My husband, Brian, and I knew from the very start that we wanted to be parents. We talked about it on our very first date. There was no need to waste each other’s time if we didn’t want the same things. Just a couple months after we got married we were devastated to learn that we may not be able to have kids. It looked pretty dismal – all of my markers for fertility were off the charts in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, we quickly jumped into treatment with nothing but optimism…surely this wouldn’t take long, we were young and healthy! We couldn’t have been more wrong. We battled through 2 years of being unsuccessful at medicated cycles and IUI, finally moving on to IVF. We had 3 normal embryos from that cycle and we were sure that was our family, 2 boys and a girl. Our first transfer failed, our second transfer worked but we had a missed miscarriage, our third transfer failed. Back to square one. I was told I couldn’t have kids that were genetically mine and we were led to donor eggs, which also didn’t work. We were sent to a specialist at Weill Cornell in NYC and at that point, with so much loss and so many surgeries, we decided a fresh set of eyes on our case was exactly what we needed.
We began at a new clinic in Sept 2019 feeling completely broken and desperately trying to cling to some hope. We began our IVF journey again and we eventually transferred our one normal embryo with equal parts hope and terror. On December 27, 2019 we found out that little fighter stuck! Our son, Logan, is now 3 years old. We call him Logan the Lion because he was our little fighter embryo – and now he’s our wild lion man! When Logan was 7 months old we jumped back into another IVF cycle. We had one normal from that cycle as well (no room for error, y’all.) I really longed for a sibling for Logan and I was terrified that we would lose our chance. I just couldn’t believe that lightning could strike twice…but it did. Baby sister, Kendall, joined us in April 2022.
Infertility is such an isolating thing. We felt so stuck for so long. It felt like everybody else’s world kept going and we were paused. Everybody else had things to celebrate, had lives that were moving forward. We went to weddings, baby showers, friend’s kid’s birthday parties – while our hearts were just continuously breaking. We were happy for them – we just were so overwhelmingly sad for ourselves. It’s nobody’s fault, we want our friends to have things to celebrate in their lives. Brian and I were just holed up in a little cave of grief awaiting the day we could poke our heads out and be happy like everybody else. I’m nearly 4 years out from our miscarriage and I still remember that moment in the doctor’s office like it was yesterday. I remember every moment, every rush of emotion, every word said between me and the several doctors who came in to try to find the heartbeat…and every moment of the phone call to my husband afterwards, who wasn’t able to be at that appointment. But, I also remember the first time I laughed after the miscarriage. I had been on the floor binging Netflix for weeks, not engaging, just existing. And my husband said “do you want some guac?” and our 100lb dog thought he said ‘walk’ and he jumped off the couch and bounced around the room in anticipation…and I thought it was hilarious, and I laughed. Tiny victories.
I’ve been open about our path to parenthood on social media and I cannot tell you how many people have reached out about their own journey in the last 5yrs. Acquaintances and friends that I went to high school and/or college with, people who haven’t opened up to anybody else, people who are scared about what to expect and want somebody to talk to. It’s been the ultimate unexpected outcome of this situation – that I can provide comfort to others who have joined this no fun club. I am so honored and grateful for their trust, vulnerability, and openness.
I never in a million years thought getting pregnant would be as difficult as it was. 8 surgeries, 3 IVF retrievals, 5 transfers, a devastating miscarriage, dangerous surgical complications, more pills, shots, and acupuncture needles than I could count. There were enough tears to fill the sea. I look back now and I seriously don’t know how we did it. I feel like I will always carry trauma from this time in our lives, it feels like we fought a war together. But boy did we ever win it. Life with 2 toddlers is wild and chaotic and haaaaaaaaard…infertility doesn’t make any of that not true. But, I’d do all those years and surgeries and losses all over again three times over to get to this very moment. We are forever grateful.