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Patrice's Story - When a
Warrior Becomes a Mom
My infertility journey started when I
was 37. I had always wanted to be a mother, but my 20’s
flew by without finding Mr. Right. I thought I had found
him when I was 31, but after a couple years he told
me he didn’t feel the same way. Soon after that
I was diagnosed with a rare cancer and underwent a delicate
surgery that threatened to leave part of my face paralyzed,
not to mention threatening my life. It took some healing
to my body and my self-esteem to even start dating again.
At 37 I decided to take matters into my own hands and
I underwent an IUI
with donor
sperm – sure that I would get pregnant quickly
as my mother had, even though she was an older mom.
Why wouldn’t I? My cycles were regular and besides
the unrelated cancer I was very healthy. That first
IUI didn’t work. The next month I did a cycle
again, but cancelled the night before the procedure
because I thought I would give finding Mr. Right one
more chance.
I met “him” several weeks later and was
so sure that he was the reason I had waited. The love
I felt for him felt spiritual and intense. There was
no doubt in my mind everything was falling into place
– he was the man I was destined to have children
with and he professed the desire to have children as
much and as soon as I did. We really never used protection,
but after a year, there had been no surprises. I was
worried and we actually started ‘trying.’
Several months later we tried an unmedicated IUI, the
next month a Clomid IUI. We had found out that his sperm
was poor on all fronts – low count, poor mobility,
poor morphology. Everything looked good with me (low
FSH, very good responder to the drugs), but I was older,
so no one really knew how good my eggs were.
| I advocated us trying IVF after my love let
me know how hard these procedures were on him
(hello red flag.) The first IVF
went ok, but the doctor retrieved my eggs a day
too early because he didn’t believe him
when I told him I was a good responder. We only
got 4 ‘ok’ embryos and the result,
of course, was negative. We took a month off during
which time the man of my dreams made it clear
there would be no marriage talk until I became
pregnant – he “would not be in a childless
marriage and would not consider adoption.”
Yep, that is exactly what a woman fighting infertility
needs to hear (not!)
The second IVF I told the doctor to sock it to
me – ramp up the drugs because I want lots
of eggs and I can handle anything. That cycle
my estrodial went up to over 7,000 (normal is
250 and at 10,000 you are in the hospital fighting
for your life) BUT 24 eggs were retrieved –
18 mature. I remember my despair when my man flipped
out and told me he would not agree to the doc’s
recommendation to transfer 4 – “he”
knew it would work and knew that all would take,
so 3 were transferred – the rest frozen.
The result was a chemical pregnancy and me in
a hormonal free fall.
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Through my journey I tried everything to make it work
– prayers, crystals, special fertility diet (eliminating
dairy, wheat, sugar), fertility yoga, chiropractic,
acupuncture, herbs, meditation, support groups, therapy,
reading everything, surfing the web constantly, timed
intercourse in between cycles, and of course, the high
tech, highly medicated procedures.
The next try I thought for sure would work. We thawed
out a bunch of the frozen embryos and let them culture
into blastocysts thinking we would be getting the strongest,
best embryos. Four made it to transfer, but none of
them took. That was devastating.
We took a couple months off and then my fiancé
started hesitating. I just barely got him to try an
IUI, which failed. I interviewed several more infertility
doctors. Living in Southern California, there were many
choices and we decided on a clinic with very high success
rates. The day I was to start the stimulation meds,
my fiancé told me he couldn’t go through
it again. Looking back, that was probably the end of
‘us’ but we stayed together for another
half year, trying a few more times naturally.
When we broke up I was devastated. I still had 4 frozen
embryos with my ex, but he angrily and cruelly told
me through a lawyer he would fight any attempts for
me to use them, going against a promise he had made
verbally and in writing that I could have them if we
ever broke up. They are still in California, in a frozen
limbo. My potential babies, so close and yet so far.
There was no way I could date again, but within the
next year I started trying again on my own. It was actually
easier emotionally without my ex. I tried 5 medicated
IUIs with donor sperm, figuring I would give my own
eggs a very good chance before turning to an egg
donor. I was still responding well, but after 5
more failed cycles I closed down shop on my own eggs.
The bottom line was that at 41, I wanted to be a mom
and using donor eggs would give me the best chance at
a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
By this time I couldn’t afford a donor egg cycle
here in the states, but I had found a service that would
facilitate a donor egg cycle in the Czech Republic for
less than half of the US cost. Within three months I
was in the Czech Republic and had 2 perfect embryos
transferred. I will never forget how it felt 10 days
later when I took a pregnancy test (against doctors
orders 3 days too early) and at first thought the stick
said negative (what I expected after all) but it was
positive and I felt my whole body tingle and shot of
energy went up my spine and my stomach was aflutter.
Later that week the doctor’s office validated
that I was indeed pregnant.
Every doctor’s appointment brought relief as
I tracked the development of my baby. In the first month
I had some scary bleeding and remember praying and begging
for my baby to make it and be healthy and strong. I
was (and am) single and those were lonely, scary days,
but you do what you have to do. How grateful I was to
get past that first trimester. I enjoyed every day of
my pregnancy, even the scary and uncomfortable ones
later on. I can’t even describe how amazing it
was when I started feeling him move and just watched
in wonderment as my belly and baby grew. In my third
trimester I contracted H1N1, but it was mild enough
that it wasn’t diagnosed until after I was feeling
better.
I gave birth to my beautiful son two days before his
due date. I wanted to do it all natural, but after 18
hours of labor and 12 of them nasty back labor; I took
some pain medication to take the edge off the back pain.
That was all I needed and a couple hours later I had
my son Drake in my arms as I cut the cord. I had lost
a lot of blood so I felt weak, but when my sister asked
me an hour later if I would like to do it again, I replied
“absolutely, I would love to have another baby.”
It was worth it all. Worth the effort, the emotional
and physical pain, the financial strain – everything.
He is my living, cooing, smiling lesson to Never Give
Up!
Patrice Behrend
Designer of the Infertility Awareness Symbol and the
Fertility Hope Pendant
www.loves-journey.com
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