Angela and Tanner
Charlotte and Mike
Regional Fertility Program – #ShareYourStory Campaign
Fertility journeys can take a physical, mental and financial toll. For Charlotte and her husband, their journey saw the raw pain and heartbreak accompanied by amazing support of friends and family. Read about their heart-breaking journey and incredible resilience.
My cycles were irregular and nothing had happened. In the winter of that year I started seeing a new family doctor who diagnosed me with PCOS. I had heard of it from friends and knew that Clomid had been known to help women with PCOS ovulate. My doctor decided it was an option and the same day we started Clomid we found out the results of my husband’s sperm assessment. It came back that Mike’s sperm was 99% abnormal. I knew right then and there Clomid would not work.
I researched the heck out of it and found that we would have to do IVF with ICSI. At this time, we were referred to the Calgary Regional Fertility Clinic. We had our first meeting with Dr. O’Keane in July. We were excited! Dr. O’Keane ordered tests for me. In September 2015, I had the HSG test. This test was so painful, and it appeared my tubes were blocked. Surgery was scheduled for January 2016. Dr. O’Keane determined that my tubes were in fact not blocked, and that my body had just seized from the pain during the HSG test. He also removed adhesions. We were than on track to try IUIs.
Well our prayers were answered and by October 2017 we said yes to IVF with ICSI! We were excited and scared. We tried our best to prepare ourselves for the worst but that did not work. On December 5th, 2017 we retrieved 20 eggs! They ICSI 14 and 10 fertilized. On December 10th, 2017 we transferred our fresh embyro and had 4 preserved. We thought we would have our Christmas miracle.
Sadly, Christmas Day we found out we would not get to meet Baby D as we lovingly called him/her. We were devasted. We did not know how we could afford a frozen transfer. So God placed friends to pay for our transfer. We were amazed. Even more amazed when we found out that we were pregnant in April 2018 from transferring 2 frozen embyros. But quickly, it became a nightmare. My beta levels were too low, which resulted in bloodwork everyday. My levels rose and than dropped and than rose. April 30th, 2018, I began bleeding a lot. That is when I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy. They gave me methotrexate. But, by Friday I was in pain and so I was rushed into surgery. They removed part of my right fallopian tube. The next day we attended the Images of Hope Gala where we used some of our tax refund to purchase a frozen transfer. Little did we know the nightmare to come. By Wednesday I was in so much pain I could barely bend over. On Friday I finally got checked out at Urgent Care. They sent me by ambulance to Foothills where I spent the next 5 days with an infection and hematoma on my bladder. A drain was put in. It was such a dark time. I still cannot see anything but darkness looking back.
After healing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally we were ready to transfer our last two frozen embyros. November 2018, we did a secret transfer. I knew a week later that I was pregnant. It was confirmed with my beta at 1638. We figured it was twins. Sure enough, when I started bleeding on December 8th, 2018 we found 2 gestational sacs in the correct spot! We were excited! But sadly, this all turned to pain as January 4th, 2019 we found out we had lost our sweet twins. We just had our D&C on Monday. We are heartbroken. We have no living children. This is a tough journey. I am so grateful to have my faith in God, my husband Mike, and a large fertility support group. We are grateful to have Dr. O’Keane as well. We will figure out next steps Tuesday!