At age 17, most girls are thinking about everything except having children- thats exactly what I was doing. That is, until I was diagnosed with something that would forever change me. I was told that I would not ever be able to have biological children. At age 17, I don't think I fully comprehended what this would mean later in life. Of course, I was upset, but it wasn't something that would alter my current life.
Fast forward to 2011 and age 30. This diagnosis now alters my current life. This is the year that Quentin and I decided it was time to have children. We knew it was going to be difficult, but I don't think we had any idea what we were in for.
We began meeting with a reproductive doctor (the same one who had been my doctor since age 17). We had a plan. We were going to find someone to donate eggs to us and do IVF with those eggs. Sounds easy enough, right? IVF sounds like a piece of cake until you realize just how many medications and shots you will be giving yourself each day to prepare your body to have a baby. I have never had so many bruises, knots and pain in my body as I did during that time. We found a donor fairly easily and were ready to go.
Our first IVF round was in May of 2011. They transferred 2 embryos into my body and then the 10 day wait began to see if we were pregnant. Longest. Wait. Ever. After the wait, a pregnancy test was taken. It was a positive test, but the hcg levels weren't very high so I had to continue having blood tests done every few days for the next few weeks to make sure it was increasing. It was increasing, but not fast enough which was a bad sign. Finally the day arrived that we could have an ultrasound, but unfortunately there was no heartbeat. We then found out that our babies had implanted in my fallopian tubes and I would miscarry within a few days. Our doctors appointment was on a Friday and I had misscarried by Sunday. We were heartbroken, but kept trusting that God had a plan for us and we still had 2 frozen embryos left to use.
Our second IVF cycle was in November. We transferred our 2 frozen embryos, but this time neither of them implanted. We were now out of embryos. We had a decision to make about what to do next.
We decided that we needed to try IVF one more time with fresh eggs to give it another chance. In January we began another treatment cycle and 2 new embryos were implanted. Sadly, my pregnancy test was again negative.
After 3 tries, we knew we could not continue on this emotional roller coaster. We needed to come up with a plan which has lead us to where we are today...
The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter.
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