But she didnt anticipate that her road to parenthood would be so rocky.
My husband, Rene, and I were both 39 years old when we got married.
We were surprised when we gotpregnanton our honeymoon but, unfortunately, it ended in an earlymiscarriage.
Courtesy of Shannon M. Clark
After my cancer was treated, I started to panic, because my plan was toget pregnantright away.
Rene started to panic as well.
We decided to go straight toIVF, but it was more challenging than we expected.
Courtesy of Shannon M. Clark
The transfer of that embryo was unsuccessful.
The whole IVF process was hard on my body.
I was emotional anddepressed, and I was losing my hair from all the hormonal fluctuations.
Courtesy of Shannon M. Clark
Not only that, we werenewlyweds going through infertilityand still trying to learn about each other as a couple.
After almost two years of IVF, my body and mind had had enough.
Im used to succeeding.
Kelly Gerszewski / Same Day Photography
But after multiple IVF cycles, I finally realized that Im a statistic for ovarian aging and delayedchildbearing.
Not being able to accomplish this most important goal was very humbling for me.
If anything, I was very thankful that was an option.
Surrogacy was, too, but being pregnant and carrying a baby was important to me.
I was extremely grateful that technology allowed this to be an option for women like me.
Rene and I decided to use an egg donor registry.
But after I started looking at the registries, I asked Rene to evaluate potential candidates.
I just couldnt do it myself.
Luckily, Rene was much more objective about it.
We eventually chose a woman who had never been an egg donor before and moved forward with the process.
The process was similar toIVF: Our doctor retrieved her eggs, fertilized them, and ultimatelyfroze five embryos.
But…they didnt take.
The loss of those two embryos was absolutely devastating for us.
We had so much hope for that egg donor cycle.
It took me a good month or so just to be able to talk about it again.
But then I realized that we still had other embryos available.
I was feeling stressed out about the whole process and decided to try weeklyacupuncturetreatments to relax.
At that point, I wasnt even sure we were going to venture to get pregnant again.
We decided to take a break and went on a vacation to Peru to celebrate the New Year.
It was an amazing trip, and we came back refreshed.
Finally, we started talking about trying again.
We decided to retry, and in March of this year, we transferred two more embryos.
I still dont feel that I can relax.
After all, Im a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, meaning I’ve worked with a lot ofhigh-risk pregnancies.
Honestly, I will not feel any relief until the babies are in our arms.
I never, ever would have thought I would have been in this position.
Do I want to be the “poster child for usingegg donors?
I wish things worked out like I thought they would, but they didnt.
Thats OKevery person is different.
But I want women to know that its a very viable option.
