Amber's Story

My husband and I started trying to conceive in December 2019, shortly after we bought our home, and two years after we got married. I stopped taking birth control, but six months later, my period never came and I wasn’t ovulating. I met with my gynecologist in August 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic delaying things. After some preliminary ultrasounds and blood testing, my gynecologist strongly suspected that I had PCOS, but sent me to the reproductive medicine clinic for a second opinion. My husband and I both received a full fertility workup and it was confirmed between my labs and ultrasounds, that I had PCOS and we would need some help growing our family. We were told that we can try three IUI’s and if those didn’t work, we could move on to IVF. We had to reschedule our first IUI because we both caught COVID, so our first cycle started in January 2021. Three cycles later, no pregnancies. We decided to move on to IVF and I did my first egg retrieval in August 2021.

This IVF cycle resulted in three embryos. The first embryo didn’t stick. However, the second one did and we were thrilled that I was finally pregnant. However, at our first ultrasound with the IVF clinic, the baby’s heart was not beating. This resulted in a D&C procedure in November 2021. The third transfer, which happened in January 2022, did not stick either.

We decided to proceed with another egg retrieval and a fresh transfer in March 2022. This fresh transfer resulted in our sweet daughter, Catherine Grace. Everything was going well until her anatomy scan at 20 weeks. The high risk doctor found some suspect issues, focusing on her kidneys, the absence of a bladder, and other possible defects. From then on, everything became a huge blur. We were shuttled off to several specialists telling us more about Catherine’s suspected condition, VACTERL association, and what to expect after birth. I had a fetal echo, an MRI, an amniocentesis, and other tests to further understand the extent of her issues. To distract myself from the pain of the unknown, I did every bit of research I could on what to expect from a long-term NICU stay, survival rates, and the idea of long-term care. However, every single doctor told us that we won’t get the whole picture until her birth.

In September 2022, at my first weekly scan, Catherine ran out of amniotic fluid and I was admitted antenatally, discharge date unknown. Turns out I had preeclampsia with severe features and on October 1, 2022, she was born at 32 weeks via emergency c-section at 2lbs 8oz and 12 inches long. I met her 24 hours after she was born because I immediately went to the ICU on a ventilator after the c-section. She was confirmed to have VACTERL association, but her urinary system was the primary cause of concern. The NICU team attempted everything they could due to her limited size, but she was ultimately placed on palliative care because she was too small for dialysis. The NICU team went above and beyond to help create memories and provide comfort for Catherine. She waited for us to go back to the hotel to sleep and she peacefully passed away in her nurse’s arms at 2:23am on October 20, 2022. We immediately came back to love on her and say goodbye.

After eight months of working through our grief, we returned to the IVF clinic to start on bringing a sibling for Catherine. We transferred one embryo in July 2023, which ended in a miscarriage. We transferred one embryo in November 2023, which ended in a miscarriage. We took a break for the holidays and transferred an embryo in January 2024 that ended in a chemical pregnancy. We did a recurrent loss blood panel and everything came back normal. We decided, in April 2024, to transfer two embryos. One of them became a blighted ovum and the other became our sweet daughter Alexandra Paige, who was born on December 6, 2024