Emily and Mitchell’s IVF Journey
Hi Everyone! Emily and Mitchell here :) We are trying to raise money for IVF so we can finally become parents and have our rainbow baby. I am 27 and Mitchell is 32, we have been together for 9 years and married for 5 years. I am an Early Childhood Educator and absolutely love my job! Mitchell is currently an AIN looking for work to help look after our elderly ❤️
Our Journey started 8 years ago... Our very first pregnancy 2014, although I was only 19 when we fell pregnant it was one of the most exciting times and instant love for the little bean growing inside of me. It was all I have ever dreamed of from when I was a little girl, to be a mum one day! Our exciting news soon turned into heartbreak and devastation that I couldn’t understand. Baby had no heartbeat and stopped growing at 11 weeks. Our first pregnancy, first miscarriage and first D&C of unfortunately many. 2015 We fell pregnant again with a beautiful little boy Mason. Everything was going well with the pregnancy until I was accidentally kicked in the stomach by a young child at my work. I went straight to ED where they checked baby’s heartbeat, everything looked ok. 3 weeks later at exactly 16 weeks I started to get a little bit of bleeding, I went to ED again to be checked, I thought bub was going to be ok, later that day we found out baby had no heartbeat and was measuring 3 weeks behind. We spent the next few days in and out of doctors and hospitals having numerous tests and scans. Still in denial and disbelief. Our baby was not gone it couldn’t be true. On Tuesday 29th September 2015 my waters broke at home I was having very intense contractions, I was in labour. At 2.03am Mason James was born, weighing a tiny 50 grams and 13 centimetres long. Tiny but perfect little baby boy. How can life be so cruel? How do you cope when you can’t cope? After loosing Mason I fell into depression, put on a lot of weight and had an awful time with work with no support, care or empathy. Time felt slow and fast at the same time. Time went by, we got married in 2016 the most amazing day of our lives! We felt like absolute royalty! 2017 pregnancy number 3! Each time we found out we were pregnant was the most exciting and terrifying times! Those 2 pink lines are the most incredible thing to see when you have been hoping, wanting, dreaming, wishing, praying for, for so long. Sooner then the lines turned pink our world once again turned upside down. Waiting for those hcg levels to rise and the first ultrasound to see the tiny little sac and fetal pole. We hear those dreaded words once again. “I’m sorry there is no heartbeat.” Miscarriage number 3, D&C number 3. New specialists, doctors, tests, scans, vitamins. “You have Lupus”, “You don’t have lupus.” “Everything is fine.” “Your still young.” 2019 pregnancy/miscarriage number 4, a chemical pregnancy. October 2019, with still no answers to our infertility we underwent our first round of IVF. More tests, injection needles, oral medication, scans, bloodtests. We had 19 eggs collected! Seeing the number 19 written on my hand when I woke up from egg collection surgery was like I had won the lotto and had given me hope that we would actually get to become parents and have our take home rainbow baby! We made 4 beautiful looking blastocyst embryos. Our first fresh transfer did not implant. We waited a couple of months and did a frozen transfer in June 2020 in the midst of Covid. Our beautiful little embryo stuck! In absolute disbelief at the 2 tiny little pink lines that came up only 4 days after transferring our little embryo, we were pregnant! We were over the moon! I felt this little embryo was finally our turn to be parents. The bloodtest hcg levels started being monitored, morning sickness kicked in full swing. Our first scan! We saw our beautiful little baby and the most beautiful heartbeat, it was truly incredible. Too good to be true! I had to keep telling myself this was real and not a dream. But oh how I was so wrong! A few days later my morning sickness stopped, very concerned I asked for another scan to check bub. The scan showed no heartbeat once again our world came crashing down. A few more days passed and we received a phone call from a nurse from the IVF clinic. “They got the scan wrong, a heartbeat was detected.” Omg I started freaking out as I had been told to stop all medication to allow my body to miscarry naturally and now being told our baby has a heartbeat and I could have just potentially jeopardised our pregnancy by stopping all my support to keep this little one safe. A few days later we went for another ultrasound, where they told us once again “I’m sorry but I can’t find a heartbeat.” We get a glimmer of hope again for it to be ripped out of our hearts in a matter of seconds. By this stage we decided to approach a new Fertility Specialist who is known as a miracle worker and very well spoken of in the IVF world. He was our only hope to get some answers. Our first appointment with him via Skype we had a plan! We felt at ease and had complete trust in him. He suggested I have another D&C so we can get baby tested to see if there were any chromosomal issues, so we could hopefully finally have some answers why we keep loosing our babies. We went to our local hospital straight to ED to explain our situation and organise a D&C. I felt very uneasy during our experience with the local ED and had a very bad feeling that something was going to go wrong. The doctor reluctantly agreed to do a D&C, I explained we need it done so we can get some answers, we have lost 5 babies with no answer as to why. I went in for my D&C surgery on a Monday August 31st 2020. I made sure to advocate for myself and reminded all of the staff that were involved in my care and surgery that baby needed to be sent for testing. I got an ok and grunt from the doctor and off I went to sleep. Later that evening once I was recovering at home we received a phone call from the nurse that was looking after me in hospital. She called to tell us “I’m very sorry but your baby was put in a solution called formalin, so they can no longer be tested.” Numbness, anger, disbelief, is this really happening? Why? How? What have we done to deserve any of this? Life has been very unfair. October 2020 we flew to QLD to meet our new fertility specialist in person. I had my first laparoscopy surgery with our new FS. I was diagnosed with PCOS, endometriosis, Natural Killer Cells and a Full DQ Alpha Gene Match with Mitchell. Finally we have some answers. My body attacks our embryos. We went through our second IVF stimulation cycle in QLD, where we had 26 eggs collected! Amazing! Out of 26 eggs we ended up with 4 blastocyst embryos once again. This time we had all 4 embryos tested. Only 1 embryo came back chromosomally normal and suitable for a transfer. $35,000 we have already spent on IVF with no little miracle to show for yet. Our next step we have to do a 3rd stimulation cycle to try and get some more chromosomally normal embryos so we have a chance to have a healthy baby and finally become parents. Once we do our next cycle, we then have to travel to Melbourne and meet with our reproductive immunologist to help lower my immune response and stop my body from attacking our babies. They will do a treatment called LMIT, where they will take Mitchell’s blood and inject it into me so my body becomes immune to his DNA and hopefully won’t reject our embryos. Once we have 2 LMIT treatments we will then travel back to QLD where I will undergo a hysteroscopy surgery and endometrial scratch to give my body the best chance to support our embryos and create a healthy environment for successful pregnancy and birth. Once we have all this treatment and surgery we can transfer another embryo! I will be on daily injections, fortnightly infusions, oral medication and progesterone suppositories for atleast 8 months of pregnancy to be able to have the best possible outcome. Our next lot of treatment to have a chance to become parents will cost atleast $14,000. IVF cycle is approximately $11,500 upfront, medications, surgery, travel interstate for treatments, and fortnightly intralipids infusions costing $430 every fortnight. If you can help out any way at all we will appreciate it very much. We really hope our dreams can finally come true. Much love for reading this far
Lots of love
Emily and Mitchell ❤️
