“40 Minutes of Hope” – G.’s story of hope

April 18-24, 2021 is National Infertility Awareness week.  I could not think of a better message to all the women, men and couples struggling with infertility than sharing another story of hope. 

This edition of “40 Minutes of Hope” is different due to my guest’s preference to remain anonymous.  M. has graciously agreed to share her story and we did the interview in writing.  Though familiar with her story, I have to admit that after reading all her answers, I was weeping in tears.  It’s real, honest, inspiring and touching. M.’s solution to motherhood was through donor egg.  Whether you’ve ever contemplated if donor egg is a possibility for you, or you think it’s an unacceptable idea, you have to read her story.  It will strike a cord or two as it comes straight from the heart.    

You have a one-and-a-half year old and another baby boy on the way.   You had a challenging fertility journey and along the way suffered a few pregnancy losses.  Can you share your story?

We got pregnant the first time before getting married, at the end of 2014. We were not trying at the time, I was almost 40.  It ended up being a missed miscarriage at ten weeks and tested trisomy 5. Then we started trying, got married, did extensive testing and no reason showed for infertility, besides the obvious and dreaded “advanced maternal age”.  Everything looked good for my age, but clinic A was pushing for IVF and we were not ready, we figured if we got pregnant without even trying, how difficult could it be?  We felt like they wanted our money and so we left that clinic.  One month after that, we got pregnant again.  It was about 1 year after the first pregnancy.  My second pregnancy was bad from the beginning:  I had bleeds, the embryo never really developed well, and we had to do D&C at around 8 weeks. We then tried one more year doing all sorts of things, introducing a lot of healthy habits...with no result.  We went all organic, I tried to make my own cosmetics/soaps, I did acupuncture, but nothing! The year after that we went to clinic B.  We did three intrauterine inseminations and three stimulated cycles all with gonadotropin stims.  Still nothing.  We could only see the antral follicle count going from 18 to 7 in one year, which was depressing. We explored different options, we figured IVF with my own eggs was a waste of money, so we turned to donor eggs, but Clinic B matched us with a fresh donor that looked nothing like me and the price tag was in the 35k range.  I was 43 and the following spring we went to Reproductive Biology Associates, we liked their frozen donor egg bank, and we chose a donor that we were comfortable with.  We did well, got 5 blastocysts out of 6 frozen eggs.  The cost was 18.5k, so almost half that of the fresh donor from the other clinic.  The first transfer worked, but I miscarried again at 9 weeks after seeing heartbeat at 7 weeks. It turned out I had some clotting markers that were too high.   They did a cycle of antibiotics for endometritis, just in case.  Then we had a second transfer, but because of the clotting issues, they put me on baby aspirin and also Lovenox 40mg for the whole pregnancy.  That was my pregnancy with my first boy.  About a year later, we decided to go in for a sibling, we thought "this is the homerun, now we know about Lovenox" but that embryo didn't implant. So, they did another cycle of antibiotics, just in case, we tried again two months later, and here we are, only a few weeks from delivery and kicking away... The total money spent, including the inseminations, the four embryo transfers and storage of the embryos has been ~31-32k, the time invested about 6-7 years, and of course we tried a bunch of stuff in between, some of which I might not even remember! Donor egg and our Dr. Shapiro did it in the end! We have only a few weeks till the end of this very long journey! When my second son is born, we'll celebrate more than just a birth!  It will be the end of a phase of our lives.  A very long, painful and expensive phase.

Choosing a donor egg is not an easy decision.  I was offered that solution and we were not ready to embrace it.  I have suggested it to some clients and they really struggle with accepting that option.  Can you tell us more about what it took to make this decision, what the process involves, and how would you encourage the couples struggling with it?

It definitely wasn’t an easy decision for us. The first time a friend suggested embryo donation (because the whole process, if it works, tends to be cheaper than starting with donor eggs), we were horrified, and said “absolutely not”! We kept on with all the healthy habits, all sort of supplements, some of which prescribed by our doctors such as Q10 and DHEA, I kept reading books on how to improve the quality of my eggs and his sperm, not to mention success stories of women in their 40s getting pregnant naturally. But then the years passed, I was 43 with low antral follicle count, almost 4 years of attempts behind us and only two missed miscarriages to show for it. I figured that with a count in the 6-7, I’d be lucky to get 4 eggs out with full stimulation and given my age the likely-hood of all of them being bad was high. I was given a 5% success rate for IVF with my own eggs, just not enough to invest 20-25k in it. With donor eggs the success rate is in the 50-60%. On top of that, I realized that I could keep on chasing that golden egg I probably still had in me, but at what cost? The cost was to possibly never achieving motherhood, and I really wanted to be a mom, desperately. Of course I didn’t exactly know what motherhood meant, but now I think that I was meant for it, and my husband says the same. We also really wanted two children, and we preferred for them to be 100% biological siblings, for them in the future. I figured that with a lot of luck I might find one golden egg in my ovaries, but the chances of finding a second a few years later were even slimmer. I had a friend who already had her two children from donor eggs and she recommended RBA and Dr. Shapiro.

In terms of the process: you start by looking over the egg bank, some clinics have their own, some clinics work with National Banks, you pick a donor, pay the fee, then you start preparing for transfer.  We decided for frozen eggs vs. fresh cycle because it’s faster and has less uncertainties (the eggs are already banked vs. having to wait for the donor to stim and retrieve with unknown results), and because it’s cheaper (fresh is typically more expensive, but it gives more eggs and therefore more embryos). Your husband provides his sample, they fertilize the eggs and then you wait to see how many make it to blastocyst. The protocol for you depends on the clinic, the preparation for me always started the cycle before with Lupron injections to suppress my ovulation, so they could adjust the time of the transfer depending on the readiness of the uterus, without worrying about me ovulating on my own and screwing up the hormonal levels. Once I got my “Lupron period” they started me with estrogen replacement therapy, then progesterone, 5 days of anti-inflammatory to prevent my immune response from rejecting the embryo and then it’s embryo transfer day. After that I waited and hoped, while injecting Lovenox every day and continuing estrogen and progesterone (those were weaned between week 8 and 10 of pregnancy). I never tried a full IVF cycle, but donor egg is easier on your body because they don’t need to stimulate your ovaries and retrieve your eggs, the only worry is to get a thick and fluffy lining, and whether the embryo will stick or not.

I am really happy that we did, we have a wonderful child, I love him more than words can express, and his little brother is coming soon. Had I not gone this route; I might still be chasing my golden egg at 46+ instead of looking forward to concluding this journey. A lot of women are afraid of not feeling connected to their donor egg children, I have yet to meet one. In fact, most women wish they had done this sooner instead of wasting many years, suffer through a lot of miscarriages and spend a lot of money on their own eggs. I can’t say that I regret doing all that we did, it was our journey, but if I had had the epiphany a year earlier, it would not have been the worst thing in the world. I don’t think you can love more than I love my son, he is a character, and brings so much happiness and love in our life every day, I honestly can’t imagine there being bigger love than this, and women who have both own egg and donor egg children say that there really is no difference in the way they see their children. Some women are afraid of their kids not looking like them, but does sharing genetic material really guarantee that? My brother and I look nothing like my mother, we are both the carbon copy of my father. Even so some donor egg kids surprisingly look very much like their moms, there are plenty of examples out there. My first born looks very much like his dad, but I had people (some who knew and some who didn’t know about the donor) telling me he has some of my expressions, and behaviorally…heck, he has so many of my idiosyncrasies, it’s not even funny (my husband says he is worse than me)!!! So, to the women who fear the lack of similarities and connection I would say to look into epigenetics, it is no joke! The gestational carrier does influence the baby, the environment in which the embryo/fetus develop can turn on and off certain genes, and that makes a big difference! In addition, when you go through this process you borrow one cell, the other cell is your husband’s and the rest of the baby is built by your body, day after day, for 38 weeks. If while making a cake you borrow a few eggs from the neighbor, that cake is still yours, because you made it, and I promise you will love that cake with a love you never through possible! He calls “mama” approximately 21,325,678 times a day, hugs me tight, kisses me, he is all mine. Honestly, most days I don’t even remember or think about the fact that he doesn’t have my DNA.

Did you change any lifestyle habits after your losses and, if so, how?

We were already pretty healthy, both fit, with a dislike for restaurants and eating out. I never had any problems spending money on good food and cooking, because I believe we are what we eat, so good quality food was always on our tables, but we did take it to a different level while trying to conceive. We paid more attention to choosing organic foods and looking at the sources of the food, we still do. For a while we went vegan/vegetarian, then I resorted to including some seafood especially when pregnant, but to this day I don’t really eat meat/poultry. In terms of life-style I started paying a lot more attention to the detergents we used, both for clothing, cleaning and for bodywash. I don’t use a lot of cosmetics, but I stopped buying them at the grocery stores, I make sure I know what the ingredients are, and, just like with the food we eat, cosmetics and creams don’t need to contain a lot of ingredients. I am a chemist so that helps me a bit in distinguishing between health hypes and reality. Overall, we keep it simple, we cook even more at home, we don’t buy junk, and we pay a lot of attention to what we use to clean our clothes, our home and ourselves.

You had 3 miscarriages.  How did you manage to recover after each pregnancy loss, to keep the faith and not give up? Did you ever lose hope and, if so, how did you manage to recover it?

It is never easy to lose a pregnancy, but the first we lost was so unexpected that we almost thought: “It’s OK, we’ll get married and try again.” It was painful, but it almost worked as a wake-up call: “Hey you are old, time to grow up and get things going guys.” We thought it was going to be easy, if we could get pregnant without even trying, we trusted our healthy habits and overall health. The second loss hurt more, because at that point we were actively pursuing it, and not achieving it, plus a year had gone by with nothing to show for so many attempts, but we still though there were a lot stones we had left unturned so we were not completely discouraged. The discouragement came later...during the inseminations and seeing no third natural pregnancy coming for over a year. So we made peace with the donor eggs process, and were very hopeful.

The one loss that was totally devastating was the loss of the first donor egg pregnancy. After everything that we had gone through, the difficult decision, the compromise of not using my eggs, the money spent…it had to work, we had seen a heartbeat, it was unconceivable for it not to work… But it didn’t… I was in pieces, totally crushed. I told my husband “no more” and broke his heart (he confessed later). Then after crying all the tears I had to cry, I went through all the stages of grief: the disbelief, the desperation, the anger, the “why me?”, and finally the acceptance, and eventually somehow I picked myself up and I found the courage to try again. We had four embryos left, I couldn’t leave them frozen, could I? So, we talked to our doctor, he recommended the antibiotic cycle and the tests that revealed I had a clotting issue (I never suspected I could have a health condition!), and we dove in once again. How was that pregnancy? Smooth, but PTSD is real, I never relaxed with the pregnancy that gave us our son. Besides close family and friends, nobody knew I was pregnant until the 20 weeks anatomy scan, and I waited even longer with people who could not see the growing belly, but even after that I wasn’t at peace. I almost didn’t want a baby shower. Am I at peace now with the current pregnancy? Despite being only a few weeks from delivery, not really… When telling the story earlier I forgot to mention that this pregnancy wasn’t all smooth, we actually had two big bleeds with clots at 6 and 10 weeks, I can’t tell you how that felt, after a failed implantation on the previous try and knowing we only had one embryo left after this. Thankfully the baby was still OK after the bleeds, but I still waited at least 20 weeks to tell most people. So frankly, although I relaxed a little, I will be at peace only when he is out and healthy.

Did you learn any lessons from/along your fertility journey? Was there a purpose in your season of waiting? If you could go back in time, would you change anything?

I met my husband when I was almost 37, so although we could have started trying a little sooner instead of waiting three years, I don’t know if it would have made a big difference. For reproductive purposes I was already old when I met him. I believe he was worth the wait; he is the best husband and the best dad we could have hoped for, and he has been my rock during these difficult years, always trying to give me/us different perspectives when I was trying to dig myself a hole and bury myself in it. So, I guess there was purpose in waiting, this is the life that was meant for me, this is what I was waiting for. In retrospect, we could have saved ourselves the last year of trying if we had just moved straight to donor eggs, but we weren’t ready, so be it. I am very happy now, so happy it scares me sometimes, I am in love with my three boys, and I can’t wait to meet the youngest member of our family in a few weeks, I am complete.

What is your message to the women and couples struggling with infertility?  

I feel you, I was you, I had a happy ending, and there might be a happy ending for you too, the modalities of that happiness might not be clear to you yet, or you might not be ready for it yet, but it’s possible. It’s possible and when/if it happens to you it is totally worth the pain you are going through right now. It is worth every miscarriage, every D&C, every tear, every injection and bruise on your sore body and soul.

I am not saying that the donor egg route is the answer for everybody, and clearly it doesn’t give 100% success rates. I consider myself lucky that we obtained several good embryos, and that my body cooperated with pregnancy, despite a few hiccups, because I know that is not always the case. We have friends who ended up adopting, after many cycles of own egg, donor egg, and donor embryo IVF. Adoption is a way to parenthood too, by no means easy, but it’s a way for many.

So I would say: ask yourself how much you really want to be parents, and if it’s really really important for you, do everything you can to achieve it, give yourself time to come to any compromise you might have to make, and pull the trigger. It’s very easy to get stuck in the loop of “this time it will work” and before you know it, years have gone by. For us the answer was donor eggs, for you it might be something else, it’s about finding the motivation to move forward against all odds, and possibly having to give up something that seemed indispensable, but maybe isn’t after all, like DNA.

A family is not about genes, it’s about love.

I wish you all the best of luck!

M.