"Our journey started in October 2017 just after our first wedding anniversary when we decided we wanted to try to start growing our family.
After a few short months of trying in January 2018 we found out we were pregnant! We were so excited and couldn’t believe how quickly our dreams of becoming parents were coming true! A few weeks later, I scheduled my first OBGYN visit and we went in to be evaluated. At the time I was either 7 or 8 weeks along and they performed an ultrasound. There was a gestational sac, but no baby, but they didn’t seem alarmed or concerned so my husband and I didn’t seem like there was anything to be worried about.
The doctor said that our timing could be off and to come back a week later to make sure our little one was growing appropriately. Filled with hope, we came back the following week and sadly found out the baby never grew in the [gestational] sac. We were diagnosed with a missed miscarriage and I was told that a D&C (Dilation & Curettege) would be my best and only option. I was scared and couldn’t believe surgery was the only choice I had. I had a very traumatic experience with the D&C and also ended up hemorrhaging a week after it. Sadly, the tissue that was collected during the procedure wasn’t enough to give us any answers. But, that didn’t stop us.
We were determined to try again once we got the all clear and we found out we were pregnant again a few months later in July of 2018, but this was different. The labs didn’t match up or make sense and after a few weeks of back and forth along no signs of loss, an ultrasound was performed and I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy.
It was strange because I never experienced any pain. Thankfully due to my lack of pain and my tubes still being intact I did not require surgery but I was hospitalized. I received one dose of methotrexate in the hospital and because that didn’t work I was given a second dose the following week which I guess isn’t very common but the second dose worked.
After this loss I asked my OBGYN for a referral to a specialist and that’s when I met my fertility doctor. Many tests and procedures were done and all came up with nothing. No reason we should be experiencing loss. Essentially, all we had was “bad luck” which was painful to hear.
Obviously we didn’t want anything to be wrong with either of us, but for some reason I think if there was it would have made our processing easier. After all the testing came back negative my doctor encouraged us to try again on our own and gave us progesterone to take monthly after ovulation. We tried for a few months while being monitored closely with no success.
My doctor then decided a round of IUI may be our best bet. We planned a trip to Disney World in February 2019 to just have fun and relax the month before our IUI and low and behold while in Disney we found out we were expecting! We flew home and were seen by our fertility doctor right away. All looked well! Baby was in the right spot, measuring perfectly, and for the first time ever we saw a heartbeat! It was a dream come true and to think we found out where dreams come true - in Disney world!
After a few more ultrasounds and evaluations we were released by our fertility doctor to go see our new OBGYN (we left the first we had our two first losses with). While at our first OB appointment my anxiety was through the roof. I was just about 10 weeks pregnant and begged to have an ultrasound to just calm my nerves because I missed seeing our little one! We were spoiled through our fertility clinic and saw them every time we came in for a visit! They agreed to do one, but sadly when our baby appeared on the screen that little flicker that we had seen three times previously was gone. The tech was very quiet and, this not being our first rodeo, we knew something was wrong. I remember my husband saying when the tech left the room that he didn’t see our little one's heart flickering, but he didn’t understand because they were fine less than a week prior. We were told by our fertility doctor we had a <1% chance of experiencing a miscarriage it all looked that good. After what seemed like hours the doctor came in and gave us the news we were already expecting to hear. We were heart broken.
Bret held me and we both just cried. My body had failed me again. I literally felt like a human cemetery. Three babies had passed away inside of me even though there was “nothing wrong with me.”
We called our fertility doctor right away and she was shocked as well. The baby was measuring perfectly and it just didn’t make sense. We were given a dose of oral medications by our OB to help my body miscarry and it was horrible. The pain that night was so bad and I really thought it all finished the following day, but I did not miscarry my little one until the following week. It was horrible and painful and so traumatic.
I’m an ER nurse and my husband is a paramedic and if we say it was horrible and thought we needed to go to the hospital it was bad.. I was able to calm down, get things under control, and clean up and not go into the hospital thankfully. During all of this craziness we were able to catch our little one and bring them in for genetic testing. After a few days in weeks we received our results. Our third baby was a little girl and it turned out she had Turner's Syndrome.
Turner’s Syndrome is just like other chromosome disorders can cause miscarriage, but there are also people alive and well with this syndrome. After this diagnosis we were told by our fertility doctor that IVF with genetic testing would be our best shot.
Desperate to be parents and to do it the safest most efficient way possible we agreed.
We had our egg retrieval in July of 2019 and had 19 eggs retrieved! After all the testing was completed we had three genetically tested embryos frozen! On September 23, 2019 our first embryo was transferred and that gave us our perfect little boy, Tucker, via scheduled c section on June 3, 2020.
He is our perfect rainbow baby and I don’t know what I would do without him. The plan was to do another round of IVF in June or July of 2021 (which is the plan now), but we did find out we were pregnant again in January 2021, but sadly we also lost this little peanut. This one was hard because I truly thought my body was going to be able to do it all on its own after having Tucker without any shots or medications. Even though my body brought me my rainbow baby it let me down again. We are heartbroken, but Tucker’s snuggles soften the blow. I always tell people Bret and I are going to have our hands full with all our little angels we have waiting for us. After we found out we lost this fourth baby we attempted three rounds of misoprostol with no success and sadly I needed another D&C. Surgery went well and now I am healing. We are doing more tests and preparing my body for a transfer hopefully this summer if all looks well. Stay strong ladies and gents. This all is tough, but we are tougher."
“Our infertility journey began back in August of 2018 when we decided after eight months of marriage to start trying for a baby and thought it would be a quick and painless process. I went to my OBGYN, had my IUD removed and we immediately started trying. After six months of trying with no luck I followed up with my OBGYN who recommended Clomid as a kick start.
Mind you my periods had never been regular and the pain was so bad that I turned to the help of an IUD while I was in college to eliminate my periods all together and help with pain. Clomid ended up not working and I felt like my concerns were not being validated or listened to by my OBGYN so I changed providers to someone who validated all of my concerns and led me to our fertility specialist in May of 2019.
We went through our initial consultation and a whole bunch of testing only to determine everything was normal with my husband but I had clear signs of endometriosis. In October I underwent HSG testing, as well as my hysteroscopy to explore the findings of my HSG testing which suspected my left tube was completely blocked. During this procedure I had scar tissue removed, as well as endometriosis and was diagnosed as stage 2. We decided to move forward with another medicated cycle in November [2019] with the same medications as an IUI but with timed intercourse instead of insemination.
To our delight, we got pregnant off that cycle but I miscarried at five weeks right before Christmas. The toll of everything seemed to catch up with me at this point so Anthony and I decided to take a break and save up as it seemed there was a lot more medication and fertility costs in our future.
In May of 2020, we returned to our clinic with renewed faith and were ready to start again. Ironically as I was leaving the clinic that day with my medication protocol and start date in hand I found a large lump on the left side of my neck. Alarmed, I immediately called my PCP (primary care provider) who got me in for an appointment on the same day. Within the week I was consulting with an ENT (a doctor that specializes in ear, nose and throat medical care) about removal and further testing given the large golf ball-size lump. How I never noticed it before is beyond me.
On June 12th 2020, I had the mass removed, tested and on the following Monday I got a phone call from my ENT with results that no one wants to hear. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and had been referred to an oncologist for further consultation and planning. My fertility clinic got us connected with LiveStrong Foundation to get some of my eggs frozen prior to starting chemotherapy so we immediately began our stim cycle and plan for retrieval and fertilization.
Our egg retrieval was on July 2nd as I was set to start chemotherapy on the 7th of that month. Prior to my retrieval I was feeling nauseous and achy but my doc chalked it up to the change in hormones and medications, as nothing seemed out of the ordinary. All went well and we had 22 eggs retrieved and I was home within hours resting with my handy dandy heating pack.
Now this is where things take an interesting turn of events.
The next day I woke up feeling like death. My stomach was twice the normal size it was the day before, I couldn't keep any fluids or food down and was in pretty excruciating pain. I called my clinic and they had me come in later that afternoon so that my doc could examine me further. I had done enough research at this point on everything to know what ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) was and when my doctor said that's what he thought it was, I understood. He however was perplexed because of the severity of my symptoms just 24 hours post retrieval as what he was seeing was more consistent a week or 10 days out. While he was examining me further he asked me if it was possible if I was pregnant. I couldn't help but laugh at him with this remark as at no other point had I ever been able to get pregnant on my own and considering everything we had going out my husband and I had only had sex once within the last month.
Well I guess what they say about one time is all it takes is really true because my fertility doctor tracked down an expired pregnancy test in the nurses station and that thing turned positive in literally a few seconds. The assumption at this point is that I had a fertilized egg lingering and when I started the meds for the retrieval it encouraged the egg to implant. My doctor doesn't generally do pregnancy testing the morning of retrievals but says even if he would have there would have been no way for my body to ovulate 44 eggs on its own, so he is glad he did the procedure without knowing I was pregnant. We then called my husband, both in shock and asked him to come over to the office to drive me home as I was getting sicker by the minute and was in shock at all the news.
By Saturday the 4th of July, I had become so dehydrated and ill that I was admitted inpatient at a local hospital where I remained for 11 days. During that time I had liters of fluid drained from both my stomach and lungs to help relieve the pain and swelling from the OHSS. At this point we weren't sure the baby would withstand all the trauma and given my previous miscarriage I wasn't really allowing myself to hope or dream about the baby much at this time. I was later discharged and we had our first scan where we were able to measure the baby and everything was on track. I laid low for a couple weeks and we were discharged back to an OB at 12 weeks. Due to the pregnancy we couldn't do a whole lot of staging for my lymphoma but based on the information we did have, it was determined that I was at least stage two but my oncologist decided to treat it as stage 4 because the bone marrow testing and PET scan which determine if it is stage four is not safe to do while pregnant.
I started chemo at the end of September 2020 with the plan of continuing until I was 35 weeks pregnant. As I’m writing my story, I am 35 weeks pregnant with a healthy, on track baby. We are waiting to find out the gender as this whole thing has been such a surprise so what's one more!"
Later this month, I’ll be inducted at 37 weeks pregnant and be able to finish up my chemotherapy shortly after giving birth. Oh yeah, and somewhere along the way, I also got COVID. It’s been quite the journey but no matter how we got here, we are so excited to welcome out rainbow baby. The journey has been wild, emotional, and scary at times but it's going to all be worth it once we welcome our baby.”