Today’s post is a guest post from Courtney. I decided to share it because I know that a lot of you struggle with whether or not you should pursue IVF. I think that’s a very valid struggle (and IVF is not for everyone). I thought it might be helpful and encouraging to any of you in the same situation.
My name is Courtney and my husband is JJ. We are parents to a 6-month-old named Noah who we conceived via IVF after almost two years of infertility. We were married in 2013 and started trying to conceive about nine months later.
After a year of not getting pregnant, I went to my doctor and he agreed something was wrong. He ran some tests on both my husband and I, and started me on Clomid. My lab work came back extremely abnormal, I had some issues on Clomid, and shortly after we were referred to a local reproductive endocrinologist. We tried five total medicated cycles with both oral and injectable medications and a medicated IUI before our RE sat us down and told us our only option was IVF.
We had always talked about the possibility of doing IVF but I never thought it would actually come to that. We had been somewhat private about our struggles with infertility and had spent too much time looking for support in the wrong places and validation in choosing infertility treatment from people who didn’t understand it. Before making a decision about what to do, we prayed and talked about it with some of our best friends. Doors we thought were previously closed opened and we decided to proceed.
In February 2016, I had 33 eggs retrieved, most of which fertilized, and three survived to Day 5 embryos. We did a fresh transfer and found out two weeks later we were pregnant. Noah was born in October 2016.
Infertility was the darkest and most isolating road I have ever walked. I was in such a bad and dissociative state of mind I can barely remember parts of our journey except how much they hurt. My husband is seven years older than me and most of our friends had kids. I’m a pediatric nurse and we were the only couple at the time at our church without kids. At the time, I knew very few people who had gone through it and couldn’t relate well to anyone. Our infertility was solely female factor and I had (and sometimes still have) a very hard time with that and the shame and guilt was all consuming.
My lowest of lows came when our last medicated cycle failed. Everything had looked perfect and I had been so sure it had worked, I was such a mess I could barely get out the door and go to work. I called someone to talk about it and the conversation made them so uncomfortable they basically hung up on me.
Over a year later and I am very open about our struggle through infertility and IVF. It took a long time to get to the point of sharing our story but it has been a wonderful blessing for us. I have met and been connected to some incredible people who have been down the same road and have been a resource for people who are just beginning their journey. I know now that taking a leap of faith and pursuing IVF was part of God’s plan for us to be Noah’s parents.
Many thanks to Courtney for sharing her IVF story. Please leave her a comment to let her know you appreciate her!
If you’re looking for more encouragement during infertility, be sure to check out my book, 31 Days of Prayer During Infertility.
Connect with me on {Facebook} | {Pinterest} | {Twitter}| {Instagram}