For my posts on infertility, see here:

• Our Journey to Parenthood
• We Are Ready For You
• Thankful for those little things
• Our baby journey continues…
• Strength and Faith
• My womb is empty, but my heart is strong

February 2018 – This is our story…

My husband, Jeff, and I met in 2006 and married in 2007. Jeff is a wonderful, fun, smart, and caring man, and I feel grateful to be married to him and for the adventures and joy we have together. Like most people we have faced challenges too.  We both dearly want to have children and have spent over 7 years of our marriage on our journey to become parents.

In 2012, after a year of trying to conceive with no success, we sought medical help from an OB/GYN.  After several tests and procedures for us both and finding everything ‘normal’, we were later referred to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) at Reproductive Care Center (RCC) in Sandy, UT, in 2013.  Further testing with ‘normal’ results, was followed by months of Clomid/Femara, then four unsuccessful Intrauterine Inseminations (IUI), followed by four egg retrievals, and four In Vitro Fertilizations (IVF) – two fresh and two frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycles.  We transferred a total of seven embryos during these IVFs and never got pregnant. We had one embryo remaining (which was later tested and confirmed normal/genetically viable).

At this time, the end of 2016, we looked for help from a different RE, at the Colorado Center of Reproductive Medicine (CCRM).  Here we completed two further egg retrieval cycles (which resulted in an additional five genetically viable embryos). Using two of these embryos we completed a further two IVF transfer cycles (brining it to a total of 6 egg retrievals and 6 transfers). We became pregnant both times.  After seeing my hCG heading positively skywards on graphs and having gone for multiple ultrasounds where we saw a growing gestational sac, we were hopeful. However, sadly the pregnancies did not progress and we miscarried at 9 weeks both times.  We remain a mystery to the doctors with a frustrating diagnosis of ‘unexplained infertility’.

With four genetically viable embryos remaining and no idea why things are not working both my OBG/YN and RE have suggested using a gestational carrier to carry one or more of these embryos.  It took me a little time to mourn the loss of being able to carry my own children and to wrap my head around using a gestational carrier, but we are now excited for this next step.

Over 7 years in and it has been quite the journey.  We calculated that to date I have taken thousands of medications and injections, and had over 100 appointments seeing doctors and other health practitioners of both Western and Eastern medicine.  Between the clomid cycles, IUIs, IVFs, mock, and biopsy cycles, I have had a total of 24 cycles with reproductive treatments/procedures! Phew. It seems exhausting just writing it.  We are still on our path to reaching our goal.  We are trying to stay strong and positive, and learn what we can throughout the process.

UPDATE: April 2019 we welcomed our beautiful daughter via Gestational Carrier. More posts to come on this amazing part of our lives.