Meet The Wheelers-Bringing Home Baby
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Mason and I started trying for a baby in January of 2013. I remember thinking to myself, "three or so months and the thing I've wanted most will FINALLY be in our near future." Gosh, if only we knew what was ahead. A little over a year later, with no positive tests, we eagerly walked ourselves into a fertility clinic. Just being there gave me so much peace. We did many many tests with them only to find out that what we needed, IVF, was somewhere around $30,000. We went home and continued to try naturally.
We popped our heads in a few times with that clinic but it always came down to IVF. We decided to get Mason tested, and we wish we would have way earlier. Our infertility is a male factor. But I've got my own issues so when you add the two of us together, it's really hard to get pregnant!
At this point, we were probably about 2 and a half years down the "trying for a baby" road. It felt like things were never going to happen. Everyone would say, "just relax!" or "it will happen when it happens." Ugh! I wanted to scream at them and tell them what was really on my mind. In August of 2015, we walked into Poma Fertility Clinic. Someone referred us to them and she said they are cheaper and have great success rates. We LOVED and still LOVE them!
We signed papers for our first IVF cycle and so began the drugs. Aaaaalllll of them. Injections. Pills. Patches. Injections...Egg retrieval quickly came and they got 32 eggs! Woohoo! We ended up with 4 embryos to freeze and 1 to transfer fresh. We transferred one little embie and then we waited. I got pretty sick from egg retrieval and ended up in the ER where they took a pregnancy test. It was like 4am on my birthday when we found out we were finally pregnant! Fast forward a few weeks to our first ultrasound. We had a few peeks at baby here and there when I was being drained every other day from OHSS but this was a REAL ultrasound, the one when we would see our little gummy bear. I was feeling pretty normal again, not sick, not tired, I was eating again. In the back of my head I felt something was wrong but we proceeded with the ultrasound. The doctor looked at me and said, "I don't think I'm going to be giving you good news today." He looked for a few more minutes at our baby who didn't grow. The little heart was still beating but had slowed down. I just remembering laying my face in my hands and crying. We were absolutely heartbroken. We had a D&C scheduled for the next week. Those 4-5 days leading up to our D&C was the hardest days. We took turns sobbing. October 27th was when we said goodbye to our first baby. We again, cried, sobbed, wept together until it was over. We were ready to move forward with our first FET or frozen embryo transfer.
Fast forward about three months, now we had hit the 3 year mark. We started more drugs, And transferred another good quality embryo. We got pregnant right away but only to find out it was a chemical pregnancy, or a very early miscarriage. There was never a heartbeat. We couldn't believe it. Fast forward again to the middle of March. We decided to transfer TWO ✌️embryos in hopes of possibly getting twins but more so to "double" our chances of a successful transfer. Guess what? IT DIDNT WORK We could not believe it. Us being shocked was an understatement.
This brought us to our final embryo transfer. Our final embryo, the little embryo that could, our one last shot before making the decision to start an entire new cycle of IVF. Mason and I went into this last one expecting the worst. We'd either finally have our baby on the way or we'd be relieved of the financial stress the last 10 months had put on us.
Well, that last "little embryo that could" didn't work. We were sad and relieved. We had just finished a complete round of IVF and it totally failed. We did however make a whole new family at Poma and wouldn't begin to think about doing IVF with anyone else.
So here we are again, saving up for an entire new round of IVF with hopes and prayers that this will bring us our baby. We cannot thank those of you who have helped us out so far enough... Such a blessing!
We popped our heads in a few times with that clinic but it always came down to IVF. We decided to get Mason tested, and we wish we would have way earlier. Our infertility is a male factor. But I've got my own issues so when you add the two of us together, it's really hard to get pregnant!
At this point, we were probably about 2 and a half years down the "trying for a baby" road. It felt like things were never going to happen. Everyone would say, "just relax!" or "it will happen when it happens." Ugh! I wanted to scream at them and tell them what was really on my mind. In August of 2015, we walked into Poma Fertility Clinic. Someone referred us to them and she said they are cheaper and have great success rates. We LOVED and still LOVE them!
We signed papers for our first IVF cycle and so began the drugs. Aaaaalllll of them. Injections. Pills. Patches. Injections...Egg retrieval quickly came and they got 32 eggs! Woohoo! We ended up with 4 embryos to freeze and 1 to transfer fresh. We transferred one little embie and then we waited. I got pretty sick from egg retrieval and ended up in the ER where they took a pregnancy test. It was like 4am on my birthday when we found out we were finally pregnant! Fast forward a few weeks to our first ultrasound. We had a few peeks at baby here and there when I was being drained every other day from OHSS but this was a REAL ultrasound, the one when we would see our little gummy bear. I was feeling pretty normal again, not sick, not tired, I was eating again. In the back of my head I felt something was wrong but we proceeded with the ultrasound. The doctor looked at me and said, "I don't think I'm going to be giving you good news today." He looked for a few more minutes at our baby who didn't grow. The little heart was still beating but had slowed down. I just remembering laying my face in my hands and crying. We were absolutely heartbroken. We had a D&C scheduled for the next week. Those 4-5 days leading up to our D&C was the hardest days. We took turns sobbing. October 27th was when we said goodbye to our first baby. We again, cried, sobbed, wept together until it was over. We were ready to move forward with our first FET or frozen embryo transfer.
Fast forward about three months, now we had hit the 3 year mark. We started more drugs, And transferred another good quality embryo. We got pregnant right away but only to find out it was a chemical pregnancy, or a very early miscarriage. There was never a heartbeat. We couldn't believe it. Fast forward again to the middle of March. We decided to transfer TWO ✌️embryos in hopes of possibly getting twins but more so to "double" our chances of a successful transfer. Guess what? IT DIDNT WORK We could not believe it. Us being shocked was an understatement.
This brought us to our final embryo transfer. Our final embryo, the little embryo that could, our one last shot before making the decision to start an entire new cycle of IVF. Mason and I went into this last one expecting the worst. We'd either finally have our baby on the way or we'd be relieved of the financial stress the last 10 months had put on us.
Well, that last "little embryo that could" didn't work. We were sad and relieved. We had just finished a complete round of IVF and it totally failed. We did however make a whole new family at Poma and wouldn't begin to think about doing IVF with anyone else.
So here we are again, saving up for an entire new round of IVF with hopes and prayers that this will bring us our baby. We cannot thank those of you who have helped us out so far enough... Such a blessing!
Organizer
Mason Wheeler
Organizer
Lake Stevens, WA