Why are we doing IVF?
This is the story of how my husband and I ended up doing IVF. Remember - everyone’s story is unique! This just happens to be mine.
My husband and I got married in April of 2024. We had a long engagement and had already been living together for a few years. We felt really settled in before the wedding, and were able to have such a great celebration with our family and friends - knowing that we would comfortably settle back into our routine when the chaos of wedding planning was over. WRONG. We took a 2-week honeymoon, and when we returned we found out that we were blessed with a wedding-night baby. I don’t know how often that happens, but I was shocked.
“It was going to be perfect”
The shock of the timing quickly turned into excitement for us. We felt ready enough. Sure, there were some things that would need to be figured out, but we really felt like we could take on the family life. We owned our house and both our vehicles, and like I mentioned, we had been living together for a few years. We already had dogs and young nieces and nephews, and it just seemed like the timing was right. To make things that much more exciting, our best friends had just found out they were expecting too, and we were only two weeks apart. (Tune into these 6 Pregnancy Podcasts every expecting parent should listen to). It was going to be perfect - we could have a combined gender reveal, shared birthday parties, and they would get to grow up enjoying all the same stages of life together. (Check out these Ideas for your IVF Pregnancy Announcement). Not to mention how much easier it would be to plan adult activities with kids of the same age. It honestly seemed too good to be true, so of course it actually was too good to be true.
I was determined to be some version of healthy while I was pregnant. I immediately cut all my bad habits and switched to a Mediterranean diet. I also dialed back my gym routine so that even though I was still going every day, it felt much easier and I wasn’t sore or tired. I figured that my body needed all that extra energy for the creation of new life.
A few days before my 7-week ultrasound (this is pretty early, and not typical), I went out with a few girlfriends to do a short hike for some outdoor yoga at sunset. It was a slow vinyasa, and definitely more of a relaxing stretch than an intense session. I remember laying on my back on my mat and looking up at the scattered pink clouds with the deep blue sky behind them and I felt at peace. I was excited to be a mom. I had married the love of my life. The wedding went smoothly and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. My in-laws are cool. I had a dream honeymoon - two weeks in Bali. My friends were healthy and good influences in my life. And here I was - about to be a cool, yoga mom, and start a family. I laid there and stared at the sky, with an immense feeling of relaxation and peace.
“I had a life-threatening rupture”
One of my friends asked if I wanted to hike to the top of the ridge to watch the last of the sunset after yoga. I felt great, and was down to hike some more. We got to the top of the ridge and the group was taking photos, enjoying the sunset, and chatting. I didn’t participate much though, I was starting to feel different. I was nauseous, and my stomach was upset. I thought maybe I had pushed myself a bit too hard with both yoga and a climb to the top of the ridge. My friends didn’t know I was pregnant yet, because I was only 7 weeks. I thought to myself, I’ll just hang in there until we get to the car, and go home and rest. On the climb back down from the ridge I started to have cramping - intense cramping. I was short of breath and having a hard time holding a conversation. One of the girls asked if I was okay, and I told her that I was just having some weird cramps and that I was fine. On our hike back to the car, I started to fall behind. The pain was intense and it was not letting up. I didn’t know at the time, but I had a life-threatening rupture in a fallopian tube, and I was bleeding out.
The situation worsened as we drove back towards town. After a stressful confession to my friends that I was pregnant, we had to pull over so I could throw up on the side of the road. They called my husband, who rushed across town to meet up with us when we arrived. I told him I was just cramping, and thankfully he insisted on taking me to the ER. The waiting room was very full when I walked in, barefoot, sandy and sweating. I told the nurse I was pregnant and was shocked that they immediately brought a wheelchair to take me to a room. I thought for sure I’d have a few hours in the waiting room. They gave me morphine to help with the pain and it had no impact. I couldn’t lay back in the bed, and was having extreme shortness of breath and sweating. They gave me two more doses of morphine before I could even lay back in the bed or relax my muscles and I started to worry that this was more serious than cramping. After some very painful testing they informed me that they were worried I had a ruptured fallopian tube and that it would require immediate surgery. There was too much “fluid” in my abdomen to make a certain diagnosis but they would know for sure when they got me into surgery. I acknowledged that we were losing the pregnancy before going into surgery, and was mostly concerned with stopping the pain at that point. They let my husband walk with us all the way to the door of the operating room, and I don’t remember much past that point.
“I had been medically sterilized”
I woke up with every muscle in my body feeling like I had vigorously lifted weights for days on end. The pain in my neck was so severe that I could barely move my head. My husband was sleeping on the little couch in my room, and machines were hooked up to me everywhere. I laid there and stared at the walls, really not wanting to move, until my nurse came in to tell me the doctor wanted to talk. They didn’t wake my husband, who had been up all night by my side. That conversation with the doctor changed my life forever. When they opened me up during surgery, there was 2 liters of blood in my abdomen. The “free” blood prevented the doctor from making a full diagnosis before surgery. It was a life-threatening rupture and I was lucky to make it through the surgery without a blood transfusion. The doctor told me that I only had one good fallopian tube, the other was severely damaged due to endometriosis (that I didn’t know I had). Unfortunately, the good one had ruptured and both tubes had to be removed during surgery. I had been medically sterilized as part of this life-saving procedure and I would never have children naturally. After a sleepless night and pumped full of pain medication, all I could think to say was “okay”.
“All I could say was okay”
To find out what happened next in our journey, read my article on From Lemons to Love >
For more information on IVF treatments, check out Allie Laurynn’s Complete Guide to IVF >
