortunately though, surgery for endometriosis only causes temporary relief, because every month the tissue continues to grow outside the uterus, and there is no cure yet for this disease.

Soon after my first surgery, I got pregnant with my daughter. Since my daughter’s birth three years ago, I have had many more fertility procedures and miscarriages (not to mention surgery to remove my gallbladder). Month after month, especially during my miscarriages, I could feel my endometriosis getting worse. This spring, the pain I was having during ovulation and during my periods was intolerable. My endometriosis started inhibiting my daily life. I would have to schedule social events, and even tasks like food shopping, around my period. My husband would have to stay home from work or go in late when my period came because the pain and bleeding were so intense that I felt like I could pass out.

In May, the pain at ovulation was so bad that I thought I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I rushed to my reproductive endocrinologist’s office quite concerned, and after sonograms and tests, he did a physical exam where he could actually feel adhesions behind my uterus. He gave me some medicine to try to stop my period and give me relief. After getting a horrible period and sensing no relief in sight, I decided to go to one of the few experts in endometriosis, Dr. Tamar Seckin. I had heard his name from reading about the “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi’s journey with this disease and how this doctor had helped her. Dr. Seckin was one of the few doctors that has dedicated his whole career to understanding and treating endometriosis.

After my first meeting with Dr. Seckin, I knew he would be the one that could help me. He told me that I would have to have another surgery. After a month of tests that included an MRI, ultrasounds and a colonoscopy, I was ready to have my surgery. I was really anxious. During my first surgery, I had felt like I had nothing to lose. I had been desperate to have a baby, and if this operation would help me, I was all for it. Now, blessed with my three year old daughter and being confronted with my second surgery, I couldn’t help but imagine the worst possibilities. What if something happened to me during surgery? How would I recover with my little one at home? How would my daughter be affected by my not being able to take care of her? My husband reminded me that this surgery was for her too. Having a mommy that is not in pain for half the month would ultimately be good for her.

My doctor wanted to do the surgery during my period in order to be able to see the extent of the endometriosis more clearly. The night before surgery I was in intense pain, not able to rely on my usual three Motrin every three hours. My abdomen was so swollen I actually looked like I was three months pregnant. The morning of the surgery I cheerfully kissed my daughter goodbye, told her I loved her and then ran to the car and cried my eyes out. I was so sad to leave her. I got to the hospital and parted with my husband so that I could change into my hospital gown and go through intake. My husband was all too familiar with this scene. During our nine years of marriage, this would be my fifth operation, which doesn’t even include the three IVFs I have had. Every time he sees me in a hospital gown and puffy hair net, he gives me a reassuring smile and looks at me like I am the most beautiful girl in the world.

I met with the doctors involved in the surgery and they reassured me I would be okay. I remember walking into the operating room, lying on the table, bleeding tremendously from my period and feeling overwhelmed thinking about my daughter, the risks of the surgery and the road to recovery. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. Luckily the anesthesiologist came in and took my mind off these overwhelming thoughts with his friendly small talk, until I was in a peaceful slumber. The next thing I knew, I was being encouraged to start waking up from surgery by a gentle nurse. The road to recovery had officially begun.

When I asked my doctor where in my abdomen the endometriosis was prevalent, he replied, “Everywhere.” Adhesions had grown all over both ovaries such that my ovaries had been stuck to my pelvic wall. The scar tissue was all along my rectal area, behind my uterus, on my bladder, on my ureter, adhering it to my pelvic wall, and in other places as well. Dr. Seckin took 16 biopsies altogether. I was very lucky that none of my reproductive organs or my kidneys had to be removed, which is what happens to many women with endometriosis. I was also grateful to Dr. Seckin for performing such a successful surgery.


It has been almost 6 weeks since my surgery and I am still not feeling 100%. The first two weeks after surgery, I needed help taking care of my daughter. Although I was up and walking around and could do a lot of things for her, I didn’t have the energy or the stamina to be there for her for our usual 14 hour day together. By the third week I had her to myself and did okay. Then my period came, and it was excruciating because the inside of my body was still raw and in the process of healing. That was really hard because just when I thought I was better, I felt worse than ever. But that too passed and my energy is back again. After a few months my body will be healed and I should feel better than I have in years.

I am hoping this surgery will provide me with relief from my monthly pain, for at least a few years. I will most likely have to have this surgery again in the future when the symptoms from the endometriosis become unbearable again. I have always been a very strong-willed, independent person. Not being able to do things for myself or for my daughter, having to rely on others and feeling weak and in pain has been emotionally hard for me to take.

I have woken up these past few days doing my happy dance. I am so incredibly grateful not to be in excruciating pain. I am happy to be writing again and feel empowered to talk about endometriosis in this blog. Endometriosis is a disease that affects millions of women, yet no one talks a lot about it, many doctors don’t even know about it, and there is not a lot being done to find a cure. When I first asked my gynecologist about my painful periods, her response was that it was normal and nothing to worry about. I am here to tell you it is not normal, you are not crazy, and there is help and support out there for you.

Miracles, Miners and Me

What a month it has been! I have been struggling to find the words to sum up the emotional roller coaster I have been through after completing our last chance IVF. It is surreal to me that this process, which has taken months to prepare for, is now behind us. As my husband and I went through this process, the world was caught up in its own emotional roller coaster, rooting and praying for the 33 miners in Chile who were trapped a half mile below the earth’s surface for almost ten weeks.

Millions of people from around the world followed their story for months and watched as each man resurfaced and greeted their loved ones. The whole world had prayed for these men as they endured unimaginable circumstances day in and day out. The family and friends of the miners hoped beyond hope that the miners would be rescued. They set up “Camp Esperanza” or “Camp Hope” at the site, praying for a miracle. A miracle happened.

There is a lesser known story regarding trapped miners that was also in the news recently. A group of 276 men were working in a mine in central China when the mine suffered a gas leak. 239 made it out safely. 26 were found dead. But 11 men were missing, and no one knew whether they were dead or alive. Then, after a couple of days, these 11 unfortunate men were found to be dead.

Merriam-Webster defines “miracle” in two ways; “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs” or “an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.” By the second definition, there is no doubt that the Chilean miners’ rescue was indeed a miracle. I am certain that their faith and hope carried them through those horrific days spent underground. But, I hesitate to say that it is a miracle by the first definition. If you say that the Chilean miners were saved by divine intervention, where does that leave the 37 Chinese miners that didn‘t make it out alive?

Using the word miracle in the infertility world can be viewed as insensitive to some. I often reluctant to call my daughter a miracle for that reason. But now after my last shot of having a healthy pregnancy through IVF, my husband and I have lost 32potential lives, by either miscarriages or non-viable embryos. With those statistics, our daughter, who was conceived through IUI, is surely an “extremely outstanding event.” But what about those people who never succeed at conceiving naturally? Where is their miracle? To say that God helped me, but not others, conceive, or to say that God helped me once, but then refused to help me again, seems ridiculous.

In matters of creating life or avoiding death, I have no answers. It is a mystery and always will be. My husband and I have had a difficult path. I am certainly struggling with and grieving over our recent failed attempts to add to our family. There's an emptiness that remains after the drugs and doctor's appointments stop, after the fight is over and all that is left is the sad reality. The reality is that in creating a life, there is only so much one can do. I am not sure where our journey will lead us now. Many of the tears I shed these past couple of weeks have been in gratitude for my daughter. I can’t explain why she is here any better than I can explain why the Chilean miners are alive today. But I promise to cherish my daughter and never take her life for granted.

Our Journey

In high school, if you asked me what my future held, I probably would have said either doing intense volunteer work in a village in Africa for the rest of my life, or raising a huge family with the love of my life. I remember hearing about fertility treatments in high school. My initial thinking on the subject was, “Oh no. I would never do something like that. I would just adopt.” One laparoscopic surgery, three I.U.I.s, one beautiful baby girl, two I.V.F.s, 12 Embryo Biopsies, 16 little angels lost, countless blood tests, ultrasounds and many other tests that I cannot even pronounce later, my current self is on a journey I could have never imagined nor predicted.

When my husband and I first started casually trying to conceive at the young ages of 26 and 25, we had no idea that my body is, The Money Pit, of fertility. Like the characters in the 1980’s classic, we saw lots of potential in this beautiful dream of our future life and then slowly but surely, things started to unravel! After a year or so of “casually trying“, we upgraded to “really trying“. Then, after 6 months of getting nowhere, I felt in my heart something was terribly wrong. During my first visit to my fertility doctor I just wanted some answers. I just wanted to be pregnant. That day we entered on a journey that, unbeknownst to us, would take us to some of the highest peaks and lowest valleys in our life.

After ruling everything else out through many "pleasant" tests and procedures, our fertility doctor performed a laparoscopic surgery on me that revealed a moderate case of endometriosis(www.endofound.org). After not being able to get pregnant naturally a few months post-surgery, our doctor recommended we do I.U.I. This led to some complications with cysts and no pregnancy. After the cysts went away, we went through another I.U.I., and we were so incredibly lucky to get pregnant with our little girl.

Before my daughter was born, I secretly scoffed at all of the women lugging their toddlers and older children into the fertility doctor’s office. I looked at them thinking, “I would be SO happy with just one baby. Don’t they know how lucky they are?” Well, six months after my little one was born, before my endometriosis could grow back, I was in my doctor’s office trying my luck again. My first day back my blood test showed I had a biochemical pregnancy (fancy term for early miscarriage). I was shocked and devastated, but my doctor reassured me saying it happens to many women. He recommended we go for another I.U.I. which worked well last time.

The I.U.I. did lead to a pregnancy, only to end in another miscarriage. My doctor again said that was normal, and we were just unlucky. He then suggested I.V.F., which compared to I.U.I. was just a "few more shots and just a little more complicated." He felt the ability to examine our embryos before implanting them would avoid another miscarriage and lead to a quick pregnancy. A textbook perfect embryo, as he called it, was placed in my womb, but ended with our third miscarriage, all in the short span of five months! There were more tests, more discussions and finally an answer followed. I am a carrier of a balanced reciprocal translocation. This means that there is a genetic mutation with the majority of my eggs which causes only one out of every sixteen of my pregnancies to be viable. The rest will miscarry or worse. A baby with this type of translocation would be born without most major organs and would be stillborn or would not survive more than a few moments past birth.

Most people would search other options at this point. Why not adopt? But, my doctor didn‘t give up hope; so we didn’t either . His solution was that we do embryo biopsies so that we could screen the embryos' genetic material to see which ones were viable. Suddenly we were transported into an episode of X-Files. We were assured it is common, it has been done for many years, and our insurance may even cover it! As practicing Catholics, we had, many moons ago, stretched way beyond our initial limits and comfort zones. I looked at my daughter thinking, “How could we not do everything possible to try and bring another life into the world?” One egg retrieval, 12 embryo biopsies later, we were told none of them were viable. They all had the mutation and would not survive. That experience was a year ago this summer.

Like the characters in The Money Pit, we have invested ourselves deeply in a dream of how things could be. Even with “our house” crashing down around us, solutions to our problems indeed exist, though extreme. With solutions comes hope, albeit just a glimmer. Relinquishing all hope doesn’t seem like a viable option for us. Letting go of this dream or “selling the Money Pit” will mean that I take a huge loss after investing so much. Trying to wrap my head around a new, unfamiliar avenue like adoption overwhelms me greatly at this point. As unreliable and taxing as all this infertility stuff is, at least I feel like I know how to navigate it.

Our story is one of faith, one of heartache, one of hope. Surviving it all thus far has taught me that no matter how broken or how bad things are, we adapt, we get up, we go on. Chances are we will not get pregnant again as we try our last IVF with embryo biopsies this fall. Chances were, my daughter should not be here with us now seeing as how the odds were stacked against her on account of my endometriosis AND the genetic mutations in my eggs. Chance may be that our next child will be born to another amazing woman, who will love him so much she will give him up for adoption in hopes of giving him a better life.

I am not sure where our journey will lead us, but I know our journey thus far has been incredible. I hope to share some of my stories with you so that you in turn will share yours with me and the rest of the women who are all taking their chances on creating a family. Society does not like to talk about infertility, but it is so important to do so (though terrifying!). Cheers ladies to a new part of my journey starting this blog, and to you, and all of your journeys!
With Love,
Light,
and Happiness,
Casey