My Year-Long Journey

February 18th, 2021 (The day after my 40th birthday): 

I will never forget that day. My husband and I were in Sedona, Arizona to celebrate my 40th birthday. We had just spent the previous day (my birthday) doing all the things I love: hiking (or more like walking on a trail, lol), drinking coffee, winery hopping, exploring places we’d never been, seeing beautiful scenery, shopping for art, eating delicious food. My heart was full. We were anxiously waiting on the results from our genetic testing, but we felt pretty positive about it. We had 3 embryos getting tested, so we thought for sure we would at least get one “normal” (euploid) embryo. 

I was drinking coffee in the lobby of our hotel when I saw the incoming call from our doctor’s office. I felt positive enough about the news to not even pause before I answered the call. After I said “Hello”, the doctor asked if it was an okay time to talk. I will never forget what he said next: “Unfortunately, I don’t have good news for you. All of your embryos came back with chromosomal abnormalities, so they were discarded.”

I’ve shared openly about the feelings and emotions that have come from that one, specific phone call. In all reality, that phone call is the reason I started my blog in the first place. (I won’t share all the details of my grief with you again since that day, but feel free to go back through my blog posts from last year if you are new here. Start with Infertility=Grief.) That phone call set me off on a journey I never planned on….one that was filled with grief, life lessons, self-discovery and a lot of prayer. 

It was a one-year journey that changed me forever…

February 18th, 2022 (The day after my 41st birthday): 

My husband and I went to a spa hotel a few hours away for a short, overnight trip for my 41st birthday (my idea, of course :)). It just so happened that my recent round of IVF had lined up to be exactly one year to the day of my last round. I knew I’d be hearing from my IVF doctor soon about the genetic test results of our 4 embryos. Thankfully the hotel didn’t allow phones in the common areas, so it was a good excuse to leave my phone in our room most of the day. I didn’t want to receive bad news on my birthday. And sure enough, I had a missed call from my doctor. I decided to wait until the next morning to call them back.

We played phone tag for a few hours in the morning of the 18th, but then finally around 11am when my husband and I were in the car on our way home, I saw the incoming call from Iowa City. I took a deep breath and said a very apprehensive “Hello?”. We exchanged a few pleasantries, but then got right to it. The tone of the doctor felt different this time around…lighter, maybe? He reiterated that we had 4 embryos biopsied and sent for genetic testing. I agreed. This is how I remember the conversation after that, he said: “You have one perfectly normal euploid embryo, which has a normal number of chromosomes. You have one abnormal embryo, an aneuploid, and then you have 2 mosaic embryos which have a combination of both normal and abnormal chromosomes.” Wait…we have one fully “normal” embryo? YAY! This is a first for us in the 1.5 years we have gone through IVF.

The doctor and I talked through in detail what all that means exactly and (for right now) I am not going to bore you with the details of it. Long story short, my husband and I will need to meet with a genetic counselor to talk through the two mosaic embryos in more detail. The doctor suggested we do that before we plan to transfer the normal embryo. 

There are still so many steps!

But here’s the deal. I’m not focusing on all the steps still in front of me right now. Today I am extremely thankful that I am sitting here with a chance at pregnancy in the future.

For those who don’t understand IVF and don’t really care to understand the details either (I get it!), this news means that I now have a chance at getting pregnant. It doesn’t mean I’m pregnant right now (not even close!), it doesn’t mean that I am guaranteed to get pregnant, it doesn’t mean that even if I get one embryo implanted into my uterus that I will stay pregnant. But you know what it does mean? My husband and I have a chance. A chance that I never thought was possible after that phone call on February 18th, 2021. 

I am now one year older and about 1,000 times wiser than I was on February 18th, 2021. This past year has been full of heartbreak, lots of questions, prayers, tears, grief…and then finally, acceptance. I got to the point where I accepted the fact that my husband and I could have a life without children. 

But out of everything I have learned this past year, here is absolutely the most important thing: I’ve learned to fully surrender to God’s will for my life. I have changed my prayers. I now ask for God’s will to be done instead of listing all of the million things I want for/in my life. When I look back, I know with 100% certainty that I needed to learn that lesson. And now I have finally got to the point where I, without a doubt, want God’s will to be done in my life and not my own desires. 

Maybe you’re wondering why that is…

The reason is because God’s will is always better. Always. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it play out in my life. This is just another example. I may not have wanted it to happen like this, but what I’ve gained on this journey of heartbreak is so much more than what I would’ve gained if what I wanted was so easily given to me. Our journey and our heartbreak should always teach us something. This year has taught me a lot and absolutely made me a better person. I’ve grown immensely.

So, I sit here today with a lot of gratitude in my heart, wisdom in my head and hope for what’s to come. I am not naïve. I know my heart can be broken again and there’s a huge chance that it will. The odds are always going to be against me due to my age. But I will carry the wisdom I’ve gained through this next phase of my IVF journey and continue to pray to God for His will to be done, just as I’ve learned. 

Please stay tuned to see how my journey unfolds….