by Brittany Brumbelow
The long journey to my IVF success story started about 5 years ago. I was young at the time (about 22) and was just finishing up college. We decided that we were ready to start trying to have a baby. I’m not sure we were really ready to get pregnant at that moment, but we knew it could take up to a year, so we got off birth control. Looking back we spent a lot of money on unnecessary birth control, only to turn around and spend a lot more money trying to get pregnant! “We knew it could take up to a year”, but we had no clue that it could take five.
We started off by just stopping birth control. After a few months we moved to “timed intercourse”; doesn’t that sound fun! After a year went by we decided to talk to my doctor. She sent us to a fertility specialist, where we were soon finding out that we should do IVF. At the time I had not even heard of IVF. I knew that people got pregnant using non-traditional methods, but had no clue what they were called or what they entailed. We thought that IVF would be the answer to all our prayers. You do IVF you have a baby, right…wrong! At least for us it was wrong. The first cycle was a disaster. Initially the doctor thought I was a perfect candidate for IVF, young, healthy, no fertility issues. We soon found out that he was wrong. I was not responding well to the meds and and he was stimulating me like a 40+ year old (at 23). I ended up with with only five eggs, four fertalized, and OHSS. The OHSS was miserable. After the transfer I could barely move. I felt like my insides would explode with any slight movement. I thought this was normal. Later I found out that it is not normal, and that I had OHSS. This cycle was a negative and it really broke our hearts. We truly believed that IVF would immedialty start our family.
We waited a month, and got back in the saddle. We were less optimistic this time. The doctor changed my protocol for this attempt and I seemed to be responding to the meds much better. I got ten eggs this cycle, which doesn’t seem like much, but to me it was great! This time we had eight celled embryos to transfer on day three (first cycle had 5 cell, poor quality embryos). Suddenly I was finding myself believing that this was it. Everything was perfect this time! Transfered the embryos, waited two weeks and got the positive pregnancy test. We were so excited, I can remember the look on my husbands face to this day. He was ecstatic! This was short lived because the first ultrasound reveiled a small sac with no heartbeat.
To be honest I wasn’t that discouraged. I was so happy to know that I could get pregnant, and the doctor reassured us that people have miscarriages all the time and go on to have healthy babies.
The first miscarriage was only the beginning of our journey. Since we are teachers, we had to wait almost a full year before being able to cycle again. When the next summer rolled around we tried again, with the exact same results. First cycle was a negative, even with three good quality embryos transferred. Next attempt two months later was another miscarriage. This time I was not encouraged by the news that I could get pregnant, I didn’t care if I could get pregnant, I wanted to have a baby. Not only was it harder to handle because it was the second time around, but this time we got to hear the heartbeat. My hubby had came with me on the first ultrasound. (I felt like I would need him there if there was no heartbeat.) We were thrilled to hear and see the heartbeat. On the next ultrasound, he would not be able to make it, and I reassured him that it was OK because we had gotten through the trivial part. ( I had always heard once you see the heartbeat your risk of miscarriage goes way down.) To my surprise the nurse could no longer see the heartbeat. At this point I think we were really starting to get numb to the whole situation, and were starting to believe that we would never have an “ivf success story”.
But we weren’t going to give up on our dream of starting a family.
We waited about 6 months then decided to try our first FET cycle. Different approach….same results. Another miscarriage. We still had a few embryos left over. If we would not have had them, we may have decided to give up at this point. If you have lost track by now, we are going to be attempting our 6th cycle. Once again we were pregnant, for the fourth time, but this time everything seemed perfect. The baby was right on track with growth, my beta levels were high, and we made it through the first trimester. We were so scarred by now, that we still didn’t believe we were going to have a baby. The pregnancy was not free of complications, but that is another story in itself! Nine months later our little boy was born as healthy as can be. He is a true IVF success story.
About the Author
I am sharing my journey with you in hopes that it encourages you to keep trying. There were plenty of times that we could have given up on IVF and our dream of having a family, but we kept trying and it paid off. Check out the IVF Success Program, it can increase your chances and lower the cost of IVF. If you would like to hear more about our journey please visit my blog.
