Hello, sweet Fit4Mamas! I am honored (and honestly kind of nervous) to be on the blog this month in observance and celebration of World IVF Day!

For those who don’t know me, I’ve been married to my husband, Andrew, for six years. We have a 20 month old son, Gibson (side note, when do we stop referring to our kid’s age in months? Let me know!)

I want to preface this post by saying I am not a medical professional. Everything I share here is purely my experience with infertility and IVF. I am not the first person to struggle with infertility and, unfortunately, I won’t be the last. Infertility is such a big, important, topic. This post will by no means cover it all. However, by reading this, I hope you gain one of two things: 1. If you are experiencing infertility, I hope you feel seen and understood OR 2. If you know someone who is struggling with starting their own family, you find encouragement in how to best support them.

So, let’s dive right in…

Our Story

Starting our family was anything but easy. I’ll never forget the excitement and pure joy of that first “let’s have a baby” conversation. What’s more exciting than looking at your best friend and saying “let’s have a mini!” Andrew and I were surrounded by people who fell pregnant almost immediately, and we were certain this would be the case for us. Would you believe that I literally planned out our summer as if I were already pregnant when we started trying? L.O.L

After a year of trying, I went to the doctor hoping for some answers. She ran bloodwork and found my thyroid was out of whack. Easy enough! Let’s fix that thing and have a baby. Still…nothing.

From there, we tried multiple rounds of Clomid and Letrozole (these are basically medications that tried to force my body to ovulate “high quality eggs”). Nothing. After 2 years of trying, we were referred to an infertility clinic in Allen, Texas.

In June of 2020 (oh, did I not mention this was all happening during the height of a pandemic?), we went for our consultation at the fertility clinic. After a lot of tests, we were told that I had a very low AMH. This basically means I had very few eggs and so getting pregnant would be difficult. Tell me something I didn’t know…

In October of 2020, we moved forward with an IUI (intrauterine insemination). This is not as invasive as IVF and was a good first step for us. Unfortunately, it wasn’t successful. After one round, we decided that IVF was our best bet for starting our family.

Cue all of the meds. At this point, I started giving myself up to 5 injections a day to prepare my body for an egg retrieval. The goal was to get as many eggs as possible to fertilize and hopefully transfer. Our egg retrieval was scheduled for December of 2020. I was put under for the minor procedure and woke to find they were only able to retrieve 5 eggs. For reference, all of the discussion boards and instagram posts I was reading on the topic showed women retrieving 20+ eggs at a time. Sure, not hard hitting research, but it just goes to show how truly low my AMH was. This alone was disappointing because we knew this diminished the possibility of multiple eggs fertilizing, which would give us more chances for a successful pregnancy.

We waited for daily calls from the embryologist to let us know how our 5 eggs were developing. First, we heard only 4 eggs were successfully fertilized. Then, we learned that only 2 embryos made it to day 3 blastocyst. Finally, we got the call on day 5 that only one of our embryos made it and would need to be tested to see if it was viable.

Several weeks later, we got the call that our only embryo was considered mosaic. Basically, the chances of implantation were slim. If it did implant, the chances of having chromosomal abnormalities were high. You can imagine the grief that followed.I felt like the walking poster child for that “make plans and God laughs” saying.

After much prayer, we decided to move forward with transferring this embryo. He was our baby (we also found out gender during this test) and he made it for a reason.

We had a few more hiccups along the way. A HSC (hysteroscopy) surgery had complications that led to a longer recovery, which prolonged our timeline. Then, our transfer was postponed due to the snowpocalypse of 2021. Finally, on March 25, 2021, we went in for our transfer. Nine days later, we received a phone call telling us that our little embryo-that-could decided to stick around!

My pregnancy had its ups and downs. There were lots of scans to determine if there was, in fact, a chromosomal abnormality (there wasn’t). We had countless appointments to check on the baby’s development. My doctor and I actually made jokes about the size of my patient chart. That thing was THICK.

But, on November 30 in the wee hours of the morning, we met our perfect baby boy. Gibson Lee was (and is) everything we prayed for. He was (and is) a daily reminder of God’s love and faithfulness. He was meant to be a part of our family, and we will never lose sight of that.

What I’ve Learned

Let me tell you, infertility is not for the faint of heart. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It is one of the most isolating feelings I’ve ever experienced. One thing I can say, without a doubt, I would not have been able to endure any of it without my certainty of God’s love for me. Even on my darkest days, I knew He was working everything out for our good. I knew His plan for Andrew and me would be far greater than anything we planned for ourselves. Did I have days where I wallowed in self-pity? Absolutely. However, at the end of the day, I knew God had already worked this out for us and I needed to sit back and trust His plan.

On top of that, I learned the importance of leaning on your spouse when things get tough. Sounds simple enough, but it was easy for me to try to isolate myself and think I was the only one hurting. That wasn’t the case. Andrew was struggling with the “why” question just as much as I was. I have no idea what I would have done without him, and I am so thankful we had each other through it all.

Last, and certainly not least, I was surrounded by friends and family who encouraged me daily. They knew I was hurting, confused, jealous, and just plain grieving. They didn’t expect me to put on a happy face when I wasn’t feeling it. I knew I could call them when I was ready to talk and they would listen. They sent encouraging texts, prayed for me and with me, and never gave up on our dream for BabyMac. They saw me, and they loved me where I was.

What Now?

If you aren’t struggling with infertility, chances are you know someone who is. I’m going to hit you with a hard truth: there is nothing you can say that will make this better. Here’s what you can do: be their friend. Offer a listening ear. Know that this journey will be anything but easy. Understand that, for some moms, even after having a baby, the feelings that come with infertility don’t just go away. Being around friends who are pregnant, going to baby showers, sometimes just walking the aisles of Target can be enough to make them want to hibernate in their room for weeks. I promise, your presence will do more for them than you might realize.

If you’re going through a fertility journey of your own, let me just say, I am so incredibly sorry. If you ever need someone to talk to, please reach out. I would love to chat with you over coffee and swap stories. If the dad-to-be has questions or needs someone to talk to, Andrew would love to talk with him. Don’t be afraid to lean on your support system. You have family and friends who might not understand everything you are feeling, but they want to encourage you along the way. If you don’t have a village supporting you, I have one I would love to introduce you to (Fit4MOM Texarkana is here for moms-in-waiting, too!)

Finally, do not be afraid to share your story. It wasn’t until Andrew and I began opening up about our struggles that we realized many more people struggle with infertility than we realized. That, in and of itself, was such an encouragement for us. Knowing we weren’t alone and seeing those who were on the other side was a true blessing. Who knows…your story could be the very thing that encourages someone else in the middle of their own journey.

No matter where you are on your journey to motherhood, I hope you know that you are loved and you are/will be the best mama to your little(s)!

Lots of love and baby dust,

Shelby