Katie and I met in Toronto, on a complete whim, in 2009. I was trying to find a pen, and after finding a pen that actually worked, I ended up with Katie’s number. Best thing I have ever written on a piece of paper! I called her and, shortly after, we started our life together. We got married in 2013.
From the very beginning, we knew that we wanted to grow our family and have children. However, growing up, no one educated us about growing our family so we had no idea what that would be or what our options looked like. But we knew that we needed a fertility clinic, so we started looking in 2014.
Katie and I thought we would do reciprocal IVF, where I would go through a cycle of IVF to harvest eggs, and then Katie would carry the pregnancy. We did not know we would need to do so many tests: bloodwork to look at our ovarian reserve, ultrasounds and basic immune tests and many more.
It was not a fun journey, to say the least, and we endured several losses for 2 years. Katie got pregnant 4 times, but she had miscarriages every single time. After our 5th try of FET, we decided to switch fertility clinics where we did full work up, which included immune panels. At that point, the doctors managed to figure out why Katie was having recurrent miscarriages and had a series of immune treatment. We started another cycle of IVF, and we were able to get many embryos. We then proceeded with genetic testing, transferred our perfect little embryo, and guess what…. It all worked. Our son was born in 2018. It was all worth it!
Then we welcomed our beautiful daughter two years later with the help of an IUI. She is almost two now and our life with our two children is beyond what we imagined.
We cannot stress enough the importance of choosing the right fertility clinic for you because it makes the whole process that much easier. In the second clinic we went to, our doctors told us: “You will have children, we will make it happen for you.” That was really important for us to hear, and we quickly found out that we had the perfect medical team to support us through this journey. As a same-gender couple, we never felt judged even though it is something we can feel on a daily basis. We were, and are, always welcomed with open arms and it definitely helped with the entire process!
Looking back on our journey, we cannot believe the amount of travelling, time, and ups and downs we went through. It’s pretty unbelievable, actually! We were completely determined and always knew that we would get there. We always tried to let our determination and our hope take over the fear and all the sadness. Through the several IVF procedures, we were lucky to have some fertility coverage from my work insurance, but we know how incredibly difficult fertility treatments, and the whole fertility process, can be financially on families. And for that, Fertility Friends Foundation gets our full support.
Are we thinking of growing our family again? With the right team by our side, why not?