Spring Stories: Amber’s IVF Journey to Motherhood

As I type, my daughter babbles in the background. Distracted by her gummy smile, it feels as if my infertility journey was another lifetime ago. An ongoing saga of disappointment, needles, not being heard, and appointments. When I look at her, it is almost as if it never occurred but the reality is that without Spring Fertility, I would not even be able to write this article. I took a leap of faith in trusting Doctor Klatsky and his process at Spring Fertility in New York City. 

I have wanted to be a mom, more than anything since I was a little girl. When my husband and I decided it was time to start our family, I had this gut feeling that it wouldn’t be easy so I wanted to be proactive. I scheduled a preconception appointment and expressed my concerns to the doctors and my OBGYN. I was dismissed, told that I was “young, healthy, and in shape and shouldn’t have a problem.” No bloodwork or tests were done.  

I went off of my birth  control and waited months for my cycle to return. Tracking and timing, and obsessing. Constantly messaging my OBGYN who continued to not share my concerns. When it finally did, it was evident I wasn’t ovulating. Enter Clomid, what I refer to now as the devil drug. Each month was another negative pregnancy test, a failed round of Clomid. This was the start of my masking, at work, around others, I was depressed and doing my best to keep this to ourselves. After a failed HSG test, my OBGYN finally said, “well it looks like you need to go to an infertility clinic.” Something I had been advocating for, for months. He had made me feel as if my anxiety was the reason why I wasn’t getting pregnant, which despite much misinformation is not a cause of infertility. Note, please do not ever tell someone struggling with infertility “just relax and it will happen”

Living in Western New York, there were only a few clinics to pick from…I used my planning and lunch breaks to call to see if there had been any cancellations or openings. I didn’t do research to figure out who was the best, I just took a spot at the clinic that could see me the soonest. As a teacher, I was trying to “get it all done” over summer vacation. Little did I know that “it” would be more than I had anticipated or was explained to me.

After an initial consult over the phone, my husband and I were told we would likely use letrozole or do IUI. I needed additional bloodwork and another HSG. My infertility was unexplained. We traveled almost an hour to the clinic for the procedure. Writhing in pain from what was an obvious blockage, the doctor finished the procedure, and while my legs were still in the stirrups, vulnerable and exposed, I was told we would need to do IVF instead. I was confused, and asked “well, will we go over this with my husband, he’s waiting in the room” to which the response was “there’s not much to go over, IUI has an 8% success rate and with you most likely having a blockage, IVF is your best option.” I cried while putting my clothes back on. My husband, the positive person that he is, kissed me and said we would make it happen. My coworker gifted me a journal, that I used to document the process. I thought I’d only fill a few pages, by the time our journey ended, I had filled the book. 

IVF were just letters to me, prior to my visit to the clinic. I was uneducated and blissfully unaware of how hard IVF could be. Luckily, I had a friend who had gone through the egg retrieval process, and she would become my personal cheerleader, checking in, cheering me on, and educating me about the all that IVF entails. I learned more from her, than my actual clinic. In my head, I was under the impression that IVF equals a baby, which isn’t the case. IVF equals an opportunity to have a baby, two very different things.  

Naive and oblivious, I started the IVF process with excitement. Everything was going according to my “teacher timeline” until it wasn’t. I suffered what the clinic believed was a chemical pregnancy. Instead of empathy, I was met with a “it was probably just a chemical pregnancy, so we have to wait to start your cycle.” I was grieving the baby that could have been, yet no one else around me saw it that way, so I felt as if I didn’t have the right to be sad. A lot of my journey, I felt as if I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to grieve the losses we experienced along the way. 

The first night of injections, I felt beyond overwhelmed. Needles don’t bother me and neither did stabbing myself, but I struggled with the fact that I, without a medical degree, was in charge of mixing my medications and injecting myself with an accurate dosage, day in and day out, to help create Baby Walther. Tensions were high in our household.

Summer mornings were spent getting blood work and dates with ‘Wanda’ - the internal sonogram wand. Appointments were a rollercoaster of emotions, I wanted to allow myself to feel the excitement that Baby Walther was in that bunch of growing follicles.

We drove an hour and a half for the procedure, I was EGGcited to find out we had ten eggs. I wished someone had taught us about egg and embryo attrition. Our ten eggs resulted in two embryos. I cried so hard, knowing that with PGTA testing, two embryos didn’t bode well. As my husband wiped my tears, he told me to have hope, that our baby was in there. After an agonizing ten days, we received the PGTA report of testing…zero viable embryos. I had asked the clinic to keep the gender private, since I did not want to know in case they were not viable. Instead, they made a mistake and emailed me the report anyway, including the gender. Our abnormal embabies, were a boy and a girl. It hurt more knowing the gender, the “what ifs” of our could have been, ripped away. 

The doctor told us this must have been a fluke. That it was abnormal for someone my age to have so few embryos. That if we tried again, it would be better with more medication. I was uneducated. I didn’t know that quality mattered more than quantity. 

The clock was ticking on my teacher timeline while my heart was broken from our failed round of IVF. “Well, I heard most people have to do more than one round of IVF anyway” a friend shared when I opened up about our loss. My stomach sank. Another person who invalidated my loss, my grief, and the toll that infertility can take on yourself and your relationships. After many tears, we decided to do another round of IVF before school started. 

WIth the support of my family and a few friends who understood how difficult this all was, we tried again. I didn’t document as much of this round, but I still journaled. My husband and I were elated when our embabies were “stronger than the statistics” since we had four embryos make it to the blast stage for genetic testing. Summer slipped away and school had started. I anxiously anticipated our PGTA results. I was so sure that round two was going to be our round. I printed pictures of our Day 5 embryo blasts, smiling and thinking, “which one will be Baby Walther?” and “I can’t wait to share a sonogram photo next to the embryo photo. 

It was the first day of school, I was waiting to teach my first class when my cell phone rang. All four embryos were not genetically viable. I could hear the despair in the technician’s voice telling me the news. I didn’t even say goodbye. I hung up the phone and sobbed. My heart shattered into a million little pieces, I already felt that I was mentally at a very low point and this just dragged me down further.I was weighed down by the reality of it all. Our second round of IVF was a fail and we only had one more round covered by insurance. I had no choice but to pull it together and teach the rest of the day. I masked my sadness all day, while carrying the weight that I would have to wait to tell my husband when he got home from coaching and work.

To make matters worse, the clinic made the same mistake again and sent me the report, including the gender of our four embabies. Three girls and one boy. An apology was offered but “I’m sorry” couldn’t make me forget that information. 

I wasn’t even offered a post retrieval meeting. I had to request one, as if it was an inconvenience to want to discuss what went wrong. The doctor was very matter of fact, that if we did one more round, we’d for sure get an embryo. We just had to give me more medication. 

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. A friend told me, it was time to look elsewhere in regards to clinics, since I had not found success two rounds in a row with my original clinic. I didn’t know what to do…there were no other options where I lived…so she suggested I see the best, Doctor Peter Klatsky in New York City at Spring Fertility.

I took a chance and signed up for a consultation and entered to win a fertility grant for a free cycle. After applying, I decided to go public about our infertility struggles. It was exhausting keeping this to ourselves and after our second failed round, I figured we could use all the love, support, prayers and manifesting possible. 

I was shocked when I found out I won the grant. At first, logistically, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. We were almost seven hours away, how could I get treated there? What would I do about work? How could we afford all the extra costs included like lodging and medication and transfer fees? My anxious brain wanted to say no, but my friend’s voice that “this is the best clinic” was louder than any anxieties I had.

The next month, my husband and I came and went from New York City in 24 hours to meet Doctor Klatsky and my patient care team. From the minute I stepped into their clinic, I knew that my experience with Spring would be different. I wasn’t just a patient here, I was a person. More importantly, I was a future mom, and Doctor Klatsky was going to make that a reality. 

In my eight years of teaching, I had never taken off more than one day at a time, and here I was about to miss two weeks. Teaching is often a profession that is built on sacrifices, but this time I decided I needed to put myself and our future family first. 

I took a leap of faith, took two weeks of medical leave off of work, and headed down to New York City with my husband. He was with me for the first weekend, but after that, I was a city girl on my own. Going to appointments, getting bloodwork done, and navigating New York City by myself. I was doing my third round of IVF in five months. I was putting my body through the ringer, so to make light of this matter, I called it my “embryocation” and tried to “live it up” as best as I could by eating Van Luewen ice cream nightly.  

While I was working on Operation Baby Walther though, my mom was diagnosed and began fighting her battle with breast cancer and had a mastectomy. Operation Baby Walther wasn’t just for me anymore, it was for her too. I knew having a grandchild would give her a reason to fight like hell. Before her surgery she told me “we’re both fighting different battles but we’re doing it together.” 

Frustrated by how uneducated I was my first two rounds of IVF, I decided to live document this entire IVF cycle on instagram to help educate others and create awareness. 

Appointments at Spring always left me feeling positive and full of hope. Nurses did not tell you how many eggs or the size of the follicles. The no number approach allowed me to be laid back and relaxed during this cycle. I was not obsessing over growth and over analyzing every single number. After thirteen days, I had my egg retrieval. My husband came back to New York City to be with me for the procedure, and then drove us home back to Western New York.

Spring worked their magic, we had eight embryos sent out for genetic testing.

We had three genetically viable embabies and the gender was kept a secret, like we asked.

My “teacher timeline” was out the window. I could hear pre-infertility Amber saying ‘I don’t want a September baby’ but that didn’t matter to me anymore. After all our heartache, I had a chance at having our baby and I didn’t want to wait until summer for a transfer. We decided to do it over Christmas break, so we could still keep it a secret and surprise people that I was pregnant. 

I started speaking this truth into the universe, I was so sure that this would be my time, that our transfer would work, and thanks to Spring Fertility I would become pregnant. On New Year’s Eve, we let the embryologist select the strongest embryo, and Doctor Klatsky came in just for me, to do my transfer. Baby Walther was nestled in, while we made the drive back to Rochester in time to see the ball drop, as a family of three.

I anticipated being so anxious during the two week wait, but in my heart, I knew I was pregnant. I had that much confidence in Spring, but I still cried tears of joy when my blood work labs came back as positive. My beta numbers kept rising, as did our excitement…this was real. Operation Baby Walther had worked. I still felt fearful while being pregnant, I was afraid our baby would be taken away from us, I would miscarry or have a still born. We had so many disappointments along our journey, I feared this too would be another one. I didn’t let myself buy any baby clothes until I heard her heartbeat and had the 20 week ultrasound. Even after that, my mind would still go to dark places, I had to work hard to keep myself in a positive headspace. No one talks about the trauma and toll infertility can take on you.

Motherhood is the hardest yet most rewarding journey yet. Avery is everything and more. From the moment she was placed on my chest, I felt this intense connection with her. That I would do anything for her and had this innate desire to protect her and make sure she’s okay.

Our first few weeks at home were rough. Avery was consistently throwing up after feeds, struggling to latch and even stay awake to eat. She didn’t gain back her birth weight at her first appointment and continued to lose weight. In a two week span, she had gone to the doctors almost every single day of her life . I knew something was not right, this wasn’t a latching issue, something was wrong. She would scream and cry incessantly. We found out she had a milk protein intolerance, so I cut all milk protein out of my diet. Still wanting to breastfeed I pumped while we syringe fed her and struggled to keep her awake for feedings. Tickling her feet, undressing her, pouring water on her head. She would just fall asleep and not eat. It was a two person job. As exhausted as I was, I would wake up every few hours to pump and dump the tainted milk in the middle of the night. After two weeks, she finally gained enough to be back to her birth weight and my husband went back to work. 

I was anxious beyond belief, to be home with this tiny baby, all day, by myself. She still didn’t eat well. It was a struggle to say the least, I didn’t understand why other mom’s posted about their babies who napped all the time. Avery didn’t nap, unless she was on me and even then, they were short. I started calling her Fuss or Fusspants because she cried and cried, still. I felt like something was still wrong, but I didn’t know what. I trusted my mom instincts and kept copious notes and even taking videos and photos of her continued screaming and throwing up. Her amazing pediatrician helped me figure out the right medication combination for her reflux and determined she had a soy intolerance as well. Still craving that connection with breastfeeding, I cut out soy too. I was now gluten free (for me), dairy free, and soy free. It was a lot, but it was worth it. My beautiful baby girl was no longer screaming and crying constantly. She was a snuggly girl, happy to just be close to mama. 

I was beyond lucky to spend six months home with our sweet girl. I documented our days through a series of poems and journal entries. Sometimes, I would just look at her and cry, because I couldn’t believe that she was finally here, and that she was ours. Those tears don’t occur as often now, but on special days, I can’t help but cry. My first Mother’s Day, a holiday I yearned to be able to celebrate and wasn’t sure if I ever would. Yet there she was, in my arms, face nuzzling into my neck. My love for her is all consuming. Avery is our entire world.  

I know that not every infertility journey has a happy ending. I am forever grateful to Spring Fertility and Doctor Klatsky making my dreams of becoming a mom come true.