Jess's Story
Since we began trying over 12 year ago my story is not a short one, though I will try to shorten it. But there are parts of it that must be shared for you to see just how miraculous our little one is. God orchestrated things in such a way that there is no way not to see His hand in it all.
Hubby and I married in July,1997 and began ttc in October of that year. I was young. I was naive. I was sure that we would have a baby 9 months later. Instead, what we had was a doctor's appointment to see what was wrong. I had suspected that I had endometriosis since I was 16, but doctor's did not believe me. My periods were excruciating!! There was no way that it was normal to experience the pain that I had each month. The ob/gyn was fairly sure that I had it as well, so we scheduled a laparoscopy. After surgery I was informed that I was fine. I was shocked! We were also informed that hubby needed to be tested as well. I look back now and wish that I had known to ask for his tests before I went under the knife, but back then there was no blogoshere or forum to guide me. I trusted my doctor completely. My hubby's tests revealed a low sperm count. Not just slightly low, but very low. And not only was it low but the morphology and motility were way off as well. Basically his swimmer were not only in short supply but deformed and directionally impaired. Just lovely!
At this time we did not have insurance coverage for infertility and could not afford the expensive tests and treatments. We decided to pursue adoption. Agency fees were more than we could afford as well so we decided on private adoption. We began letting friends and family know that we were interested and in 2003 we got a call about a woman getting ready to have an abortion. After speaking to her she decided to cancel the appointment and allow us to adopt. In March of 2004 she changed her mind. My heart was broken. Later we learned that everything worked out perfectly for this little baby and we saw His plan in it all. In September of 2004 we received another call about a baby girl. The story is long and sadly did not work out for us. We had our Abbie for 3 short months before we had to relinquish her. If you are interested in this story you can read it here: Losing Abbie
After losing Abbie we were not ready to open our hearts to another birth mother again. In 2005 we we began fertility testing in hopes of conceiving on our own. I had a new doctor and he decided to repeat my laparscopy. I am glad that he did as my original doctor missed my endometriosis and it was now stage 3 and one tube was completely blocked. And not only that hubby no longer had any sperm. At all. We later discovered that it was a genetic defect called Sertoli-cell Only. Our chances of having a baby just got worse. At this time we switched to an RE and the testing continued. In 2007 we decided to do IUI with donor sperm. The first IUI did not go well. The donor sperm ended up having a low count after the thaw. And I got an infection. We got new vials from a different donor and tried IUI a total of 4 times. Nothing. Later I learned from 2 different RE's that our chances of IUI working were less than 5%! Really?!?! I wish that we had know that before spending the money.
We took some time off to heal from all of this disappointment. In January of 2009 we got a call that would change our life forever, but did not know it at the time. My mom called to say that my sister was pregnant. And not happy about it. She was 28 and old enough to be a mom, but she had never really wanted kids. I was so angry at God for this! I began to descend into a depression as my sister's pregnancy progressed. I began to see a Christian counselor, trying to make sense of all of this. Hubby and I had been ready to pursue Embryo Adoption the year before, but I was too depressed to consider it anymore. Several months into seeing the counselor I was ready to began this new venture. You can read how we chose the exact route of EA here: Choosing EA. We had thought that the wait for embryos would be several months, if not a year, so we thought that we would have time to save the money for the FET. God had different plan! We were matched within weeks!!! And this story is amazing in and of itself. Had we gotten on the list just a week later we would have missed these embryos. The timing was so perfect and only God could have planned it! Once we got the call I began to panic because we did not have the money for the FET. And no way to come up with it in such a short period of time. But we felt God leading us so we continued with the process, trusting Him to provide. And provide He did! Remember that call I said that changed our life? Well, my sister had her baby and it changed her. She fell so in love with her daughter and being a mommy she finally understand how badly we wanted to have a baby. Her fiance had received an inheritance and because of this new change in their life they wanted us to experience as well. They gave us the money that we needed!!!
In December of 2009 we had 2 embryos transferred and one hung around to become our little Maddie. Our miracle baby! Maddie is now 2 months old and we are so thankful for her. I would say that this is the end of our infertility journey, but it is not. We hope to have another chance next year. We would love to give Maddie a sibling or two. So instead of saying The End we hope to say To Be Continued.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Helping others navigate their way through Embryo Adoption/Donation.
