Melanie and her husband had been married for one year when they first decided to start trying for a baby. What they thought would be a short and hopeful season stretched into six long years without success. After realizing they needed additional support, they were referred to UNC Fertility, and that is when their true fertility journey began.
Approximately 1 in 6 people worldwide experience infertility. At UNC Fertility, we encourage both partners to go through this process together because statistics indicate that up to 40 percent of infertility is attributed to male sperm production or delivery.
For Melanie’s husband, he would be diagnosed with varicoceles and low motility. After surgery to repair the varicoceles, they were told they would need to pursue IVF due to her husband’s low motility. Within several months, the Stroud’s were scheduled for their first egg retrieval, where they created two embryos. Sadly, both failed to implant.
“The first transfer that failed was extremely devastating,” said Melanie. “I was very naive then. I thought, ‘they’re putting the embryo exactly where it needs to be. There’s no way this can fail.’ So, when it came to an abrupt end the day before my HCG test, I was devastated.”
The Stroud’s actively tried for six years before they had their first child.
“I felt extremely lonely during the process to become pregnant the first time. I didn’t want to talk about it to any family or friends. I knew that nobody close to us had been through infertility and wouldn’t understand, so therefore in my mind, wouldn’t know how to deal with it. It was very isolating. Plus, as it was the first grandchild on my husband’s side, it felt like added pressure (unintentionally) to conceive. I already felt like I was on a timeline to have a baby since I was in my 30s.”
As women enter their 30s, reproductive endocrinologists begin to see a gradual decline in fertility, with a more marked decline after age 35. A healthy, fertile 30-year-old woman has about a 20 percent chance of becoming pregnant each cycle. By the time a woman reaches age 40, her chance of getting pregnant drops to less than 5 percent per month.
Melanie would revisit UNC Fertility just months after the first failed implant for her second egg retrieval. This successfully resulted in three embryos. As this would be her third transfer, doctors transferred two embryos at the same time, and one implanted giving the Stroud’s their first-born daughter.
“They say that infertility is like being on a rollercoaster, and that is the perfect analogy. I went from being very confident and excited, to very devastated and sad, to very worried and then excited. So many tears were shed, mostly sad when my transfers failed, but when we got the call of that third transfer working, so many more happy tears came.”
IVF cycles frequently yield more embryos than are appropriate to transfer to the uterus. Quality embryos that have developed normally but are not selected for transfer can be frozen for future use if the patient or couple chooses to do so at UNC Fertility.
“I remember sitting in the waiting room and looking at all of the women that just wanted to be mamas. None of us spoke to one another, but I often wondered how it would have felt to have had discussions with them, to feel like it wasn’t just me going through this.”
Two and a half years later, the Stroud’s thawed their last embryo and transferred their second daughter.
“The day we had our consult, we were excited at the prospect of growing our family. We have been here before, we were knowledgeable in the protocols and procedures, so we did have a level of comfort there. I remember it being a lot more nerve wracking for the second child, because we knew what success was like. We knew what we had the potential to lose.”
Doctors have found that a frozen embryo transfer cycle is less complicated than a fresh IVF cycle because all the work involved in ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, fertilization, and embryo culture has already been completed. For the Stroud’s, baby number two would have a special connection.
“Both of my girls were conceived at the same time, but were born three and a half years apart. It has always struck awe in me to think that technically they are twins. Two eggs fertilized the same day, one a fresh transfer, one frozen. It is amazing to think of it in this way. Oddly enough, after my second transfer, my daughter told me multiple times that I was having a girl, almost like she had an intimate connection (that twin connection) with her sister. I always said, ‘well they WERE made together, so I guess if anyone knows, it’s her.’”
“I am a proud IVF mama and will talk to anyone willing to listen about our story. I will be forever thankful for the science of IVF, for our doctors, and our embryologists. Thank you UNC Fertility.”