A Glimpse into my Infertility Experience
Infertility is a condition that will really consume you. It has this power to drive a wall between people who never have and never will experience it, and people who are in the thick of it. Like a darkness, it creeps in and clouds your heart and mind, creating a bitterness towards people who get pregnant easily and towards people who (without ill-intent) shrug your problems off with a “just have a few margaritas, relax, and have sex…it’ll happen!” Just when you feel you might be comfortable enough to tell someone that you’re going through fertility treatments, they’ll respond with “well, my spouse and I never had those problems, we just popped each kid out, one after the other,” leaving you there fighting back tears as you smile at them and say “you were very fortunate.” Infertility teaches you how to put on a mask, even around the people you love. A friend or family member announces their pregnancy and you smile, hug, and congratulate them, while you can literally feel your heart shattering into tiny fragments because two weeks earlier you got the big, fat negative on your own pregnancy test after doing a double embryo transfer. You scroll through Instagram and double-tap on the 20 new pregnancy announcements, while behind the screen of your phone you feel your jealous tears of self-pity hitting your cheeks. You try and convince yourself that somewhere deep inside you are truly happy for others, but all you really feel at that moment is numb. You start telling yourself that there is definitely something wrong with you, you should be happy for others…
The above paragraph was something that I wrote in October of 2020, when I was going through the most isolating and depressive stage of fertility treatments. The rest of this post, I admittedly wrote the majority of two years ago, while I was still pregnant with my daughter and finally had the emotional strength to talk about any of it. This isn’t even to speak to the 100+ injections that went into it (and by “it” I mean my stomach and my behind). This post more so speaks to the emotions of infertility and to share some things that helped change the course of the way things were going when they weren’t going well. I fully respect that each woman’s experience with infertility is so unique, and that though we ultimately ended up achieving our goal of having two children, the road to get there involved so many valid moments of major disappointment. I have heard stories about and seen social accounts of women who are going through something like their 10th cycle and still holding out hope, and my heart goes out to them. When we struggled to get pregnant with a second child, I spent the better part of a year and a half internalizing the most awful feelings, trying to pretend that life felt okay (despite also being in the middle of a pandemic). It was a pretty dark phase, where, if I’m being honest, it really was hard work to be happy for anyone else. Seeing a pregnancy announcement was soul-crushing and I forced myself to stay off of social media for several months to protect my mental health. Social distancing was my saving grace from having to endure a baby shower. Only once I was far enough into my second pregnancy, was I finally ready to start emotionally rejoining the world and sharing in others’ happiness again. I really hated myself while harboring all of that negativity, but I also know that I am not the only person who has experienced those feelings. Now I have come back to finally write the rest of this, and I’d like to say that for anyone having to go through this emotionally draining chapter of life, I see you. I used to constantly scour the internet and forums for stories from other women going through something similar so that I wouldn’t feel quite so alone. Therefore, I feel it important to share my story in case there is anyone else out there doing the same. If you‘re reading this, hopefully it will speak to you and validate you.
When we decided to start trying to have children, I was 28. After 6+ months of no success, the protocol was to have a variety of tests done - CBC’s, thyroid panels, an HSG, genetic screening, ultrasounds, etc. Everything - including my husband’s tests - came back normal, so I was labeled as having “unexplained infertility.” Sure, give the woman with a Type A personality the non-identifiable problem, and therefore, no specific solution. My body wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, and I couldn’t force it to. Even though my intuition had told me I might have some difficulty getting pregnant, I wasn’t prepared for the constant disappointment that accompanied it. So, at the beginning of 2017, we launched right into IVF because I was told that was the closest I could get to maybe explaining the challenges we were having, and also because my brain wouldn’t consider any other options, least of all another month of failure. After our first cycle of IVF, where we ended up with only one viable embryo out of 8 that had fertilized, my doctor came to the determination that the problem was most likely the quality of my eggs. Considering that egg quality is usually judged by a woman’s age, this felt unfair, since I was “so young” by fertility standards. At least that's what everyone kept saying. However, I didn’t give it much thought since I got my son out of that one embryo. Naive Charlotte figured maybe we’d just get lucky and have it happen naturally the next time, since now we at least knew the process could actually happen for us from start to finish.
That is, until the time came when we wanted a second child. It didn’t happen naturally. So, at the end of 2019 after several unsuccessful months, we started our 2nd cycle of IVF (same doctor, different lab). I had been taking CoQ10 supplements for a couple months prior, and we ended up with 5 genetically viable embryos out of 20 eggs retrieved, which felt promising. I also felt confident because my pregnancy with my son had me fooled into thinking that this second cycle would also be a piece of cake. Well, the first embryo (which was considered the best one) didn’t implant. The second one did, and then I miscarried. I have never felt my stomach sink so low in my body, and I will never forget receiving that phone call while I was at work…my Hcg levels had stopped rising, she said. I immediately dissociated. Within 10 minutes, I had talked to my office manager, the office canceled all of my patients and I drove to my parents house, where we were living at the time. I have since blacked out most everything from that day except for the 3 hours that I lay in my parents’ bed crying to my mom. The thought of having to start all over again was overwhelming enough, and then less than a week later, the pandemic shut the whole world down. Forced into taking a break from the whole thing, we had to wait a few months for fertility clinics to get the OK to reopen. When they finally did, I impulsively had two embryos transferred at the same time, neither of which implanted. In my mind, I started blaming the laboratory because it was a different one from the one where my son was transferred, and I felt like maybe their protocol was wrong…maybe they had ruined my embryos…maybe they didn’t give me the right preparation instructions. I wanted to blame anything or anyone besides myself. It didn’t help that each additional embryo transfer after the first one was $4,000 a pop. No aspect of IVF is a walk in the park. We only had resources to do one more round, and I was ready to try anything to make is successful. My doctor, as wonderful as she was, wasn’t sure what to do next, so she referred me to the reproductive endocrinologist who did her IVF.
If you know me well, you probably know that I’m not always the biggest fan of change, but it sure can be a blessing in disguise sometimes. With my new doctor came more testing as well as 4 months of preparation to boost the quality of my eggs before the actual IVF. This involved some major lifestyle changes like handfuls of daily supplements, going gluten-free and sugar-free, eliminating alcohol, no perfume, no nail polish (that was a tough one for me), no use of plastic-ware, and the list goes on. With this being our final cycle, she said that we might as well put in the work to make it as successful as possible. Listed below are all of the things that I did to boost my egg quality and prepare for the cycle. However, please note that I am not a doctor and this is not a substitute for your doctor’s advice! I am sharing because I know that sometimes people like to compare and contrast what their regimen is. But please follow your doctor’s instructions, as they are trained in what they’re doing. After following my doctor’s orders, I am certain that all of her expertise and my hard work making lifestyle changes made the difference, since we had 10 embryos go off for genetic testing, with 6 of them coming back euploid and normal, and then I got pregnant with my daughter on the first transfer.
Endometrial Receptivity Assay (ERA) - A test where you do a mock embryo transfer (with estrogen pills and progesterone shots) to make sure you have the right amount of progesterone in your body on the day you transfer an embryo. Lo and behold, my results came back “pre-receptive,” which meant that I required extra hours of progesterone. My doctor literally had a calculator on her phone to help determine the exact hour to do my embryo transfer based on my progesterone levels.
Carrier screening for MTHFR deficiency, which I tested positive for. Methylated folate for the win. Apparently it is more ideal to take methylated folate as opposed to folic acid.
Supplements! Handfuls and handfuls of supplements by Designs for Health. Here’s what I took:
Berberine Synergy (immune system & blood sugar)
Q-Evail (CoQ10 - big one for egg quality)
S-acetyl Glutathione Synergy (antioxidant)
Vitamin D
Mitochondrial NRG (for mitochondrial metabolism)
Sensitol (support for insulin function)
Prenatal Pro Essential Packets (prenatal vitamins, fish oil, calcium)
Daily smoothie of PaleoGreens and PaleoReds powders + Whole Body Collagen
Acupuncture - weekly, and two additional sessions immediately before and after my embryo transfer.
Diet changes - gluten-free and no added sugars (date sugar, coconut sugar, and maple syrup acceptable in small amounts). As someone with a HUGE sweet tooth, this one was hard. I made a lot of recipes from the Sweet Laurel dessert cook book, since she uses a lot of clean ingredients and no gluten. I also bought a lot of red lentil or chickpea pastas to substitute gluten carbs. If anyone is curious about what kinds of meals I would put together, I can always share and make a post about that.
After my embryo transfers, I also followed my doctor’s advice to watch comedy movies (Bridesmaids, House Bunny, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and wear warm, fuzzy socks and eat warm foods. Call it superstition, but I was willing to do whatever it took. I now find it a tradition to buy my girlfriends warm socks when they are about to embark on an embryo transfer to bring them good luck.
Ultimately, I will never know the real reason why I couldn’t get pregnant naturally. Does that still bother me? Sometimes, a little bit. I don’t like having “unexplained” anything, though it seems to be a common theme in my life. And if I’m being honest, just because the process worked in the end, doesn’t mean that all of the demons that came with it are gone. I still have moments where I get bitter about certain parts of it, but it’s much easier to shake those feelings off now than it was when I was really going through it. I can still remember how it felt to be the person who wrote that depressed paragraph about infertility on her iPhone notepad app during her lunch break at work, but I am not trapped in her mindset anymore. The silver lining is that we ended up with the kids who were meant to be in our life, and that’s why the universe carved our path this way. Although, I’m not sure I completely forgive it for the heartache we had to go through…maybe one day.
