Kevin and I have been trying to start our family for over 6 years, and we decided to start trying to conceive right after we got married as I always had a gut instinct that trying to get pregnant would not be easy for me because I have Endometriosis.
After trying and failing to conceive naturally for over a year, Kevin and I started our fertility journey with a clinic. We went through many medicated cycles without any success, and eventually went through 4 failed IUI’s.
After spending over one year at that clinic, we ultimately decided to seek a second opinion where we connected with Tripod Fertility to begin our IVF journey. At the same time, I began learning more about Endometriosis and the effects it has on infertility, and I started to advocate for my health.
I spent months putting together research and meeting with various surgeons who were specialized in Excision Surgery to remove the Endometriosis.
I picked an incredible surgeon and was ultimately added to a waitlist for surgery. After some delays due to Covid, we were officially ready to begin our first egg retrieval, which resulted in 2 tested embryos.
We transferred the first embryo, found out we were pregnant on Kevin’s birthday and we were over the moon.
A few days later, we learned that it unfortunately resulted in an early miscarriage, and we were absolutely heartbroken.
At the same time of processing the devastating news, I learned that my surgery date had been set with my Endometriosis surgeon. I went through my surgery a few weeks later, and we kept remaining hopeful to continue with IVF after my recovery. We once again went through the second embryo transfer, but soon learned that it was unsuccessful.
We had no other embryos left, and we knew we would stop at nothing in our journey of trying to have a baby, so we began to prepare for our second IVF cycle.
The second egg retrieval resulted in 7 embryos overall. Kevin and I also went through Immune Testing to determine if I had any other deficiencies that needed to be corrected before proceeding with another transfer.
I went through LIT Therapy, where Kevin donated blood to be converted to white blood cells which were injected into my forearms as a means to correct the issues. With the success of that treatment, we excitedly continued onto our third embryo transfer, which failed yet again.
At this point, Kevin and I began to discuss and seriously consider the possibility of needing a surrogate as we were running out of treatment options and embryos.
We went through a four month treatment plan, consisting of a biopsy of my uterus to determine the receptivity for transfer, an antibiotic and probiotic treatment, and SCIG (Subcutaneous Immunoglobulin) infusions done at home with a training nurse for several weeks.
We were hopeful that this would finally be our chance to be pregnant after all the various treatments and procedures I had gone through, but after our fourth embryo transfer (February 2024), we learned the devastating news that once again, it was unsuccessful.
Any dreams we had of me becoming pregnant through IVF were shattered because we knew that we had hit the end of our road with IVF.
My body couldn’t take anymore, and we were scared of losing our remaining embryos.
We realized after 4 failed IVFs that surrogacy was our only option left for us to finally start our family with our remaining embryos.
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