Why I did IVF

Some of you have been with me since the beginning, but for those who haven't I want to touch base a little on why we chose IVF.

My husband and I have been together for over eight years however we didn't get engaged until November of 2011 and married October of 2012. I was 36 when we got married and then I turned 37 a month later. We started trying right away to have a baby because I had gotten off of birth control 4 or 5 months prior to the wedding. We knew it probably wouldn't happen right away and so we were patient. My best friend started trying the same month that we did and she got a BFP after the first try. Of course she is ten years younger so I chalked it up to that. After about five months I started talking to my husband about seeing a specialist and he was hesitant. I explained to him that if we had been trying for six months due to our age it was time. He kept saying that age was just a number but I knew better. In reproductive years I was around 85.

I went to an OBGYN first because I was over well over 40 days into my cycle without a period. She did a P4 test and determined that I was not ovulating and prescribed progesterone to jump start my period. The day that I was supposed to start the medication my period started. So after all that time I came to the conclusion that I hadn't been ovulating and that is why we weren't getting pregnant. She referred me onto a specialist.

My husband was trying to push Clomid and just to try on our own but I wanted more information. We made the appointment with the RE and had a great talk with them. They drew blood before I left to start the testing and then I came back early on in my cycle for more testing a few weeks later. My AMH came back good so I knew that I had eggs, my E2 levels came back good so we were on track there.. They determined that I may not ovulate every month but I was still ovulating.

The next step was to get my husband tested. His results came back and we were a lot closer to getting the mystery solved. Basically his motility and morphology was very poor. After you got rid of all of the bad sperm he only had about 2 or 3 million good ones. We were told that to conceive naturally our chances were well under 1% and if we tried IUI our chances were less than 3%. At this point I was getting closer to 38 and so we had to figure something out. We didn't have the luxury of being in our early twenties and giving it some time.

I had a lot of pressure from my mom to just pray and keep trying. Yes, I 100% believe that there is power in prayer but I also believe that God has given doctors the knowledge and the skill set to help us for a reason. I explained to my mom who was fighting cancer that it would be like me telling her not to get the surgery she needed to save her life, and to not do chemo and pray that God will take the cancer away. Once again, I believe that God can move mountains but he had given the doctors the knowledge to remove her tumor and God gave the people that invented chemo the knowledge to help keep the cancer at bay. Why would my situation be any different? I think that I may have gotten through to her a little bit.

So after a lot of prayer and soul searching we moved forward with IVF. Ultimately God was still creating our child through the hands of his children (the doctors). I firmly believe that he has the final say and his hand is in everything. The babies that I am carrying are a gift from God, not the doctor. My Savior breathed life into our embryos, my Savior guided them to implant, my Savior started their hearts. He has all control over life and death.

Everyone's opinion on IVF is very personal and I support every one of them. I would never judge anyone or think less of them. Unfortunately I have people in my life that are judging me and I know that they think less of me as a Christian. I am not angry with those who don't agree with my choice because that is their belief.

For those of you who have supported me through this blog I want to say thank you. Your cheers, prayers and well wishes mean the world to me. The time between now and July is going to be long and I couldn't do it without you.