Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies

Timeline and Summary

Denis and I were married in July 2005 and went off birth control in November of that year.

By November 2006 we still hadn’t conceived, so we went to the RE for the first time. There were some clomid/IUI cycles, an HSG, a laparoscopy. Nothing obviously wrong, no problems… no success. So we started on our IVF journey.

April/May 2007 was IVF#1. Normal luteal lupron protocol, 150iu follistim with 75iu menopur. 24 eggs retrieved, but only 2 of them fertilized. The doctors were stunned and puzzled. We felt blindsided. We transferred both embryos on day 3. They said it looked “good” but I did not get pregnant.

June/July 07 was IVF#2. Normal luteal lupron protocol, 125iu follistim with 75iu menopur. 13 eggs retrieved, but only 1 was mature enough to ICSI. Again, the doctors were stunned and puzzled. We were really freaking angry. We transferred the one embryo on day 3, expecting nothing… and got pregnant.

I was pregnant for 35 weeks of pure bliss. Textbook pregnancy, slight anemia, everything perfect. On March 6 2008 we found out our baby boy had passed away in utero. I was induced and delivered Devin Alin the same day.

We started trying again right away, with no success. In November 2008 my new insurance kicked in that covered more IVF cycles and we jumped right back in.

November/December 2008 was IVF#3. Again luteal lupron with 125iu follistim and 75iu menopur. Despite this being the exact same dose as last time, I majorly overstimmed and ended up with 38 eggs and a mild case of OHSS. We triggered at 38h before retrieval instead of 36h, but it didn’t change the maturity rate – only 3 mature eggs, all ICSI’d, 2 fertilized. We transferred one of them on day 3, and cultured the other for freezing. I ended up not pregnant and with nothing frozen.

January/February 2009 was IVF#4. Luteal lupron but stimming with 225iu menopur, no follistim, and triggering with an IM shot instead of sub-q. They retrieved 25 eggs – 8 were mature and able to be ICSI’d, 6 of which fertilized! All six were cultured to blast, 1 transferred on day 5, 2 frozen on day 6. Truly amazing. Did not result in pregnancy, but we have 2 frozen…

March 2009 was FET#1 – the first chance we have ever had at a frozen transfer. It felt so much easier than a stims cycle… and I got pregnant! But it never felt quite right to me, I was a paranoid wreck the entire time. 2 weeks later I had back pain, bloating, and really bad “gas” pain, and my first ultrasound revealed it was ectopic. I had a laparoscopy to remove my entire right tube.

We had to wait a cycle for my body to heal, then in June 2009 did FET#2 with our last frozen embryo. No reason for it not to work, but it didn’t. We were crushed.

Because of scheduling we had to take a couple months off before IVF#5 in August 2009. This time I pursued acupuncture as a supporting therapy, booked massages throughout, and planned a small get-away between transfer and beta. Ended up with 4 embryos, transferred 2, and 1 was frozen. I had spotting at 11dpr, the same as when I got pregnant with Devin. The day before my beta I tested positive. I was pregnant with our daughter, Kate. She was born in May of 2010, healthy and beautiful.

We were planning to return to the RE in 2012 but we ended up getting the surprise of our lives when I got pregnant on our own (with a little help from some soy pills)! Our second daughter, Ember, was born in June of 2012, 2 weeks after her estimated due date. She had breathing problems at birth and was taken straight up to the NICU for 6 days. Now she is a healthy and very happy little girl.

I love being a mom to my two beautiful little girls. I am a stay at home mom so my days consistent mainly of taking care of them and going on outings to keep them occupied. In what spare time I have I like to work on scrapbooks, reading, watching some shows on TV. I used to do web design freelancing but don’t anymore. My interests now lay mainly in pregnancy, birth, car seat safety. I am going to college for a second bachelors degree, this time in Biology. I found myself so deep in the IVF process and so fascinated by everything that was going on in my body that I feel like I should continue down that path and see where it takes me. Maybe one day I will be a lab tech in an IVF lab, helping other people to get pregnant. Science is a wonderful, wonderful thing!