Mothers Day 2009 will be one that Corey Gant never forgets. The new mother of twins says she has many to thank to be able to celebrate her first holiday as a mom – her husband, the doctors and nurses at Shady Grove Fertility Center, but most of her thanks goes to a familiar partner: her mother.
“My mother is the unsung hero of it all,” said Gant. “I can’t thank her enough for her patience, love and understanding through everything. She was my cheerleader, my support group, my pseudo RE, and research guru. I couldn’t have done any of this without her. Thank you Mom!”
Not an Infertility Patient
Corey and her husband Billy were nearing the end of their journey without the child for which they longed. If it weren’t for a meeting of earth-bound angels on their behalf, the couple might never have had the strength to continue on the final leg of their path, all the way from Alabama to Shady Grove Fertility.
Now in their early 30’s, the Gants had tried to have a baby for five years. First, they tried Clomid (through her OB/Gyn’s recommendation) without results. Corey’s mother, Melinda Hawkins, an educator and avid Internet researcher, was concerned that the couple was wasting time. She urged them to seek the advice of a fertility specialist. She wondered if Corey had endometriosis. Corey resisted her mother’s advice until deciding to consult a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) “just to please her.”
Corey wrote in her blog — billyandcorey.blogspot.com — “I remember sitting in the waiting room, slightly embarrassed, thinking ‘This is ridiculous, I’m not like these people. I don’t need this.” In the end, the appointment and resulting diagnosis of an endometrioma, confirmed by ultrasound, was enough to make the young woman wonder if her mother was “psychic.”
Once her severe endometriosis was surgically removed, Corey and Billy spent a year and a half trying to conceive. She endured more Clomid, intrauterine inseminations (IUI), and injectable fertility medications, yet no pregnancy. Corey did conceive three times, but lost all three pregnancies early in the first trimester.
Corey recalls in her blog, “It finally stared to sink in — I am an infertility patient. Wow. It was very hard to finally admit it to myself, but there I was facing in vitro fertilization.”
Angels in Trying Times
Corey underwent two rounds of IVF at home in Birmingham and both times produced a good number of eggs and embryos. The first round ended with a “chemical pregnancy” – the term for a positive pregnancy test achieved before the woman’s period was due but a miscarriage occurs before a heartbeat was able to be seen on an ultrasound. The second one resulted in a terrifying and painful ectopic pregnancy. Corey became despondent. She questioned her faith, her intentions, and her entire life.
Meanwhile, her mother was becoming something of a reproductive expert via her constant Web searches. She pushed Corey to consider another doctor in Tennessee, but the depressed young woman did not feel a good connection at that clinic.
Melinda recalls how helpless she felt, trying to pull her daughter through her misery on the long drive home from Nashville. “I was frantic but had to appear calm, a pose that I‘m sure many mothers of the young women you treat must adopt,” she said in a letter to Shady Grove Fertility physician Michael Levy.
On one of her many nights perusing the Internet for answers to her daughters’ great sadness, Melinda visited a chatroom for the first time. There she met two women, both of whom not only lived in Birmingham, but who had finally become mothers with the help of Dr. Levy at Shady Grove Fertility’s Rockville Office.
“One of the women had earlier in the conversation wondered aloud why she was even [in the chatroom] since she’d already had her baby,” said Melinda. She describes the chatroom experience as “serendipitous.” Corey, initially “angry and broken” in spite of the unfolding positive news, now looks upon the chance meeting between her mother and these women as “the hand of God.”
While her mother continued to speak with the women about Shady Grove Fertility and their impressive lab reputation, delving further on the Internet with research on statistics and history of the clinic and its physicians, Corey and Billy used their one frozen embryo for a last attempt in Birmingham — and another chemical pregnancy.
A Mother’s Determined Intuition
Melinda booked a flight to Maryland. She and Corey set off to talk directly to Dr. Levy for consultation. It was the turning point in the Gant’s long journey.
As they sat in Dr. Levy’s office with him for more than an hour, Melinda recalls the change that came over Corey. “I watched her relax. I saw her trust return. I felt hope creep back in.” She credit’s the expert’s unhurried manner and attention to the details of Corey’s reproductive history. By the time they left, “Corey was over the moon, in project mode, telling Billy exactly what needed to be done before she, and eventually he, left for Maryland.”
“It was incredible to find someone like Dr. Levy who was willing to do the tests and procedures to get the answers to the questions,” said Corey. “We felt that he wanted those questions answered as much as we did.”
In her final blogpost about their long journey, Corey describes her transformation from depression to amusement with Dr. Levy to elation. “We left there almost in tears, not because we were disappointed, but because we were elated. Mom and I both felt as though a ton of bricks had been lifted from our shoulders. Every question Mom had was answered. Every procedure Birmingham had refused to do was standard protocol in Maryland. THIS was our answer; these were the answers we had been screaming for. Mom said she felt as though she could let go now….all her trust was in Dr. Levy.”
The logistical details for the long-distance IVF cycle fell into place with the coordination of her husband, the nursing team from Shady Grove Fertility, and her beloved friends.
Corey took advantage of Shady Grove Fertility’s Shared Risk 100% Refund Guarantee program knowing that if she did not successfully have a baby with Shady Grove Fertility, she would have her money refunded for other family building options.
“Dr. Levy accepted us into their Shared Risk program, where you pay a flat fee, but there would be a 100% money back guarantee after six IVF tries,” Corey said. “I would be free to pursue adoption or any other IVF protocol somewhere else if he was not successful.”
On August 29, 2008, after just one IVF cycle at SGFC, Corey had another positive pregnancy test. This time, it was “very positive,” Melinda says. On April 21, 2009, Henley Louise Gant and Davis Hawkins Gant were born, healthy, “precious and perfect.”
Corey Gant looks forward to sharing the story of how they came to be with her son and daughter. She has made sense of her years of sadness with hindsight and deep reflection.
“Hold onto hope because it is out there,” she said. “Going through fertility treatment can be a very dark place, but Shady Grove Fertility provided hope for us. I had confidence that with Dr. Levy and the Shared Risk program, I was going to achieve my dreams of parenthood with Shady Grove Fertility Center.”
In her blog, Corey wrote, “I needed to see pain from the other side so that I might be more sympathetic to people and the problems we all face as human beings. I learned I need more patience. I learned to accept the forks in the road. I know I’ll face so many more challenges in my life and I feel like I’m more equipped to handle those challenges. I feel closer to our God.”
Her mother, Melinda, shared with Dr. Levy her own gratitude. “I just wanted to tell you that the work you do goes beyond giving a couple the chance to have a family; it actually spans the generations because it has also, in essence, given us our daughter back.”
For more information or to schedule an appointment with one of our physicians, please speak with one of our friendly New Patient Liaisons by calling 888-761-1967.
