Jessica & Eugene

Like most women, all my life I knew I wanted to have children. I never thought that I would ever have “trouble” conceiving on my own. I started having irregular menstrual cycles when I was in high school so my OB/GYN put me on birth control pills to regulate my periods. Still being so young I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought this is normal, no big deal.

Well, all through college I stayed on birth control pills and when I met this guy towards the end of my college years who would later become my husband, I thought that once we got married I would get off of birth control pills and get pregnant, easy. I soon found out that it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Because I was on birth control for over 6 years, I thought that stopping the pills right before my wedding day it would allow me to get pregnant on my honeymoon, and my new husband and I would soon be announcing that we are expecting.

A few months after my husband Eugene and I got married there was a pregnancy announcement in my family but it wasn’t from us, it was from my sister. I was excited to be an aunt so I didn’t think much of it, just thought it hadn’t happened for us yet.

Searching for answers

Fast forward 3 1/2 years into our marriage and still no baby. My OB/GYN recommended I start taking Clomid so we did that twice. Still no luck and no baby. She then recommended that I go to Shady Grove Fertility.

So I called and made that first appointment with the Annapolis office to see Dr. McKeeby. I went through a series of tests to determine what was going on so Dr. McKeeby could best treat my case. It was determined that I had some signs of PCOS and endometriosis and I had a cyst on both ovaries, but nothing to be alarmed about.

My husband did all of his testings and everything came back normal, so it was all me. What a weight that was on my shoulders. I became upset and frustrated with myself because I wanted to know why I couldn’t get pregnant like everybody else.

Beginning treatment

From October 2012 (when we started at Shady Grove Fertility) to about March or April 2013 we tried Clomid (again) with timed intercourse and went in for monitoring. What a job that became and it was unsuccessful. Then in May 2013 the cyst on one of my ovaries became really enlarged and I was told to stop treatments and have it removed by my OB/GYN.

This was heartbreaking because I just wanted to have a baby and didn’t want to prolong the process any longer. So after I had my surgery to remove the cyst, my husband and I went through some personal issues and we did not start treatments again until December 2013.

Dr. McKeeby looked at our insurance and said that since it covers IVF we should go that route. So my husband and I agreed and the injections began. The injections were not too bad but they did leave the area a little sore after the first couple of days. My trick to help ease the pain of getting a needle every day was to ice the area before doing the injection and I place the oils under my arm to warm a little before extracting them with the needle from the bottles.

Fortunately, my husband was the one who administered my injections and he was more nervous than I was. He hated giving me injections because I would tense up when the needle would go in and having to watch the needle puncture my skin and sometimes bleed wasn’t a pretty sight for him to look at every day. It became like a chore that we did every night. A couple of times I didn’t want to have the injection because I was sore and too lazy to get up to ice myself, gather all the materials, etc. but we did what we had to do in order to bring our baby into the world.

I knew this time was going to be it, we were going to conceive. I had a few friends get pregnant around this time naturally and I believed I was going to join them soon. The medicines worked great, my egg retrieval was great (33 eggs retrieved), my husband’s sperm count was great, and I had 13 embryos that were in excellent condition.

So January 2014 was the day of our fresh embryo transfer. We were so excited that it went well. We had to go through that long 2 week wait for the pregnancy results. The day arrives and I received the call that I was not pregnant. Talk about heartbreaking. My husband and I agreed that we wanted to try again right away. So we did the injections all over again. This time I also really watched what I was eating, and worked out once in a while.

March 2014 was our FET. That went great and again the dreaded 2 week wait. I actually got sick the night before the pregnancy test so my husband and I prayed to God really hard that I got sick because I was pregnant.

I went in the next day for the pregnancy test and received the call later that day with the best news I’ve ever received…..I was pregnant!

I jumped for joy, cried happy tears. My husband and our entire families were so happy and excited for us. On November 29, 2014, we gave birth to our princess Carmen as a result of the successful FET. She was a perfectly healthy little girl and she is such a joy.

Round two

My husband and I decided to “try” again and have a second child and since we decided to freeze the remaining embryos we went back to Shady Grove Fertility in August 2015 to do another FET. Hello again, injections! We were scheduled for our FET in October 2015 and received the call that we were not pregnant. My husband and I decided to try again immediately, which meant more injections and meds.

In December 2015 we completed another FET and received the call that we are PREGNANT (currently 8 weeks)! We graduated from Shady Grove Fertility on January 21, 2016, and moved back to my regular OB/GYN.

My husband and I are so grateful to God and the doctors, nurses, and staff of Shady Grove Fertility for giving us the blessings we always wanted.

My advice to future patients

To all future patients, my advice to you is to never give up on your desires, trust in the promise, keep the faith, and remember you are not alone.