MY MISCARRIAGE, IVF AND INFERTILITY STORY
My story. My heartbreak.
My husband and I will be married for 6 years this June. In 2016, a few months after we got married, we started having thoughts about having children. My cycles were off, heavy, and painful so I knew I had to see an obgyn before moving forward. That’s when the whirlwind started. I had been moved around to multiple doctors to finally being recommended for fertility services. After months of being poked and prodded, my diagnosis was adenomyosis with no other complications or issues from me or my husband. Then the treatments started.
Clomid cycles fail.
IUIs fail.
Finally in August 2019, we were sat down in the office and told that our best option of getting pregnant was IVF. I was reluctant, scared, and in disbelief that years of trying led to this. I knew IVF was a long and difficult road and so we stopped all fertility treatment for a year in hopes that things we naturally happen. To our constant disappointment, we had no such luck. In July 2020, we started our IVF journey.
Egg retrieval successful.
18 eggs extracted.
4 stuck.
I overstimulated from the hormones used for the egg retrieval and had to wait months before I was able to do my first transfer. I was emotionally and physically tired and exhausted beyond words. But we moved forward, and in the end my first transfer ended as a chemical pregnancy.
I was gutted.
For anyone battling with infertility, you know how seeing a positive pregnancy test is. My heart was elated just to be ripped in two. It took several months before I could even consider trying again. March 2021, I agree to do a mock transfer to see what went wrong with my first transfer, and results showed I needed more medicine. April, we start our second IVF transfer.
May 17th, we found we were pregnant. Blood levels high and everything looked great.
I remember that day.
We found out together in the car right outside our house. We spent hours outside never going in, just happy, celebrating and telling all our family who had been with us through the process.
The next few months were up and down. I was really pregnant, morning sickness (all day sickness), swollen breasts and all. But I would find myself in and out of UrgentCare and the hospital for clots and pain. I was having subchorionic hematomas and put on light activity, which I then chose to put myself on bedrest.
Fear crept in and every day I felt like I was holding my breath to get to the next.
Begging God to not let me lose this baby I waited for, for so long. It was a hard time.
At 14 1/2 weeks I went for a check-up with the obgyn. They had found blood in my urine and with the clotting, wanted me to see a high risk doctor immediately.
The very next day, I was getting my first sonogram under the scariest of reasons but there he was (we knew he was a boy through blood test). He was perfect. Organs growing perfectly, heartbeat amazing, and he had the cutest button nose. Me and my husband stared at the screen with pure adoration and all the joy one could muster up.
The high risk doctor cleared me, stating everything looked good and there were no significant bleeds. I no longer needed bed rest, and for the next week and a half I was the happiest, most enthusiastic mother-to-be. No more fear but absolute excitement.
Friday night, August 13th. My husband wanted to take me out. It would be the first time I was out and about for weeks.
We decided to walk the boardwalk, I had just turned 16 weeks and joyfully touched my little baby bump as we walked together on that warm summer night.
On our way back to the car, I started feel sharp pains like really bad gas and thought maybe it was something I ate. Fast forward to the car ride home, I was getting waves of cramping and pain that would last a few minutes then go away. I was so scared and told my husband I need to get home and lay down. We get home, I lay down and feel slightly better but still had sharp pains.
I had convinced myself it was bad gas because there could be no other explanation that I would accept. I got up wearily went to the bathroom and no blood or any signs to panic. With a sigh of relief I take a shower but then suddenly feel a tremendous pressure and run to the toilet.
I scream because I know what’s happening but I don’t want it to happen.
I’m sobbing, a blood curdling wail.
My water just broke. I’m bleeding heavily. My husband rushes me to the ER. We find out that our son still has a heartbeat but I’m miscarrying.
We spend hours (8 to be exact) in the ER to be transferred to another hospital an hour away to get a D&C procedure. By the time we get to the other hospital, I get another ultrasound and find out that my son no longer has a heartbeat.
My husband breaks down and I sob, and sob, and sob. We spend hours (7 to be exact) waiting for my procedure as my dead son lays in me.
I’m in shock. I’m in pain. My heart is completely and utterly shattered.
Fast forward to now. Today is my due date. In the last couple months, I’ve been hit with waves of grief. Meanwhile being told and asked things like:
You’re young, you can try again.
You can adopt, there’s so many options.
Everything happens for a reason.
When are you trying again?
And on and on and on.
I don’t know what the future holds for me. Another round of IVF? Surrogacy? Adoption?
But right now, I just want to mourn my son, I want to be emotionally, mentally, and physically well for once.
I never experienced sudden loss, it’s so new and unknown. I just want time to breathe, time to heal, time to miss my little warrior who fought all the way to the end.
This is my story. Incomplete. Sad. Messy. But I know whoever took time to read this, knows exactly how I feel and unfortunately can relate.
Peace and love be with you.
This is the beach I went to the night I miscarried. It has a boardwalk and my husband and I went for a walk since I was finally taken off bed rest. Unfortunately, I started to contract and went into labor right after leaving the beach. I hadn't been back since.
So on DJ's due date, I went back and walked, prayed, and took some pictures with my last sonogram of him. It was heartbreaking but peaceful at the same time.
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