Twelve years ago, just days before our 1 year wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to officially start trying for a baby. Little did we know that the baby we thought we would have within a year's time, didn't actually come until 6 years later.
After a year of unsuccessfully getting pregnant, we decided to start talking to our doctors. Many discussions were had and tests taken to discover that my husband and I fell within the 10% of infertile couples whose cause for infertility was unknown. This result led us to talk about how else we could grow our family - fertility clinic versus adoption. By year 3, I tried my first IUI. It failed. IUI #2 a month later, also failed. I took a small break (both for my body's sake and my mental health) and a few months later tried IUI #3. Again, it failed. Between the injections, the blood drawn, and the prodding at the doctor's visits, I was mentally and physically tired.
By the time year 4 came around, my husband and I met with multiple adoption agencies, both private and state, and even started the required classes for the state foster-to-adopt program. Between the foster-to-adopt classes, a full-time job, plus working on a 2nd degree, my husband was overwhelmed and needed to take something off his plate. We decided to put the adoption classes on hold until he finished his degree later that year. When the time came to start the classes again, we changed our minds and went back to the fertility clinic for IVF treatments. My desire to carry my own baby was so strong that I couldn't pass up the chance to try again. Thankfully, it only took two IVF rounds to get a positive pregnancy test! Our first son was born in April 2017, and through the third round of IVF, our second son was born in August 2019.
At this point, because the initial egg retrieval was very successful, we still had 5 remaining embryos after having two boys. As much as we originally wanted 4 kids, considering our ages and our previous treatment experiences, we made the first of the two hardest decisions we ever had to make in our lives:
November 2021 - My body couldn't carry another baby for 9 months.
A few months later, the second hardest decision:
March 2022 - choosing embryo donation for our 5 remaining embryos.
This was the beginning of our relationship with Nightlight / Snowflakes. After all the years of longing to be a mother of 4 and then more years just trying to get pregnant, my heart ached knowing that someone else would give birth to my babies. In the long run, we knew it was the right call to make and now, we are excited for the couple in CA that are expecting twins from our embryos.
And we wouldn't have it any other way.