There are so many things I could say about mine and Hubby's history, but, like many couples, it's a long story. I'll try to keep it brief and stick to the things that relate to our journey for Baby W.
Hubby is only a year older than me, but was married once before. It was one of those situations where he "did the right thing." He has two boys from his first marriage (they are wonderful and I love them deeply) and because of decisions that were made about family building with his now ex-wife, he had a vasectomy reversal after we were married so that we could have our own child. It worked, but not well enough. We still needed IVF with ICSI to achieve pregnancy.
After a year of saving, because neither of our insurance companies cover infertility, we started our first IVF cycle in February 2010. Here are the results:
- 10 eggs retreived
- 7 were mature, 7 ICSI'd
- 3 fertilized normally
- 2 were transferred on day 3
- the last didn't make it to freeze
- BFP - positive pregnancy test!!!! :)
- heartbeat of 120 at 6 and 1/2 weeks - we saw our little bean!
- no heartbeat at 8 and 1/2 weeks - growth had stopped at 7 and 1/2 weeks
- we are completely devastated
- D&C at 9 and 1/2 weeks
Miscarriage, in my opinion, is the most awful experience that a couple can have. As soon as we learned I was pregnant, we loved our baby. He/she was a part of us (and still is). For me, it was especially difficult as this was my first pregnancy and first loss. I thought my world was over and I never wanted to feel that pain again. It took a long time to heal, and I still think of our little one often, but eventually we were ready to try again.
So we did, in November 2010. Here are the results:
- 21 eggs retrieved
- 13 mature, 13 ICSI'd
- 9 fertilized normally
- 2 "perfect" embryos transferred on day 3
- 1 embryo made it to blast stage and frozen on day 6
- BFN - no pregnancy
Our results had been so much better the second time around, we just couldn't believe that it hadn't worked. Hubby, like most men, dealt with it differently than me. He had a lot of anger. I had a lot of depression. But there was hope! We still had the day 6 blast!
In May 2011 our one little embryo miraculously survived the thaw and was transferred. BFP again!!! We were absolutely thrilled that we were pregnant. (We just knew that God had a special plan for that one embryo!) We saw and heard our baby's heartbeat at 6 weeks, 1 day. By 6 weeks 5 days I started bleeding. It was in the evening and my nurse had me come in for an extra progesterone shot. The bleeding stopped, but when we went in for an ultrasound the next morning, there was no longer a heartbeat. Once again, our dream was crushed and we were left so empty!
This time I decided to miscarry naturally. After a week of nothing happening, my RE gave me a prescription to make it happen. That was a horrible weekend for us and one that I'd like to forget. Although the baby had passed, it took nearly 3 more months for the pregnancy hormone to go down and for me to have a period. That was in September 2011.
After some discussion with our doctor, we decided that miscarriage testing, not only blood work, but also a hysteroscopy to check out my reproductive organs, was the right thing to do. All tests came back normal. We had no explanation for our losses. We had to come to terms with it and trust that God took care of situations that could have been very complicated. Although we don't like it, we know that our babies (
Taylor and
Aryn) are in heaven. Mommy and Daddy love you, sweet babies!
Mrs. W
