When her doctor wanted to refer her to Shady Grove Fertility, Robin thought he was crazy. “I told my husband: we need to find a new doctor,” she recalls. “We had already had two children, one right after the other, with no problem at all. Even though that was 4 or 5 years earlier, I still couldn’t imagine that anything was wrong. I was healthy, and I had regular periods.”
But Robin’s ob/gyn had done preliminary bloodworkon her and found that a hormone called Follicle Stimulating Hormone or FSH was high. A high FSH level usually indicates what’s called a poor ovarian reserve, a sign that aging was decreasing the quantity and quality of her eggs. “I’m an engineer,” says Robin. “I’m a pretty smart woman, but I did not realize how difficult it is to get pregnant as you near 40.”
For a while, Robin and her husband, Donald, continued to try on their own. “I made it my mission to learn everything about how to get pregnant. It was like a full-time job,” she says. “I quit alcohol. I quit caffeine. I quit taking all kinds of pain relievers. I did acupuncture. I ate healthier. It was all-consuming.” When they continued to get negative pregnancy tests, they decided it was time to take their doctor’s advice and come to Shady Grove Fertility.
Robin and Donald saw Dr. Jeffrey McKeeby in the Annapolis office. He completed their infertility testing and talked with them about starting treatment with Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). “Deciding between IUI and IVF for initial treatment involves determing potential success and the level of comfort the couple has with the financial, emotional, and physical investment involved for both.” explains Dr. McKeeby. Luckily, Robin’s insurance plan was great. She could do up to 6 IUI cycles and then, 3 IVF cycles if needed.
Robin started treatment with a confident attitude. “I was convinced that the first IUI cycle was going to work, and we would end up with twins,” she says, “but we ended up doing 5 IUI cycles without success. Still, Dr. McKeeby was hopeful and talked to us about moving on to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) because our chances would increase.”
Unfortunately, Robin’s first IVF cycle did not work. “It was really hard to have so many disappointments. I started to think that it just wasn’t gonna happen for us.”
Despite her disappointment, Robin and Donald decided to try again. Robin says the support of Dr. McKeeby and his staff really made a difference. “I love Dr. McKeeby,” she says. “I trust him more than any other doctor I have had in my life. He has such a caring bedside manner, and I felt confident that he knew what the best course of treatment was.”
She continues, “We also had a great support system. Our nurse, Stacy, and all the staff at the office were so wonderful. I think it says a lot about the practice that they go to great lengths to hire such smart and caring people.”
For the second IVF cycle, Dr. McKeeby tried a slightly different treatment protocol with Robin and it worked. Robin and Donald became pregnant and went on to have a healthy baby boy they named Keegan. “I love all my kids,” says Robin, “but Keegan is so special to me. I basically spent my whole maternity leave just holding him and staring at him in awe. My husband jokes that he has a bald spot on the back of his head because he was always in my arms.”
Robin says the experience of doing fertility treatment changed her life. “This experience opened my eyes to the world of infertility and how many women this affects,” she says. “Sitting in the waiting room, I would see all these different kinds of women, and all of them were going through the same thing. That’s why I’ll talk to anyone about my experience if it can help.”
She adds, “As cliché as it sounds, my advice to other women is: don’t give up. Stay positive. Trust your doctor. If you are at Shady Grove Fertility, you are in the best place possible, and they will do everything they can to help you.”
Read Beth and Bob’s IUI Story
Read Ellyn and Jerry’s Donor Egg Story