My story is a bit different as to why we had to go through fertility treatments. When I met my husband, he told me that he was married before and that he had a vasectomy because his ex-wife couldn’t get pregnant due to her health issues. My husband always wanted a family of his own, so he decided to freeze six samples before he went in for his procedure (his current marriage was already unstable so he wasn’t sure if it would last). We knew we would have to go through treatment and had six times to try.
We had actually met with an endocrinologist before we got married to discuss our options and make a plan and timeline going forward. Right before we got married, my husband was diagnosed with leukemia and was put on strong chemo medication. We weren’t sure how this would effect our fertility treatments going forward. We decided to start right away, so we met with our doctor right when we got home from our honeymoon and went ahead with our first IUI.
All my testing came back with normal results and we were pretty sure our first try would work. Our first IUI didn’t work, so we moved onto our second IUI and when that one didn’t work we decided to meet with new doctors and a new team to discuss our best options going forward. Our new doctor decided to go straight to IVF because we only had four of my husband’s samples left and we were unsure of how my husband’s treatment was affecting his sperm (when you have a vasectomy you still produce sperm, it’s just not released. But fertility doctors can still extract from the male and use it in IVF).
We wanted to get started right away; we were already five months into treatment at this point and were getting really frustrated that the entire process was taking this long. We started our first round of IVF right away and I seemed to respond OK – not great, but OK. We did the egg retrieval and after five days had one amazing embryo and others who were struggling to grow. We transferred the one great embryo and started our two week wait to find out if it worked or not. Unfortunately, none of my other embryos made it to freeze, so we were struggling between being hopeful and really upset with the thought of having to do this whole process over if this embryo didn’t stick.
We were so anxious to find out if I was pregnant, I took a lot of at home pregnancy tests and they were slowly coming back positive! We were so happy and went in for my HCG blood test thinking this one was it and we were well on our way to becoming a family of three. My nurse called me back to tell me I I was pregnant but only “somewhat” pregnant and that I needed to wait two more days to get my levels re-drawn in hopes my levels would rise. Unfortunately it wasn’t a viable pregnancy and just a chemical pregnancy. We had to wait for it to pass and be re-tested to be sure my body no longer thought I was pregnant before trying again.
Our second round of IVF was filled with a lot of disappointment. My body took over instead of letting the meds work, and I was getting a few lead follicles and in the end only had three eggs retrieved. At this point I had already written off this cycle and was frustrated and angry with my body for not responding the way it should.
I ended up emailing my doctor before my transfer and saying that if we had two “ok” embryos make it to transfer, I wanted to transfer both in hopes that one would stick. Or if we had one “great” embryo and one “ok” embryo, I really wanted to try to transfer both. My doctor agreed and again reassured me “it only takes one” and “you will get pregnant” and went ahead with transferring two embryos with nothing left to freeze. I waited the two weeks (without taking any at home pregnancy tests this time) and then went in for my HCG blood draw. “Not pregnant” was the results of my second round, and I decided I needed to take a break. I told my husband I wanted to wait six months before starting again. I wanted to concentrate on our marriage, having fun without kids, and doing what makes us happy. I ended up quitting my full time job and getting a part time job at a non for profit that really gave me joy and fulfilled my life in ways I didn’t know I needed to be fulfilled.
I decided, after a three month break, that I was ready to start again. My doctor had a new protocol to try to depress my body from taking over, and we were all hopeful that it would work. I still didn’t get great results with my egg retrieval, but remained hopeful since it does only take one. We had two embryos that made it in the end; one was the highest quality and one was a step below. We transferred both. I still remember the day my nurse called to tell me I was SUPER pregnant… we had no idea and she just screamed over the phone that I was pregnant!! I was crying and she told me that I had really high HCG levels and needed to come back in for another test in two days. My HCG levels tripled in two days and we went in for our first sonogram appointment at five weeks and we found out we were having twins! After five rounds and 1.5 years of different treatments, we were finally pregnant with twins!
– Dana Hnatyshyn
We now have 2.5 year old boy girl twins who keep us on our feet all day long! Going through this entire process has really changed me as a person and I think me as a parent as well. I think the process is what you make of it. We were just really fortunate that we were able to have biological children of our own and fertility treatments made that happen for us.
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