Our Story

Our happily ever after... 

A couple of different match makers had offered to set us up before we officially met.  I felt weird about the set up, and I think he had no idea that any attempts were even going on.   In 2003, my best friend started dating someone who was good friends with D.  They invited me to a party at his house.  I went, and we've been together ever since.

I like to deliberate over decisions for what D would call an excessive amount of time.  Then, after they are made, I like to think about them some more.  This is not the case for D, he's a decisive kind of guy.  We started officially dating the day after my birthday, and four months later he asked me to marry him.  He asked me with rose petals in the snow and our favourite song playing in the background. A year later we were married.   He's the best thing in my life, and I've never looked back.  Even though I can't wait to love my kids to the moon and back, I know he'll always hold the biggest place in my heart.  

Interrupted... 

We spent the first three years of our marriage focused on building our careers, moving into a home and travelling.   They were great years.  We decided that we were ready to start our family in 2007.  After almost a year, and no pregnancy, we started to wonder if something was wrong.   We hadn't been "trying", but it was mildly concerning.  

I visited my OBGYN, and shared this concern during my yearly physical.  He sent me for some blood work and home with a requisition for a sperm analysis.  A month later, I was back in his office alone.  In a hushed voice, he told me that my results were fine, but D was sterile. 

Fast forward a year or so, we had seen several doctors including endocrinologists and urologists.  You can read all about it here.  We ended up with a RE who confirmed that we indeed had severe male factor infertility. He said that could be resolved by doing IVF with ICSI.  What came as a huge shock, was that my work up came back showing that I had diminished ovarian reserve (at the time he called it premature ovarian failure, but I now refute this diagnosis). 

It was a swift and unexpected turn of the table.  I quickly went from being the comforter for D, to mourning the loss of my genetic connection with my children. 

We decided to seek a second opinion at another clinic in the USA.  This doctor confirmed the diagnosis, but offered to do one IVF for the purpose of closure, and because my age.  At the time, I was only 29.   The cycle got interrupted because my 28 year old sister had a massive stroke on the day of what I thought was going to be my egg retrieval.  

I spent the next six months knee deep in rehab hospitals and outpatient therapies.  She made a miraculous and hard-earned recovery, including learning to use her arm again.  After that, it seemed like we spent the next six months fighting.  I think the stress of everything we had been through was really starting to wear on us.  It was an emotionally exhausting year.  As things calmed down, we shifted gears and began to focus on how to resolve our infertility.

We turned to embryo adoption after the suggestion of our RE. We adopted the embryos through the Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency.  The process involved similar steps to a regular adoption, including the completion of a home study, and adoption specific training that is required in the province we live in. 

Two years, two genetic families and eight embryos later, we still didn't have a baby in our arms.  We had a twin pregnancy that resulted in miscarriage at 8 weeks, leaving behind a gaping hole in our hearts.   It devastated us in a way that I could have never imagined.  It seemed like such a low-blow from the universe after all we had been through.  

At a regroup after our miscarriage, our now 3rd RE surprised us with a new option.  He suggested we take DHEA for a few months, recover from the miscarriage and then evaluate.  He thought at only 32 years old that I might still have a chance for an OE IVF. 

After dealing with the complexities surrounding embryo adoption (we had an open relationship with the second genetic family),  the thought of avoiding some of this with a genetic child seemed very appealing.   Our relationship with the donor families were very positive.  One family ended up as a what I hope will be lifelong friends.  We never really did have our "close the door" IVF.  So we thought we would give it just one shot. 

Every step along the way with our IVF, I worried that the doctor was ready to cancel the cycle.  As we tracked follicles and maximum doses of meds, I was convinced that we were about to be cancelled.    Yet somehow, after 16 days of stimming on 300 units of Follistim, I got to retrieval day!  Based on our ultrasounds, I woke up from the sedation hoping for one or two good eggs.  We got eleven, and nine were mature! I couldn't believe our good fortune.   6 of the embryos survived to day 5, and we transferred two fresh embryos that month.  

That cycle resulted in another pregnancy, that to be honest still doesn't seem real to me.  I never had time to fully absorb the reality that I was pregnant again.  It was sadly short lived, and at 5.5 weeks, I started spotting and miscarried again.  It opened up our fresh wounds and laid on top of the grief and heartache we had just experienced only months before.  The months following were dark and sad. 

We hoped that our frozen embies might make us parents, but sadly they didn't.  One chemical pregnancy and one negative result was all we were left with. 

But still searching... 

At a crossroads again, with no embryos left, in September of 2012, we decided that we had limited emotional willpower to endure this journey for much longer.  Financially, we were also really feeling the pinch as everything we have been doing was out of our savings. 

D wanted to pursue adoption, but I'm not quite ready yet.  So here we stand again.  In a sense even though we've been through so much in the past five years, it seems like we at the beginning all over again. 

And searching... update as of April 2014

We've moved on to donor egg and adoption! Hoping for some good news soon.