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Thank you for your open letter to  INCIID about your IVF Journey of hope. We appreciate sharing one of life's most difficult undertakings with others in order that they too may see some light at the end of the fertility tunnel. If you know someone struggling or want to help INCIID reach more couples, please email us.

When I heard couples discussing their attempts at pregnancy and IVF, I said, with contempt in my voice,, “Why don’t you just adopt.”  Yes, I was one of “those people”.

I was adopted, and it worked out fine for my parents and me. I believed that people choosing IVF were self-centered and arrogant about the necessity to pass on their genes to offspring. I admit I took the attempts to create a family through treatment personally—as if people who choose IVF were somehow disparaging or devaluing my non-biological relationship to my parents and sister.

First, no matter how much it the guys think it is, women always have a more difficult path. But for a man, there is still real difficulty. Because man will never carry a pregnancy, there is somewhat of a separation between the male perspective and the female perspective on infertility. With that in mind, let me share a little bit of my side of the struggle with infertility. About six months to a year after we married, my wife and I began the process of building our family. After a year we started asking questions as to why we had not yet gotten pregnant.

 My dearest Leon, the Journey for you was a long one and a short one all at the same time. This journal I’m writing is a little different than the one I wrote for the Penguins, the embryo we adopted, and the triplets because you are the child that we get to hold in our arms every day and love on you and kiss you every day. I cannot picture any other child in our life and any other child to call us Momma and Dada.  However, it was quite the journey to get you.  Dada and I first talked about adoption when we were engage.  We talked about how we want someday to adopted along with have children of our own but was not sure how long  it would be or how we would adopted.

A shrug of the shoulders is all it took to turn our world upside down.

My husband and I sat in our RE’s office, in those plush leather chairs that are supposed to make you feel comfortable, waiting for hope. After four failed IUIs, our IVF egg retrieval had given us nothing to transfer. Nothing grew after the initial fertilization. We were devastated and needed answers. I was 29 years, he was 31. We were young and healthy. This shouldn’t be happening.
Our doctor looked at us from across his desk. And shrugged his shoulders.
He had no clue why our treatments hadn’t worked. Said he would recommend trying again if money wasn’t an issue. It was probably a fluke, especially at my age. But he knew money was an issue, so his next best move was to use donor eggs

I feel like fertility is one of those things we all take for granted. We just assume that when we are ready for children that we’ll go off birth control and get pregnant quickly. Unfortunately, our story was a bit more complicated than that.

My husband Travis and I were married in June 2010. We decided to spend a year renovating our house and just enjoying being married before we added children to the mix. I went off birth control in August of 2011 and we started trying to get pregnant.

At first it was fun. I charted my basal body temp, we had lots of sex, and every month I would eagerly await a positive pregnancy test. Months went by and nothing happened. It was around month 9 that I started to worry that there was something wrong. I knew it could take a healthy couple under 35 up to a year to get pregnant, so we pushed forward and continued to try on our own for a few more months..

I was married just 8 months when I found out I was 10 weeks along with an ectopic pregnancy. The embryo still had a heartbeat in my left tube. The surgeon got it out but 2 weeks later, I went into shock and cardiac arrest. What happened is the surgeon didn't get the entire embryo out and my tube never perforated. I had no pulse. No heartbeat. Was found unconscious in my house, alone. I can say I know what it feels like to die. It haunts everyday of my life. Once rushed to ER, they said I had 2 liters of blood in my abdomen from tube not perforating. I needed 2 blood and a plasma transfusion. I had to have my left tube removed and the right one was destroyed from the severe trauma from all the blood in my abdomen...continued  

I never fully believed stuff like this, back Then. Sure, it sounded good.  But Now... Now I know how true it is. The path takes you where you were always meant to be. In this moment tonight. Rocking baby boy. He's just finished a bottle after waking up crying. He shouldn't be hungry yet, but he spent all evening crawling and pulling up and smiling a gummy grin of pride. So that left no time for much milk. 

So I hold his 21 pound, solid frame firmly in my arms. Like I've said before, he just fits...continued 

The ghost of a red-haired child

Hello, My name is Julie Thomas and my husband is Steve. We went through Embryo Donation or ED to get our daughter. Here is our story:

We meet in High school (awe, I know), and eventually married in 2007 after 6.5 years of dating! We always knew we would have to go through IVF to have children. I carry a genetic disorder called Fragile X syndrome, which causes developmental delays, is passed on the X chromosome. I knew I was a carrier since around age 10. I have 2 brothers that are affected by fragile X and a sister that is not a carrier nor has it. I was told I had a 50%pass rate to our future children and I also had over 1,000 repeats of the gene CGC. That is a huge number!....continued