Couples dealing with infertility are often faced with long journeys in order to start or complete their families.
Days are long, lonely and filled with anxiety ridden appointment and endless waiting.
For my husband and I, surviving infertility meant that we had to believe that miracles really do happen.
Besides the day that I said “I do” to my dear husband, there is one day that might go down as one of the most memorable days I have on record.
The day I learned that surviving infertility was a bit about believing in miracles:
After our egg retrieval my husband and I waited (and waited) to see if we had any viable embryos that could hopefully be transferred into my uterus to make a baby.
I will NEVER forget the phone call that changed my life…
When we found out that not only did we have ONE embryo, we had MORE than one.
That news came as such a blessing to us. So much was always up in the air, never all that encouraging or promising. Finally with this miracle, I felt that were were taking a small step in the right direction; that someday, our dream could be a reality.
There was a chance of us surviving infertility.
My husband and I felt extremely lucky to have an embryo after all of this. And by some miracle, we ended up sending 8 embryos off for genetic testing.
When we received the phone call from our embryologist about our genetic testing results, we were shocked.
Yes ladies, miracles do happen.
Not only did we have a healthy embryo to transfer, we had 7! We were overjoyed with emotion.
“Would you like to know the sex of the babies?’” the doctor asked me very matter of factly.
“Umm, yes, no, wait, no!”
How could I find out the sex of my future children without consulting my husband first?
When you are thrown into this fertility craziness, you do have opportunities that other couples conceiving naturally do not usually get. This was one of those opportunities.
I coyly replied, “Well, since I don’t want to find out, could you at least tell me if there is a poo poo platter, a mixture if you will, of both sexes in there?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Well… not exactly. You see, the odds of this happening are in the hundreds of thousands. All of your embryos are the same sex…even the ones that didn’t survive.”
With great amazement and shock I thought to myself, “Holy crap! The big JC is trying to send us a sign that we are meant to be the parents of a specific gender.”
I hung up the phone and called my husband giddy with excitement. This gave us a great shot at becoming parents! We had embryos to work with and there is a fun twist to our story! When I told my husband he couldn’t believe it. He was so relieved and thankful.
When he got home from work that day we snuggled up on the couch together and held each other a little tighter that night. We were both still in shock at the news, but beyond grateful for the outcome.
When we started this journey my husband and I decided to go all in. We had to. Surviving infertility meant that we had to have hope that things would (while not on our timeline) work out.
There couldn’t be an ounce of doubt in our minds.
Hope…hope is all around us ladies.
We have to keep believing that miracles happen and that whether it’s 1 embryo or 15, that in the end, there will be a positive outcome.
How have you survived infertility…..gotten through the dark moments and believed that everything would eventually work out? We’d love to hear your story.
Tell us about it in the comments below.
