In 2006, my husband of 7 years and I decided to start our family. After one month of trying, I was pregnant. We had a great pregnancy and have a beautiful 2 year old girl now. Over a year ago, we decided we needed more children and expected to get pregnant very quickly like before. 14 months later, after two rounds of fertility meds and many many tests, we still have unexplained infertility. Our specialist gave us a bit of hope for this month, but today our test came back negative and we are both devastated. I came across this site through twitter and it has blessed me beyond belief tonight. I can’t thank you enough for being here, right where I needed you. God Bless you all and I hope miracles happen for each of you!

I want to send a special thank you to all who have shared their infertility story with us.  You are all very courageous individuals who are always in my thoughts and prayers.

If you have a success story or have an infertility journey and want to share it, we would love to feature it.

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Warm regards,

Leisha

by Elizabeth

Elizabeth has created a video she would like to share with us.  This video shows us her long heart filled struggle with infertility.

My husband and I got married later in life. I was 42 years. He was 38. My mom had several miscarriages and I had just assumed because of my late start and her history being a biological parent would not be an option for me. I was shocked to learn I was pregnant a couple of months after our wedding.  I lost the baby in my first trimester. It was devastating. I suddenly realized just how much I wanted to become a parent.  My husband also wanted to be a father. He really wanted to have a genetic link to our child.  Because of my age the best chance for becoming parents was using an egg donor.
It took us 9 months to find an egg donor. The process felt long and difficult. How do you know who is the right donor for you?   We found somebody we felt was perfect.  She had my physical characteristics which was important to us.  She even loved to play softball which was a passion of mine.  I was about to begin my course of medication and we had the date to do the transfer.  We got a call and were told that our donor was pregnant.  We had to begin again.  I felt like I had lost another baby. A friend gave us a fertility statue that she claimed had worked for 2 relatives.  I kept it by my bed and rubbed it’s belly every night and said a little prayer.
We renewed our search and after several more months we found another egg donor.  We called her the “gift lady” because we couldn’t imagine a more amazing gift to give to anybody.  She gave us 9 eggs which resulted in 4 frozen blastocysts.
I remember quite clearly the day the doctor did the transfer. It was a doctor we had not met before. He came in with his surgical mask on and transferred 2 blastocysts. He slapped me on the back and said it was “a good day to get pregnant.” I called him “the lone ranger” because we never did see his face. He was right.  I got pregnant. I had chosen to keep my infertility journey a secret from everybody but close family and a few close friends. I didn’t want to have to answer lots of questions and continue to talk about our struggles with infertility. Infertility became all consuming for me and on my mind and in my heart all of the time.  We learned I was pregnant. A few days later we had an  unexpected  meeting at work.  They called us in to tell us we were all losing our jobs.  It was incredibly sad.  Later that week I had another miscarriage. I always felt the stress of that experience contributed to my miscarriage.
We had one final chance. We had agreed if this didn’t work that our quest to be parents would end. The embryologist told us one of the blastocysts looked “marginal” and the other looked “really good” He gave us two minutes to decide whether to implant both of them. We chose to implant only the one “good one”. I again learned I was pregnant.  I was very nervous during my pregnancy fearful something would go wrong. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe everything was OK till I saw and held my baby. My husband was the eternal optimist.  We were blessed with our daughter, Grace, when she arrived one month before my 46th birthday.  Our infertility journey took three and a half years. We called her Grace because we were so “amazed” by her.  She is almost nine now and continues to amaze us on a daily basis. We have never forgotten how blessed we are.

Fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), have made possible the gift of children for many people not able to conceive on their own. But as with many medical advances, there comes a delicate balance of risk to reward.

With IVF, women have a much higher risk (1 in 3) of having multiple births – twins, triplets or even more babies. For an infertile couple, the choice of more babies versus no babies may seem like a slam dunk.

But there’s a down side. Doctors know firsthand the toll of difficult pregnancies, problem births and babies struggling with multiple complications.

For this reason, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) recommends that doctors work with women to transfer the fewest number of embryos for the highest likelihood of pregnancy. For a woman under 35 who has good chances of a pregnancy developing, the guideline is to transplant only one embryo.

But the chances of the embryo transplant succeeding drop as women age. For women over 35 (and those younger women who have a higher likelihood of failure), the guidelines suggest that doctors transplant more than one and up to five embryos. This increases the chance that a pregnancy will develop. But it also ups the chance of multiple births.

How is IVF done?
IVF is the most common form of assisted reproductive technology, or ART. While there are many variations to these procedures, the basics are:

• Fertility drugs are used to cause a woman to release more eggs.
• The eggs are then removed from the woman’s body and mixed with a man’s sperm in a lab (in vitro fertilization).
• The fertilized eggs (embryos) are then transplanted back into the womb so they can grow.

All, some or perhaps none of the embryos may develop. That’s why fertility doctors often transplant more than one embryo to increase the chances that one will take hold. But, transplanting more embryos raises the risk of multiple births.

It’s important for you and your doctor to discuss how many embryos to transplant based on your age, health, the quality of your eggs and other factors. The goal is to conceive and deliver one healthy baby.

What are the risks of multiple pregnancy and multiple births?
In general, the more fetuses in the womb, the higher the risk for problems. These include miscarriage and premature birth. Multiple fetuses compete for space and nutrition in the womb.

Most multiples are born prematurely. If they survive, many have underdeveloped lungs. This can lead to serious breathing problems and often months in the neonatal intensive care unit. Some have higher risk for infections, or problems with nerve and brain development that may not be obvious for years after.

There can also be life-threatening risks to the mother who is carrying multiples. Multiple pregnancy adds significant stress to the woman’s body. This can cause dangerous nausea and vomiting, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes or anemia.

Aside from the physical risks to mother and babies, multiple babies can bring about significant financial and emotional stress to a family. Doctors and potential parents continue to grapple with these and many other ethical considerations around fertility treatment, its rewards and consequences

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Hello everyone,

I want to introduce myself and share my husbands and my hard fought 10 year infertility story with you.  My name is Leisha and I hope that you find our story inspiring and also keeps your faith up.

My husband and I dated for 9 years before we got married and always talked about having children.  After we married we tried right away to have a family.  We just didn’t know that it would lead us down a very long path.  By no means was this easy for us.

We thought like many other couples that we would get pregnant right away.  We tried for several months, but still did not.  We consulted with my OBGYN to see if there might be something wrong with me.  He suggested that we try naturally for a year.  After trying  for a year my OBGYN suggested that we go through Artificial Insemination for at least six months.  My husband and I tried for a year hoping that one of the extra months we might get lucky, but we did not.

By now my husband and I were beginning to think that there was something wrong with one of us.  My doctor suggested that we go through some tests.  The tests showed that one of my tubes were blocked.  I also mentioned to my doctor that I was having lower abdominal pain for quite sometime.  He suggested that I have Laparoscopic Surgery to see what was causing me the pain.

During surgery, my doctor found that my fallopian tubes were blocked and that I also had Endometriosis.  He fixed everything that he could and told us to keep trying.  After several more months, we still weren’t pregnant.  I had another dye test that showed one of my tubes was clear and the other one was blocked.  My husband did some research on massage therapy in which we traveled from Wisconsin to Florida for.  Unfortunately that also failed.

We talked about what we were going to do next.  After ALOT of research we decided to try  In vitro fertilization .  We went through one fresh cycle and two frozen cycles and finally became pregnant!  Seven weeks later we went for our ultrasound and found out that we miscarried.  Words cannot explain what we were feeling.  After the failure of our last frozen cycle, we decided to take a break.  I remember the IVF doctor telling us, “don’t wait too long because it looks like your time clock is ticking”.  What he meant was that I didn’t have many follicles left to produce.

Due to me having more abdominal pain and the theory that my tubes may be allowing fluid to drown my embryos, I ended up having another laparoscopic surgery, this time to remove my fallopian tubes.  This was devastating to us because , not only was my time clock ticking, but now I couldn’t get pregnant naturally.

My husband and I talked about trying IVF one more time.  We didn’t know that after 10 years of trying to conceive  this would turn out to be our last time… ever.  Since the tests showed that I did not have alot of follicles left I was double dosed with fertility drugs in hopes to produce more.  I ended up with 10 follicles, 8 which were good, and only 5 turned into embryos.

After a week we found out that we were pregnant, and after 8 more weeks we were able to see three heartbeats…Triplets!.  We struggled with almost losing them several times.  I was on bed rest after the first 9 weeks due to bleeding.  I was admitted in the hospital at 23 weeks, just one day shy of my 24th week.  I can remember the NICU doctor telling me that I don’t want to have these babies at 23 weeks.  I didn’t know that they can’t save a baby if born prior to 24 weeks.  We had our ups and downs and scares in the hospital, but at the end of 31 weeks and 10 long years, we were blessed with 2 boys and a girl.

I wanted to tell our story in hopes to inspire infertile couples.  When it looks like all else has failed never give up your hope or faith.

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