Our baby history

Ok, here's the scoop:

Mark and I have been trying to have a baby for over two years now. That might be ok if we hadn't have gone through two failed Intra-uterine inseminations (IUI), a miscarriage of twin girls after a successful In vitro fertilization (IVF), and a failed frozen embryo (FET) cycle in January.

That's a lot of acronyms and they don't come cheap. Nor is it easy (physically or emotionally) to go through those processes, what with all the medications, doctor appointments, and shots.

The height of our depression came after the loss of our girls. I don't know that I can put into words how hard that hit us. Here, after putting ourselves in debt, subjecting my body to hormone after hormone, having Mark give me shots, which is an honor I normally reserve for doctors, and seeing our reproductive endocrinologist every other day (it seemed), we find out the good news, I'm pregnant. Not only have I achieved pregnancy, but we are expecting two, it was our insta-family. No more fertility treatments for us, we wouldn't have to go through all that again with twins. Who cares that we are now $15,ooo or so in debt, we have a family!

Then came the news. On our first ultrasound they find that their heartbeats aren't as fast as they should be. We were told it could be nothing and were told to find a high risk obstetrician. They tell us to come back in a few days to see if the girls have progressed. Wow. Those were two of the most stressful days filled with anxiety, hope, positive thinking, realistic thinking and despair. The worst part of all was that here I am charged with the care of these little ones and my hands were tied. There was nothing I could do to help them grow strong. As a new mother, or any mother for that matter, this must be one of the harder things to come to terms with, not being able to help your kids.

We went back a few days later and discovered their heart rates had dipped down even further and they had not grown. I was supposed to be 8 or so weeks along by then and they were only measuring at six. Heartbreak. Again, I was helpless. Nothing I could do would help them, and it was only a matter of time before they would die. Die inside of me. Nothing I could do. My two girls that we struggled so hard to have were going to die. They made us wait again and come back in a week to confirm the grim news. This, again, was a horrible waiting game because you think maybe God will give us a miracle and they will turn around or maybe the doctors are wrong and they will survive. False hope is a dangerous thing and all my delusional positive thinking was proven wrong.

I was given the choice of whether I wanted to miscarry on my own or to have the dilation and curettage (D&C). I opted for the D&C just to get this horrible experience over with. That was an emotional experience as well. I was pregnant when I went in and not so much when I left. The only positive experience during this time was that Mark and I grew closer. We bonded through the loss, it felt like it was him and I against the world and that brought us together in a way I think we hadn't experienced before.

We had the girls tested to see if they could determine what, if anything went wrong. It was determined that they had trisomy 14, which is a nice way of saying that they had chromosome abnormalities and had they survived would have had terrible birth defects and probably wouldn't have lived long after birth. They couldn't determine if they were identical or fraternal, but I have my suspicions that they were identical. So, now it was time to see how this happened and who, if anyone contributed to this. It could have been just a fluke, one of mother nature's goofs. Mark and I both got tested. My test came back "normal" pretty quickly. We had to wait for Mark's results for what seemed like an eternity. It turns out Mark has a balanced Robertsonian translocation. In essence this means that we have a two out of six chance to produce a "normal" child. The other four times the pregnancy will end in miscarriage.

Bad news, yes. But, at least now we knew what we are dealing with after a year and a half of failure to get pregnant. I would much rather know so that we could see about fixing it instead of being in the dark still. Of course I felt really bad for Mark. How would I have dealt with it had it been my bad genes?

So, fast forward from September of 2007 to December 2007. We had 7 frozen embryos from the IVF to work with. And now that we knew what we were dealing with it was possible to test the embryos for any chromosome abnormalities before transferring them. The only obstacle at this point was money. We do well, but not that well. Of course, the procedure grew more costly as the days went by with the genetic counseling, the annual blood work we fell behind on and all the hidden costs they seem to conveniently leave out. We are SO very thankful for the help of both our parents. Without them none of this would have been possible.

We proceeded with guarded optimism. After all, they could test the embryos, and IVF worked the first time. I had no reason to believe that this wasn't our time. I was due. The universe owed me. How could my God not give me this gift? He, above everyone else knew what I went through, knew my pain, how could this not be my time? Out of the six embryos that survived the thaw, two came back "normal". We were ecstatic. We were worried none would come back normal and here we had two! How could this not be the one, I just knew I was pregnant. I was wrong. The pregnancy test came back negative. What a blow. If ever there was a time I questioned my belief in God, it was now. I'd always heard and often agreed with the saying "Life isn't fair". I know that. I just figured after all we'd been through our time had arrived. We'd suffered the unfairness and were ready to swim in what I felt was due to us. What kind of loving God would put us through infertility, give us hope only to rip it away from our ready, desperate hands?

We're now back at square one, or maybe even behind in the count. We're in debt and not pregnant. What can we do now? Another IVF cycle would cost close to $20,000. Adoption is just as expensive and can take up to three years. Of course we will try on our own, but I've lost all hope that this will happen naturally for us. Maybe my once hopeful now turned cynical outlook will turn the tides for us somehow. Maybe all those "just relax and it will happen" pieces of wisdom I've heard throughout this will finally come true. I've had nothing but hope through all this and I've gone and spent it all. It's gone.

To me, this forced break feels like we're quitting, giving up. I don't want to give up yet, but it's hard to move ahead with no resources, neither financial nor emotional. If it were up to me, in a perfect world, we would continue IVF until we were successful and stopping now feels wrong.

I wish my doctor would've told me after we found out I wasn't pregnant this last time, "Didn't you know?! We're running a special, it's buy two get one free!" Instead he recommended another IVF cycle and suggested I call when we're ready to see if there are any studies going on that might help with the payment of all this.

Sorry that was so long, but I think even just getting all that out there is therapeutic. So, now you know where we're at and where we came from.

Thanks for reading!