Katie’s Story

My husband and I got married in January 2020, we’ve been trying to conceive for almost three years. We didn’t think anything of it at the time. We were in our honeymoon stage, enjoying our newly married life then the world shut down due to Covid. I started tracking everything fertility-related (cycles, ovulation, sex, etc) because there wasn’t much to do during lockdown. That’s when I began to notice that it was not working as quickly as I thought it should be. Again, we weren’t preventing anything and if it happened it happened.

Fast forward to December of 2020. We still weren’t pregnant. I was making sure we were having a lot of sex close to ovulation. I knew something was off so I scheduled an appointment with my gyno. Over the next few months we began to dive into what it might be. Lab work was great. I did get told I had PCOS, but that was under control. All scans showed “textbook” this and that. She officially diagnosed us with unexplained infertility. We had done many rounds of Letrozole as we waited to get in with our reproductive health department at our clinic to start IUIs. We were able to start with them October 2021. We decided then that we would start sharing our journey.

November 2021- IUI number one. Never in a million year did I think the first procedure would work. But it did. We were finally pregnant. After almost two full years of trying, we had finally gotten our positive test. I had rush ordered items to tell our family early as Christmas presents, everything arrived and I thought it was just too good to be true. We had an ultrasound and beta scheduled for Christmas Eve Eve, this is when it all changed. While my beta kept rising, it wasn’t doubling like they wanted. They could find a sac but it was empty. They told us it would eventually end in a miscarriage and gave us our options: induce the miscarriage at home, let it happen naturally or schedule a D&C. We decided the D&C would be best for my overall mental health. Two days before the procedure, I had to provide a negative Covid test. I went and got one and to my surprise it came back positive so I had to induce the miscarriage at home that weekend with medicine. By far one of the worst things I’ve experienced. I thought it was all over. We went in a few day later to check my beta and it had risen. Risen! A few days after that I was able to get an ultrasound to see where remaining tissue was left and they found a mass. A mass as big as my uterus. Where had this been the entire time Wanda was up there? We had watched every ultrasound and we never saw it. I was in surgery within 12 hours. Turns out we had experienced a heterotopic pregnancy (twins in two different locations). So within two weeks, I had lost two babies, one by miscarriage and one by ectopic. One I didn’t even know about. They had to remove my left Fallopian tube as it had ruptured. But it was all finally done.

March 2022- IUI number two. We knew the likelihood of success for this IUI was slim. I had one mature follicle on the left side that no longer had a Fallopian tube. Our test came back negative.

April 2022- IUI number three. We had a better feeling this go around by having two mature follicles on the left and one on the right but again, our tests came back negative.

May 2022- we had our final IUI (4th one to be exact), our 13th medicated cycle. This was the most hopeful we had been. We had three mature follicles on the right side. Finally after the two week wait I could test. It was negative. Our hearts shattered. We were officially moving along to IVF.

Round 1 of IVF. I didn’t know much about the process and am still learning today. I trusted the doctor. I knew he had everything we had been through. He had our labs. He knew what would be best. Everything to me moved so QUICKLY. We went in for ER, 11 eggs were removed. 9 were mature. 5 fertilized. 4 made it to 5 day blastocysts. We transferred a 2AA and froze the remaining 3. The TWW came and went. I was feeling some pregnancy symptoms in the very beginning but they started to fade. I could tell something was off. I demanded an early beta and progesterone. Beta came back negative and progesterone was where it needed to be. The Dr told me my beta could change by Friday but since it was negative now, don’t be surprised if it’s negative Friday. I went in Friday with no hope. But again, to my surprise, it was positive. Very, very low. They advised us we would again experience another loss. We experienced our first chemical pregnancy.

We now wait for our second round of IVF which should be beginning at the end of the month.

We are still here. We are grieving what we’ve lost. We are pushing forward. We are hopeful for our future and our family.