How To Make A Baby

Thank you everyone for the outpouring of love and excitement over our big announcement yesterday. We had quite a few people ask how this baby came to be, which is a little personal unless you've spent the last 6 years sharing your entire infertility journey on the world wide web. This little munchkin is the result of a Valentine's Eve date night and a few cocktails. Who knew you could get pregnant just by having sex? ;) But there's a bit more to it than that. This baby may be a surprise, but it wasn't unplanned.

After we lost Baby E, we thought that would be it. After a few weeks though, we both agreed that we would always feel the "what if" if we didn't try again. 5 has been the number of kids in our minds since our first round of IVF. We both come from families with 5 siblings. Our first IVF gave us twins and 3 frozen embryos. 2+3=5. When we lost our frosties, our next round of IVF gave us twins and 1 frostie. 2+2+1=5 It's always seemed like 5 was the number of kids we were supposed to have.

Our problem has always been poor morphology and motility, basically the sperm are misshapen and don't swim well. There isn't a western medicine treatment to improve morphology and motility, so IVF is almost always recommended as a course of treatment. It's worked great for us in the past, but we couldn't justify another round IVF. There's some evidence that traditional Chinese medicine can help improve numbers. We decided to go that route and try naturally for a few months. Rob's acupuncturist said his kidney and liver function was out of balance, so he started weekly acupuncture and a ridiculous amount of herbs and supplements.

Bacopa, Zinc, Vitamin E, Oil of Oregano, Vital Essence, Multi Vitamin, Syntol AMD, Selenium, Fulvic & Humic Concentrate

It takes 3 months for any changes to be reflected in a semen analysis, so we tried naturally for a few months while Rob continued with the acupuncture and herbs. After 3.5  months Rob went in for a semen analysis and we were both optimistic that we would see some improvement in the numbers. Unfortunately the numbers came back pretty much unchanged. Still at less than 1% morphology and under 50% motility.

The next couple weeks were filled with a lot of disappointment, negativity, and inner reflection. We both went to some dark places before deciding that we were willing to give reproductive science another chance. IVF was still not a viable option. We couldn't justify creating multiple embryos in hopes of just one more baby. Our RE recommended we try a medicated IUI. We ordered the drugs and sat back to wait on a new cycle to start.

The morning our drugs were sent to be mailed out, I woke up early and took an HPT just to make sure we needed the meds. I was not expecting a positive result, so when the second line started to show up, I was in disbelief. I yelled at Rob to get out of bed and come into the bathroom. He saw it too, and immediately asked "Whose is it?"  That joke lasted a solid week or two, but the surprise is just now finally wearing off.

Since we recently had a loss, we still used our RE's office for early testing and ultrasounds. It was very reassuring to know our HCG levels were increasing, and to get two ultrasounds with confirmed heartbeat all before 10 weeks. It was also nice to only see one baby in there. It's crazy how much room there is with just one. We have graduated from our RE's office and are hopefully on our way to an uneventful, low risk pregnancy.

It's worth noting that the semen analysis and positive pregnancy test took place during the same cycle. There's no way to know if the acupuncture and herbs made a positive impact, but this is the first time we've had a spontaneous pregnancy in the 11+ years since we stopped using birth control. It's an awfully big coincidence. Although as our RE pointed out, "It just takes one."