The following is written by guest writer, wife, soon to be mother of twins, my partner in crime and the love of my life Jennifer Keckonen. Comments attached to images are mine, but the rest is all her.
Our IVF Journey
A little over a year into our marriage, my husband and I decided to stop preventative measures and try to become pregnant.
My OB started me on Provera, a drug used to regulate a woman’s cycle so that we would have a better chance at conceiving. After 8 months of no success my OB added Clomid to the mix, this pill was supposed to make me ovulate. I figured this time for sure we’ll get it. My OB only wanted me on Clomid for a few months because there was a risk of developing uterine cancer with this pill. The few months I was on Clomid I didn’t ovulate even once; the pill was not working for me.
Feelings of guilt and depression, of being unable to provide a child for your significant other is soul breaking. It’s a feeling so many women out there have been through and are still going through. I became disheartened after all the unsuccessful trying so we put our dreams of having kids on hold for a little while.
When I finally felt ready to try again we decided to be more aggressive about it and we received a referral from my OB to RMA (Reproductive Medical Associates) Texas with Dr. Francisco Arredondo. His positive and energetic attitude had me feeling good and after discussing IVF treatment I knew this treatment would give us the results we wanted. There were a couple hurdles we had to jump over to start the treatment, insurance covered most of the costs but we had to pay out of pocket to get all the medicine for round one all at once which cost us a pretty penny.
The second hurdle we had to get over was uterine polyps. I had to have outpatient surgery to have these removed before we started the treatment and that cost us a pretty penny as well. However, after these two hurdles we were finally ready to begin the process.
The process included lots, and lots of needles.
Between having several tattoos and needing injections for my Multiple Sclerosis you would think I would be ok with needles, think again. I had to have my husband give me every shot that was required, he even drove up to my work one night to give me an injection so that all my medicines would be given at their correct times. He was my rock and made the process as painless as possible, I couldn’t have done this without him…literally, I can’t even push the button on my auto injection pens for my MS. His strength and support and the knowledge that we were doing this to achieve a dream of ours made this process less overwhelming than it could have been.
After we finished with the main course of injections, my eggs were removed and had dates with my husband’s “Super sperm” and two of the best looking fertilized eggs were put back into me.
A week or so later I took a pregnancy test which confirmed it had worked! We were expecting! We did another blood test and when the results came back in I received a phone call to let me know I was “Super pregnant”. I had my suspicions but it was confirmed in our first sonogram, we were going to be having twins!
The team at RMA was absolutely fantastic during this whole nerve wracking process and the friendliness and level of care we received while on our IVF journey is above and beyond what we could have hoped for.
Here is a recent pic from the baby shower, and a fresh belly pic from a few days ago. Getting close!
We now are close to the due date and are very excited and thankful for everything that has happened, our friends and family who have been a huge help, our legion of medical professionals and for each other’s presence and patience. We hope to have more updates here and on Facebook when the twins arrive and here and there for lots and lots of photos. They will be unwitting and unpaid baby models, for sure. 😊
And to end on an even happier note, here is a pic of our previous child, Tippy, who will soon have two siblings, hopefully with less hair.