How My Journey To Fertility Began

I guess it all started about 3 years ago. I had just moved from one city to another and the "plan" was to have a baby as quickly as possible so that my first son (whom I adopted) could have a sibling close to his own age. I gave my new job 6 months in order to get my 'sea legs' figuring if I had showed up pregnant, or got pregnant really early in my new job, it would be seen as being a little tacky. So, instead, I gave my job my all for 6 months and then figured it was time to start trying. I was 37 years old, in great health (so I was told) and had every reason to believe getting pregnant would be easy and effortless. However, that was not the case.

After three months of trying naturally, no fertility drugs, I was still unsuccessful at getting pregnant; I changed doctors in the same practice to a doctor who I thought took a greater interest in my case and didn't seem to just want to take my money. She had me take a glucose tolerance test, and although my levels were only slightly elevated, she diagnosed me as having PCOS. So, she sent me to a nutritionist who had me change my diet by cutting out sugar and cutting down on processed food and I continued to attempt to get pregnant. After those first three months, my doctor also had me try a 'chlomid challenge' which revealed that I was "chlomid resistant." That was another indicator of my PCOS status.

After another two failed attempts (another one with chlomid just to make sure I was indeed resistant – I was) and one cancelled cycle (I was moving during that month and so stressed out that I actually did not ovulate!) my doctor suggested that I try IVF. When I did IVF, my doctor harvested 22 eggs –18 of them fertilized, three did not grow to day five. (My doctor believed in putting in day five blastocysts.) I also did what is known as PGD - Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis – so we found out that 6 of the eggs were chromosomally abnormal. I had nine chromosomally normal 5 day blastocysts. (Five females, four males)

For my first IVF cycle, we put in 3 blastocysts. Two were female, one was male. About a week later, we were elated to find out that finally I was successfully pregnant. I was so overjoyed, elated, excited and grateful. My numbers were terrific. My ultrasound at 6 weeks revealed a heartbeat. My doctor told me the statistics that once you see a heartbeat, you have a 96% chance of having a healthy baby. Therefore, I thought I was home free. I had assumed, being as healthy as I thought I was, that this was it. And it would be a very easy pregnancy just because I didn’t think I’d have any other experience. And that is exactly what happened for the first few months.