The journey of how my dream of being a mother finally came true...
It was the most difficult thing I have endured in life. The ups and downs were sometimes completely unbearable. At times I thought I would go insane, literally. I am sure my husband would tell you there are times when I DID in fact go insane :) We fought, we played the blame game, we sobbed, we were hopeful together and we felt hopeless together as well.
It started with some simple tests then worked it's way up to very invasive and painful procedures and daily injections, 5 of them a day. This went on for about three years? My sharps container (the industrial sized ones that my husband stole from the hospital) was almost completely filled over three years. I became numb to the needles and actually felt a sense of satisfaction. Yes, it felt good to give them to myself.
Five years ago neither my husband nor I thought we would have to endure this kind of pain to start a family. We thought maybe because of our age we might need a bit of assistance but never in a million years did we think we would be labeled as "unexplained infertility". After five failed IUI cycles we started to get nervous but thought, "hey all we need is one IVF", "they can get anyone pregnant with IVF"... Clearly we were uneducated and had a lot to learn, the hard way. After three years of IVF (that's another four failed cycles, some miscarriages, some chemical pregnancies, some "arrested emrbyos") I was told by the RE that I needed to give up and think about donor eggs. My eggs were poor quality, maybe the age of a 45-50 year old women's eggs. We also had slight male factor but that was corrected with ICSI.
We entertained the idea of an egg donor and actually started the process with my sister. But in the midst of all of this treatment, her husband got deployed to Iraq where he would spend the next 18 months and it just was not the time for her to be doing something like this.
So we took a small break, I could never seem to take more than 2-3 months off from ART, call me an IVF junkie I guess. I was definitely addicted to it. Addicted to the hope that I would get pregnant that next cycle. It just had to work.
We decided to go back to the first clinic that we started with and do one more cycle. this would be, we decided, our fifth and final cycle. We had vowed that if this one did not work then we would explore other options. Well I am not sure if I would have been able to keep that promise...
On our last cycle we put four embryos back and got pregnant with twins, one of which we lost early in the pregnancy. At first I was a bit nervous to put four embryos back but I had never even had that many embryos with any of my cycles and I knew that this was our last shot, now what was i supposed to do with my embryos if I did not put them back? Something just told me to go for it. So we did. Now we have Phoebe.
I will tell you there were many things that I did on my last cycle that i had not done with my other cycles. I took royal jelly and bee pollen everyday for three months leading up to my cycle. I did acupuncture for months leading up to my cycle as well as a "pre" and "post" acupuncture session. I did yoga once a week. And I took a probiotic daily. I was also in a better frame of mind. Who knows if one or all of these things worked. I don't care what did it. All I know is I have the love of my love now. Phoebe.
Now we just need to get her a sibling. Somehow.
My next story: My difficult pregnancy and traumatic delivery.
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