Sharing Our IVF Journey
I don’t think I’ve ever fully shared our IVF journey with y’all. We’ve mentioned it here and there on the show, but I don’t think I’ve ever fully shared what Kelsey and I went through to get our daughter. Hopefully after you read this, if you’ve gone through a struggle like this, you’ll know that you’re not alone.
My wife posted a long update on Facebook, so I’m going to use some of her words here because she is the one who has had to physically go through all of this. My job throughout the whole process has been to be her rock.
How It All Started
Kelsey has had endometriosis since she was a teenager. She was always told she would likely need help getting pregnant. Fast forward to being a reporter here in Augusta years later, she did a story on an amazing IVF doctor here in Augusta and her success rates. While meeting with her, Kelsey had a gut feeling she’d be back one day.
In Kelsey’s initial diagnostic ultrasound, not only did she have endo, we learned she also has cervical stenosis (She would later find out in labor it’s pretty severe, which led to her c-section). We were told we could get pregnant but it’d likely take a very long time. So we decided to move forward with fertility treatments and after 4 failed IUIs, we moved on to IVF.
We Had To Be Cautious
Kelsey was one of the those cases they had to watch very closely because she ended up producing a lot of eggs from the medications. She was at severe risk of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome), and to this day her doctor asks her to write a book on her experience. They retrieved 29 eggs and we ended up with 21 that fertilized. They kept our best 14 embryos to freeze. Not everyone has those results and we are fully aware at how blessed we are!
We went straight into a fresh transfer, and we did get pregnant but unfortunately had a chemical pregnancy (early miscarriage). On our next attempt we were more successful and got our baby girl with our first frozen embryo transfer. She’s truly our miracle baby!
Baby #2
So now we’re ready for baby #2. In November we secretly decided to transfer another embryo and unfortunately had another chemical pregnancy. Though we have great embryos under a microscope, that doesn’t always mean they have enough chromosomes to fully develop and will result in a miscarriage. The only way to know if they are “normal” is to pull DNA out of them and genetic test them. As chemical pregnancies are often a result of there being an issue with the embryo, we are now moving forward with genetic testing ours. Our hope is knowing our next transfer will be with a genetically normal embryo, we will have a better chance.
Unfortunately, we got the call yesterday that 2 of our embryos did not survive the thawing process. We are staying hopeful the rest will make it through testing okay! So our IVF journey continues.
I’m really glad that Kelsey posted this update on Facebook and asked me if I wanted to share it with y’all. We’ve never been hesitant to share what we’ve been through. There may be people out there dealing with the same issues we are. Just know you’re not alone. If you’re going through an IVF journey as well, or any kind of dealings with fertility issues, keep going! Kelsey and I appreciate your prayers for our journey, and just know we’ll be praying for you on your journey.
If you want more info on IVF here in the CSRA, just click here.
For more articles, lists, videos and photos from The Kicks Wake Up Krew, click here.
Now that we’ve talked about the journey, let’s go back in time to when we met our “miracle baby” for the first time.