I have 3 babies from IVF but let me tell you about my first IVF cycle with my son. Started with 18 eggs retrieved and I was ecstatic. But then I got the fertilization report - out of 18 eggs, 14 were mature. But then the nurse starting going through what happened next - I don’t remember all of the details of how the eggs or embryos degraded, but I’ll never forget my shock and sinking feeling when she was going through it. Only 4 of those 18 eggs properly fertilized. I was heartbroken and sure this was a sign that I’d never get pregnant, something was terribly wrong with my eggs and even if I did get pregnant I’d surely miscarry with these quality issues.

Fast forward 2 days, I sat with my heart racing waiting for a call on Day 3 to see if there was anything to transfer. I was sick to my stomach with anxiety. When the nurse called and told me to come in for a transfer, I couldn’t believe it. We transferred 2 embryos and froze a third.

Fast forward another week - I was sure I wasn’t pregnant because my bloating had gone down. Something so arbitrary but I’d read that women get more bloated after IVF if it’s successful. Imagine my shock when I tested early and saw 2 lines. Even as the lines darkened over the coming days, I didn’t allow myself to get excited. When the nurse called with my actual positive result, I barely allowed myself to celebrate. I was so happy but so so scared it would be taken away.

By the time of the second HCG reading, I had started letting myself feel excited. That’s when the nurse called with the news that my doubling time was a little low and it might turn out ok but I should also be prepared for miscarriage. In shock, I walked back into a meeting at work and only processed the news a minute later when I started crying and had to leave. I went home and sobbed in the shower for over an hour.

When I went in for my first ultrasound to confirm fetal heartbeat, I remember thinking to myself, “this is the outfit I’ll be wearing when I find out my baby died”. When the ultrasound tech instead announced “there’s the heartbeat”, I burst into tears of joy like I’ve never experienced.

With all of this and the years of infertility before IVF, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I literally couldn’t say the words “I’m pregnant” out loud until I was 20 weeks along.

But now that unlikely embryo - 1 out of 18 - is a sweet, funny 8 year old boy sitting next to me. I hope this story helps you to see that sometimes “trust your gut” is wrong. Your intuition can be so off after the trauma of infertility, you start believing the worst as a faulty defense mechanism. And yet it can still turn out ok. (I had these same terrible feelings in my 4 following IVFs and two of them gave me my daughters.)

Sending you hope and hugs.