When I met my husband in 2002 I already had a 4 year-old from a previous relationship. My husband was amazing and immediately stepped up and helped me raise my son into adulthood. When my son was in high school, we decided that we were FINALLY ready to have children of our own. We tried on our own for a year. When I was 36 we sought advice from my ob/gyn. There was about a 1 ½ year delay in treatment as I dealt with some medical issues. We proceeded to do timed/monitored cycles with Femara for another year. Around this time, we moved from Georgia to Utah. I consulted with an ob/gyn here who sent me to UFC for testing. They gave their recommendation for follow up tests and a hysteroscopy. I found the ob/gyn’s response to be noncommittal and made the decision to consult with
UFC directly for further treatment. This was about the same time I found UIRC, which has been an amazing resource and source of support during our journey. After consulting with Dr. Conway, we were able to enroll in an IVF study. This resulted in a cancelled cycle but enabled us to do a second cycle. We had a successful retrieval in August 2019 and ended up with 4 embryos that we had PGS tested. The unfortunate outcome was multiple trisomy and deletions due to maternal age & amp; egg quality. I was absolutely gutted. I thought for sure my journey was over and that I would never be able to give my husband his own biological children.
Dr. Conway, in her usual matter of fact way, gave me our options. My eggs were out of the question but donor eggs were not. This was a surprisingly easy decision for me. I had a biological child already; my greatest desire was to have my husband’s child. We opted for a frozen donor egg cycle. In October 2019 we chose our donor and fertilized 8 eggs and ended up with 5 beautiful embabies. We had our transfer in November 2019 and I am currently 34 weeks pregnant with our perfect miracle boy. In 18 months we went from consult to almost due, this is less than half the time I wasted pursuing other options. My only regret in our family building journey is not consulting with a RE sooner. I am grateful for UIRC and the advice and support I have gotten from the AMAZING people who have come into my life through the FB groups as well as the support groups. I will forever be grateful for UFC, the study team, the third-party team and Dr. Conway, our baby boy would not be without them. It has been a heck of a roller coaster ride with so many highs and lows but it's all going to be worth it to have our healthy baby boy in our arms.