I’ve always wanted to be a mother. When the time was right for me, I wasn’t in a relationship. Sure, I’d dated men who wanted to make that happen for me but these were not men who I wanted to raise my child. And I never wanted to settle. Having met women in their 40s or 50s who wanted children but “never found the right guy,” I knew not having a man was never going to stop me from fulfilling my dream of being a mother.
So I began the journey almost 4 years ago, and I couldn’t be more excited to be doing this on my own. This journey has been full of ups and downs. I had four unsuccessful IUI’s before I finally got pregnant with my first round of IVF.
The doctor retrieved 2 eggs. Both fertilized, both became blastocysts, and I got pregnant with the first embryo. I was ecstatic. But unfortunately, 11 weeks into my pregnancy, I had a miscarriage. A few months later, I tried with my frozen embryo, and I got pregnant again but had another miscarriage at 8 weeks. I was devastated, heartbroken, and in despair.
I blamed myself for these miscarriages at first. I was tired of fertility doctors telling me it was because of my age. I tried an IUI and another round of IVF but was unsuccessful. That’s when the sadness and anxiety really began to set in. This journey has taken an emotional, physical, and financial toll on me. I feel as if I’ve been in limbo for the last three years, just waiting for something to happen.
Every fertility clinic I go to loves to recite statistics of what my chances are of getting pregnant at my age as if I don’t know. But I refuse to listen to those statistics, and I tell myself that anything is possible because anything is. I know in my heart of hearts that this will happen for me because the only thing I can control in this journey is the hope I have.
The belief that I will become a mother with my own egg is what keeps me going on this journey. I am so grateful to the Fertility Friends Foundation for making this journey a little bit easier for me. It means the world.
Isis