“Life with God is NOT immunity from difficulties, but PEACE in difficulties.”
– C.S. Lewis

Hi, friends! What a whirlwind the past couple of months have been. Back in March I shared with you all about the struggle Cory and I were having getting pregnant. As stated in my post, we had just learned that conceiving on our own didn’t seem to be an option at the time (or possibly ever). What I didn’t share was that, because of the results of our testing, we were starting the process of In Vitro Fertilization. I was nervous, actually terrified, for the process that we were about to begin… but the encouragement I received from so many of you after opening up about our struggle gave me such hope during our IVF journey and I cannot thank each of you enough for your messages, texts, and kind words. I’ve debated with whether I should post about our journey with IVF or not, but the other day I saw a quote that read:

“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.” – Morgan Harper Nichols

I thought just one post about what In Vitro Fertilization involves would be a great way of giving more information about this process for anyone who cares to read to understand better.

What Is In Vitro Fertilization?
The basic idea of IVF is the creation of embryos (offspring that is between 2-8 weeks of age) by placing sperm and eggs in a dish in a laboratory setting. You’d think this would be easy.. right? Just get an egg, get some sperm, and make them meet. But, it’s not easy at all, and the difficulty of that happening is what makes IVF success (and having a baby in general) such a dang miracle. It all starts with the creation of eggs.. lots and lots of eggs.. which I’ll explain below.

Ovarian Stimulation
The first step in IVF is “ovarian stimulation”. During this phase you give yourself shots in your tummy each day in order for the follicles in your ovaries to grow. The purpose of growing your follicles is because the bigger the follicles, the more eggs your ovaries will produce. You want to produce as MANY eggs as possible! Here are some videos of the shots I gave myself:

Gonal Injection –

Cetrotide Injection –

Menopur Injection –

During this time I went in to the doctor either every day or every other day for blood work and ultrasounds to monitor my follicles. I used to feel like I was going to pass out every time I had to give blood, so giving blood so often was something I learned I had to get used to really fast. During your ultrasounds, the nurse is looking to see how large your follicles have grown.

The picture on the LEFT (I got from google) is what normal follicles in an ovary look like. Those red dots show their typical size. The picture on the RIGHT is a picture of my own follicles after injections (yes those big black hole things), showing how big they need to get to create as many eggs as possible!

Once my doctor found that my follicles met the criteria he was looking for, I had a “trigger” shot. This was the shot that basically told my body to go ahead and release the eggs for the egg retrieval surgery.

Egg Retrieval Surgery
The egg retrieval is a surgery in which you are under anesthesia and they go into the ovary with the use of a needle to retrieve the eggs that your follicles produced. I was EXTREMELY nervous on this day, not only because it’s a surgery under anesthesia, but because I was so hopeful that my body had done what it needed to and produced as many eggs as possible. This was Cory and I before I went in… so hopeful, so nervous, so excited! Lots of prayer calmed me down that morning.

The Week Following Egg Retrieval
On the day of the egg retrieval, the husband gives a semen specimen, and they use this to fertilize the eggs that night. The next couple days are some of the most nerve-wracking as you wait to hear the results of the fertilization. The very next day we found out we only had 7 of my 14 eggs fertilize. Next, the embryos are under watch each day by an embryologist, and the cells basically either rapidly divide into strong embryos or deteriorate. The embryos are graded and there is a lot that goes into deciding whether they are viable embryos for use or not. By the end of the week, only 3 of our embryos had made it. I have to be honest… I cried a lot over this at first, but then Cory reminded me how THANKFUL I needed to be to have THREE healthy embryos! He was such a constant reminder that even if things didn’t go exactly as I had wanted, to be thankful and grateful for the GOOD we did have. I was so thankful for the peace and wisdom he had throughout this whole process. (Ps, we now have 2 frozen embryos we will use for our future children.. just chillin together in a petri dish.. literally & figuratively. How cool is that?) FYI, for girls debating doing IVF, the week following egg retrieval is unfortunately rough to go through as your uterus recovers from having all the eggs scraped out. You will most likely have severe cramping, experience bleeding, and feel & look extremely bloated (almost as if you’re pregnant), but after a couple days it gets much better!

The Embryo Transfer
The next step is to start your next round of meds which begin to supplement your progesterone and your estrogen levels. I took a pill called Estrace 3 times daily, wore a Minivelle patch on my tummy that I changed out every 3 days, and took a pill called Prometrium to help with my progesterone levels since they were lower than my doctor would have liked. About a week before my embryo transfer, Cory began giving me my progesterone injections. These are given in your booty.. and the needle is no joke. But, as is with the rest of this process, you do what you have to do… and you have so much hope that this will work that the shots soon just become a part of your daily routine! Cory was a champ at them too, and also became a great “booty roller” as my shot injections began to create hard knots. (see video below).

As soon as your doctor sees that your levels look good, you will schedule your embryo transfer. During the embryo transfer, you are not put under anesthesia but instead get to watch the whole thing (how neat is that?). The embryologist gave my doctor one of our embryos, and we watched him insert a catheter under ultrasound guidance into my uterus in which he then released the embryo. We decided to only have one embryo transferred. This is one the most emotional days as you watch what you hope to be your future child actually be inserted into your body, but also have fear that the embryo won’t attach to your uterus and you will lose that child. Regardless, I learned the best thing to do throughout each moment of fear was choose JOY and trust. Cory also got to wear a pretty hot outfit in the room with me for this surgery. I mean… dannng.

Below, the top picture is an actual picture of our embryo, and if you look closely, in the bottom picture you can actually see the embryo in my uterus.

The Days & Weeks to Follow…
After the embryo transfer you are instructed to stay on bed rest for 3 days in hopes that the embryo will “stick”. You will continue to go in for many days of blood work, and finally, you take your BETA test which tells you if you are pregnant or not. The day that I got the call I was pregnant was by far the most surreal day of my life. It was a feeling I began thinking I may never have… but boy am I glad God proved Satan wrong! From that point on, you go in weekly for blood work, ultrasounds, and continue all of your oral meds and your progesterone booty injections up until 11 or 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The Truth About IVF
SO, that is a very basic, reader friendly outline of IVF. I tried really hard to be strong throughout the process. I never wanted to complain. I always wanted to stay positive. I never wanted to fear the worst. But there was one day that someone asked me if I was “excited” to be doing IVF. Excited? Of course I wasn’t excited. There are days that it just sucked. I began grieving the fact that Cory and I would never be able just to have a normal pregnancy. I struggled with the idea that our child wouldn’t be made out of “love” but instead created by a doctor. I had moments of feeling bitter towards women that are able to get pregnant without having to shoot themselves up with hormones or surgeries to get there. My shots made me so dizzy that I felt like I was walking in a cloud of estrogen/progesterone/hormone drugs for weeks. I struggled with financially agonizing over how its fair we have to pay around $28,000 in the hopes of getting pregnant and others get to just make a baby for free. And then, in those moments of weakness when satan started controlling my thoughts and emotions, I would STOP and think to myself how thankful I am that our incredible, powerful God would have created doctor’s brains to be smart enough to figure all this out.

It’s so easy to compare our lives to others. But comparison is the thief of JOY. In those moments, I let satan win by allowing him to control my bitter and jealous thoughts. But who am I to EVER question what the Lord was going to do in my life through this process? He knew what He was doing this whole time. I am SO thankful and feel so lucky to tell you that IVF has given me the greatest joy of my life. The joy that I get to be a mother one day soon… and that is worth all of the blood draws, injections, doctor visits, medicines, and tears in the world.

I am so thankful for my incredible doctor, Dr. Griffith, at Houston Fertility Institute and his amazing staff for their constant love, hard work, and answers to all of my questions through my emotional ups and downs. Dr. Griffith was a true angel through our infertility process, and often reminded me that he was just a vessel in the work that the Lord was doing.

We are so excited to announce that we will be having a baby GIRL this winter, named Grace, as she is truly the grace God has given us at the end of this journey. I still feel as if this is all a dream!

I pray that God continues to show me that
He is greater than the sorrow we may face,
to always hand my fears over to Him,
and to always, ALWAYS trust in His plan.

xoxo,
Katherine