All About Our (Unfinished) IVF Journey

You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been pretty silent on the blog over the last year or so — and there’s a reason for that. Truthfully, I haven’t felt like I have the capacity to properly show up here when there’s something pretty overwhelming happening in my personal life — our personal lives, because this involves Brandon too.

It all started back in September 2020, when we decided it was time to start our family — or so we thought. We naively started dreaming about what our due date might be if I got pregnant this month — or I guess the next month…maybe this month…or the next month. Until the months turned into a full year, when we experienced a miscarriage in October 2021. That was an indescribable pain, which I tried to describe as best as possible here.

Unfortunately, the miscarriage was right at our “one year” mark of trying, so that pushed back us seeking any sort of treatment, as most fertility clinics don’t like to see you unless it’s been a full year. I’ve known my whole life that I have underlying fertility-related health issues that needed to be addressed — so in my opinion, six months would have been long enough to know something was off.

But there we were, with an invoice to pay and instructions to “call us in six months” — and lots and lots of grief to work through.

So we did just that, until the summer of 2022, when we finally got into Nashville Fertility Center for more aggressive treatment, after nothing had changed. It was there where we got several different tests done and discovered there were a variety of factors in both of our bodies holding us back. It was relieving, terrifying, exciting and sad all at the same time — to find out there were some significant roadblocks to overcome, and on the other hand, there were actual tools at our disposal to overcome them.

We first began the process of IUIs, which stands for Intrauterine Insemination. It’s essentially the less intensive, less expensive step before IVF (or In Vitro Fertilization). Going through the IUI process was such a promising time, and I remember thinking in my head (and probably out loud to Brandon) that this was it. This was all we needed to boost our chances, and there’s no way in hell we would need to go as far as IVF.

That is until we got a negative test…and another…and then two more. And finally, after four rounds, we decided to move onto the more daunting world of IVF — again, a club I never thought we would be joining.

(Side note: They usually don’t recommend doing more than three rounds of IUI, as statistically, the odds of success dramatically drop off after three attempts. In other words, if you’re going to get pregnant through IUI, it will most likely happen within the first three months.)

So here we were, preparing for the most intensive fertility treatment available, signing all sorts of paperwork, creating a budget, and ordering an arsenal of hormonal medication. Oohh, the meds… I now understand how painful, disorienting and all-consuming those shots are. It’s all very specific as to the timing, dosage and placement of the needle. I quickly went from being needle averse to casually sticking myself with a 2-inch needle without a second thought.

On January 1, 2023, we officially began the process for IVF, starting those meds to prepare for the most invasive part: egg retrieval. What a way to welcome the new year..!

And on January 30, I went under anesthesia for the retrieval. I still say the retrieval was one of the best days of my life because I was treated like a princess by all the staff at NFC and then was told to take time off work, sleep, watch Netflix and eat comfort food for a day or two — AKA my dream scenario. I woke up from anesthesia to find out they had a very successful retrieval — collecting more than we expected. This was great news!

And from there, we would find out how many had fertilized and made it through those first crucial days. After a few days, we received news that a healthy amount made it to blastocyst and would be cryopreserved for testing. And then, on Valentine’s Day of all days, we found out 50% of those were considered normal — which is about the percentage they expect to see. More good news! We were overjoyed and relieved.

From there, they want to see you go through another natural cycle before jumping right back into more meds and trauma for your body. It was estimated I could do what’s called a frozen embryo transfer mid-March…but that turned into mid-May for a number of reasons, all out of our control — and the doctor’s control. To say we were disappointed is an understatement. Typing all of this out feels so frivolous, while actually living through that waiting was grueling. I can now say that delaying a transfer feels equivalent to a negative pregnancy test — it’s another month or so gone by without receiving the results you were hoping for.

And yet, we were finally able to have our first “attempt” on May 24, 2023. While the transfer is the climax of all you’ve been working for, the day itself feels quite anticlimactic, especially compared to the retrieval. The process takes only a few minutes and the post-op instructions are extremely mild compared to the retrieval. 

So after the transfer, I basically carried on as usual and tried to live as normally as possible — as if that’s something I can do! In the infertility community, I was considered “PUPO” or Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise. So it was pretty surreal to walk around knowing this big secret, since we kept the exact transfer date from friends and family, in hopes of being able to keep our news of pregnancy a surprise. I also had lots of “symptom spotting,” where I assumed every weird feeling was a sign of pregnancy.

And finally, after 10 long, grueling days, I went in for a blood pregnancy test, which is much more effective than an at-home test. I had somehow resisted the temptation to test at home, so this was the very first definitive answer to seal our fate. But at that time, I just knew deep down it didn’t work — and I’m an eternal optimist, too.

So I wasn’t surprised when we received a call from our nurse the next day. I could immediately tell from the subdued tone in her voice. If you’ve received any sort of heavy medical news over the phone, you know exactly what I’m talking about. “It’s positive…but…your level is very low.” So we knew exactly what that meant. Something had tried to form but ultimately, didn’t stick.

We were completely devastated. It’s hard to know how to file this one away, but we ultimately decided it was another loss — since it at one point had been a positive test and then quickly started to decline. 

People who have experienced an IVF embryo transfer failure know the unique pain I’m talking about. You have invested so much to get to this point — emotionally, mentally, financially, etc. — and it all comes crashing down with one quick phone call.

I had another blood test to confirm the loss and sure enough, the next one was at zero. So we began discussions about the next attempt, with the unfortunate news that our doctor wanted to have a consultation with us first, to evaluate if we wanted to repeat the same protocol, change something up, or pursue some more testing.

The next available opening for that conversation wasn’t until June 30. And so…more waiting.

After that conversation, we all agreed we would proceed with the next transfer and keep the protocol the same. But there was only one problem. Because of all the intense meds I had been on, my body got all out of sorts, so my cycle was extra long this time around. So what should have been a 28-day turnaround ended up being a 56-day turnaround — exactly twice as long as it needed to be.

And finally, in early August, we were about to gear up for the next transfer, only to discover one more issue: it would fall during our trip to Seattle for my niece’s wedding. Again, we were so frustrated. Of course this is happening. After a day of debating whether we should change our flights to accommodate the transfer, we decided to just skip this month, in order to not add extra stress to an already stressful situation. That’s the funny thing about fertility treatment (although it’s not funny at all): you are instructed to live as stress-free as possible, and yet, you’re going through one of the most stressful experiences one can go through. It’s like the age-old “just relax and it will happen” advice (don’t even get me started about that…). There’s this balance of trying to live your normal life (or not put it on hold), which ultimately led to us going to the wedding — but it was a tough call, because you want to be committed to your IVF calendar at the same time.

We went on the trip and had an absolute blast, not regretting our decision one bit. And that leads us to today, as we await our next “attempt” — only our second chance in all of 2023, and the year is coming to an end soon.

We’re entering this next transfer with lots of hope and excitement, but also fear and hesitation, knowing we’ve been here before and we’ve been disappointed before. We were so hopeful with our first transfer, only to be let down in a massive way.

So what’s next? Well, we’re still trying to figure that out. We don’t know when our next transfer will be yet, but we’re hoping it’s soon — hopefully in the month of September or October.

I had originally envisioned announcing our IVF experience when the story was “finished” — when there was a neat little bow we could tie around it all. And yet, we experienced roadblock after roadblock, and it felt right to bring you into the imperfection and the incomplete story, whatever chapter we may currently be in.

My true motive for sharing at this point in time is to bring others in, whether it’s to garner support for ourselves or help someone else going through the same thing. There’s something powerful that happens when you open up about things such as this, as personal as they may be. When we announced our miscarriage back in 2021, I was astounded by the amount of people who came forward to share their own personal stories of pregnancy loss or infertility. So if you have gone through IVF or are currently going through it, I am here. I understand. And while I wish you and I didn’t have to go through it, I believe it will all be worth it some day.

I’m going to share more about the emotional journey this has been in a future post, but wanted to first start with the timeline and concrete details about our experience. Until then, please feel free to reach out if this resonated with you — my email and Instagram inboxes are always open.