Tw: mention of miscarriage, infertility, IVF, SCH
My husband and I met in 2nd grade and began dating in high school. After high school graduation, we attended college in different states but continued to date. We often talked about how excited we were to get married and have a family when the time was right. We got married in August of 2020 and stopped preventing. After a year with no positive pregnancy tests, we got a bit more serious. I tracked my cycles religiously, we both exercised regularly, and took a multitude of fertility supplements, a year and a half later we still had not seen a positive pregnancy test.
On February 8th, 2023 I went to an appointment with my doctor to discuss fertility testing and next steps. I went home feeling good with testing appointments scheduled for myself and a plan in place for my husband. Two days later I realized my cycle was late and took a test before going to work, it was positive. After 2.5 years of waiting, I had a plan for how to tell my husband but that all went out the window, I ran into our room crying and showed him the test. We were both ecstatic.
I had all of the symptoms, sore breasts, fatigue, morning sickness, sensitivity to smells and I couldn’t have been happier. I called my OB, canceled our fertility tests, and made my first prenatal appointment. We lived in our own little happiness bubble for a handful of weeks and talked about all of the plans we had for our baby and all of the things we were excited to do as a family of three.
At the end of the month, we had a snowstorm so my husband and I were both working from home. I noticed I had some spotting and started to panic. Spotting turned into bleeding which turned into cramping and passing clots. We went to the ER in the snow and were told it was a miscarriage. I was absolutely devastated and took a couple of months off from work, two of my coworkers were pregnant and I couldn’t stomach being around them at the time. I met with my doctor and she gave us the ok to start trying as soon as we were ready and we rescheduled all of our fertility testing. In May we were given the official infertility diagnosis and scheduled a reproductive medicine consult in July.
We decided to take the most aggressive approach and start IVF as soon as possible. We had our egg retrieval in September, completed genetic testing, and transferred one of our two euploid embryos in December. I am a serial tester with anxiety so I started testing two days post-transfer and got my first very faint line three days post-transfer. We were cautiously optimistic and waited for our beta HCG test on December 18th. I had a high first beta and it doubled 48 hours later, we finally started to let ourselves feel a bit of joy.
Six days later I started bleeding and assumed the worst, we went back to the ER where we previously learned I was having a miscarriage. The doctor told us the gestational sac was present and my HCG levels were good and sent us on our way. We called our fertility clinic and they pushed up our first ultrasound by a week. When we went in we saw our little one with a heartbeat. Fast forward another week and I had another episode of bleeding but this time I was passing clots. We went back to the ER, this time we were allowed to see baby. Strong heartbeat, good HCG levels, and a large subchorionic hematoma. The doctor came in and told us about the hematoma and said “this could be the beginning of the end, there is no way to know for sure”. My fertility doctor put me on bed rest and I stayed in bed for 4.5 weeks with continued bleeding.
We had our last ultrasound with our fertility clinic at 11 weeks and the hematoma was growing, my doctor took me off of bed rest and said “there is a 50/50 chance this baby makes it, I wish you all the best” before leaving the room. My husband and I decided to continue modified bed rest after this visit in the hopes that it would help the hematoma resolve. I stopped bleeding around 14 weeks and the hematoma started shrinking. We had an early anatomy scan and baby looked perfect and had a strong heartbeat. We continue to hope and pray that our little one makes it earthside in August of this year.
Photos taken by Beth Theresa Photography.
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