We are over the moon to announce that we are expecting a baby boy this July. Our final round of IVF with our last embryo was a success. As exciting as this is, I feel like I have to share the full story. Its important that you know that the journey to that newborn photo isn’t just a cute announcement on social media. It’s sometimes paved in needles from fertility treatments, multiple negative pregnancy tests, and heartbreaking losses.
Over the years I’ve been very open about fertility, miscarriage, and IVF. In Sept 2018, I had my 3rd miscarriage at 12 weeks. I wasn’t planning to publicly announce my miscarriage but I’d already publicly announced the pregnancy before a routine ultrasound revealed there was no longer a heartbeat. After opening up about this, I received so many messages of support. My messages were filled with friends and coworkers opening up to me about their own infertility and losses. These were people I had known for so long but never knew the struggles behind the scenes. So I decided to be open. We started IVF after that I wrote about our journey here. During a break in treatment, we found out against the odds we were pregnant with our daughter and I was wrote about that here.
I read that 2021 was the Year of the Ox which is about endurance and resilience. At the tail end of 2020, our daughter was diagnosed with a rare de novo genetic abnormality meaning it wasn’t inherited and there was no way to predict it. For some, a diagnosis of global developmental delay for one child might change their decision to have more children. For us, it only strengthened our resolve.
I started the process in February to transfer one of the two frozen embryos that we saved from before Magnolia’s birth. I did a medicated cycle which involves less early morning appointments (a necessity when you’re on the radio at 6am) but also includes multiple injections to regulate your hormones. The transfer failed.
In April we found out I was pregnant naturally. At my age the likelihood of a natural pregnancy progressing is slim. As the weeks continued I started to believe. A great heartbeat at week 7 gave me hope. The 10 week genetic testing came back perfect and revealed it was a boy. Just over 11 weeks pregnant, after my husband shipped out with Mass Maritime Academy, I started bleeding. I was home alone with the kids and knew it was a miscarriage, but I didn’t really want to find childcare and sit in a hospital waiting room. I’m so glad I went.
It’s hard to write about this experience but I think it’s needed. I waited in the ER for 2 hours and began to hemorrhage significantly. I couldn’t stop sobbing. A nurse took me to a private waiting area where I started having an active miscarriage. I will spare you the graphic details. It was heartbreaking, dehumanizing, and traumatic. I was alone having driven myself to the hospital and my husband on a ship with no phone communication and could only talk to me via email. Within 30 mins of being put in a room I passed out multiple times due to blood loss, ultimately needing a transfusion and emergency surgery.
Going through an experience like that might have deterred others, but fortunately for the little boy I’m carrying, I’m super stubborn. In October we were ready to try again. I switched to Dr Emily Seidler at Boston IVF for my final embryo. I can’t recommend her enough even if you just have questions. She does a weekly Q&A on her instagram and gives so much great information. She listened to my hopes, my fears, my struggles, and obstacles. She and her team of fantastic nurses were accessible throughout the process. They were cheerleaders every step of the way and came up with creative solutions that worked for me and my work schedule.
When you go into an IVF cycle knowing it’s your last chance, there’s a lot of mixed emotions. I did everything I could to trust the process. I meditated daily, I ate well, I tried to limit stress, I chose to believe in my body and this embryo and I started to see signs.
This embryo was not the best one of the two. It came from the third cycle that didn’t seem like it was going to have as good of an outcome as the previous. When we left Boston IVF that day, we’d gotten more eggs than we thought we would and we saw a rainbow on the way home. Throughout the monitoring and transfer process I started seeing more signs. Like he has the same due date as my oldest son! There were so many little signs and coincidences that I started keeping a little list of the confirmations that we were on the right track.
I tested at home (I know you’re not supposed to) and the line kept getting darker. 10 days after transfer, the blood tests came back and my numbers were SO high. I share a birthday with my doctor and the best present ever was a great heartbeat at 7 weeks. More ultrasounds confirmed that this 3rd attempt in 2021 is a success. Throughout the process I kept thinking back to that rainbow we saw in 2019 and how during that 3rd cycle that wasn’t putting up big numbers, I kept telling myself I’d be grateful with whatever we got and reminded myself that it only takes 1. That cycle which resulted in this baby was filled with gratitude.
I didn’t want to just post a cute staged photo moment for social media. I’ve been open in the past and wanted to put out the full backstory of the final chapter in my IVF story. This pregnancy is the result of endurance in the face of heartbreak, a medical team that believed in my body’s ability, and the magic of life. This little guy is our rainbow coming home after a very long hard road.