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We had talked about adoption before we were married and knew we were meant to adopt some day, but thought it might be in combination with giving birth to kids. But when we found out about the infertility, our first thought was that we’d move directly to adoption. I didn’t have infertility insurance coverage. But when we met with the RE, he said that if I was added to Mark’s insurance, we would have full infertility coverage. So we decided to try, but we would have to wait until open enrollment in August of 2003. In Illinois, insurance covers four fresh cycles of IVF.
The male factor infertility was so bad that they recommended moving directly to IVF. The work up on me came back normal so they gave us a good chance of having success. Our first IVF was in January 2004. It’s funny because the details were so important at the time, but now I can barely remember them. We had quite a few eggs harvested (around 15 I think). But only a couple fertilized at all and only one made it to the third day. They transferred that embryo and two weeks later I got my first negative pregnancy test. When we met for our consult afterward, they said the sperm sample was not a good one (only 50 sperm in it) but they weren’t sure if that was the problem because they used ICSI. I wondered why they didn’t use one of the frozen samples of sperm we had that were better (300,000). They said the next time if they got a bad sample, they would use the frozen ones.
We decided to try again right away, and we were ready in March. We again harvested a good number of eggs. This time 8-9 were fertilized and 7 made it to the third day. They transferred the best two and allowed the others to grow to blasts. Only one made it to blast and they froze that one. They also increased my progesterone this time because my numbers had been low the last time.
This time the pregnancy test came back positive! We were so excited. I was monitored through my RE’s office until the 6 week ultrasound where we saw a heartbeat. Then we were discharged to my OBGYN. I had some spotting around 9 weeks and had another ultrasound, but everything was fine. I had a wonderful pregnancy. I loved being pregnant and had no problems throughout. We did not find out what we were having ahead of time. My due date was in December 2004.
My water broke on a Friday morning. I was in labor for over 12 hours and didn’t progress beyond 5.5 cm, so they decided to do a c-section. At 1:30 am on Saturday our sweet little boy was born. It was such an amazing feeling to finally be a mom, and he was the best most laid back baby.
Breastfeeding him was a struggle at the beginning because he was tongue tied, but we had it clipped and he learned to nurse. It was such an amazing bond and something I relished. I didn’t want to stop nursing before I was ready to start cycling again, because I knew if it didn’t work I would regret it, but I also didn’t want to wait too long before cycling. We would have two more cycles of IVF to try for a second baby.
I stopped nursing in April of 2006 when my son was 16 months old to have some tests done before our next IVF. We did our third cycle in August of 2006. This time the embryos were not great quality but we transferred the best two on the third day. None of the other ones grew to blast. After the two week wait I got a positive, but it was pretty low. They did a second test two days later and it increased, but not as much as it should have. We continued to test and the numbers kept going up, but not appropriately. When I had the u/s there was a sack but no heartbeat. I had had a very early miscarriage.
I was devastated, because I thought it would be easier after having success the last time. We only had one more covered cycle and the RE was suggesting we consider donor eggs. We told him we weren’t interested in that, if it wasn’t going to happen with our own eggs and sperm, then we would adopt. The last cycle, they changed my protocol and I stimmed for a VERY long time. I think it was almost 20 days. This time we decided to transfer 3 embryos. They again weren’t great quality and the other embryos didn’t make it to blast. This time the pregnancy test came back negative.
We still had the one frozen blast from our positive cycle left. We decided to wait until early 2007 to try the FET. In the meantime, we started investigating adoption. We visited several agencies to see where we felt comfortable and I went to dinner with someone I met on IVFC to talk about adoption.
We did the FET in January and the embryo did defrost fine and was transferred, but the cycle ended up with a negative. We were sad, but I felt ready to throw myself into adoption. I think it was a little harder for my husband. He was really angry about the whole thing.
