Two Women Share Their Journey with Infertility

As April is National Infertility Awareness Month, with this week being designated National Infertility Awareness Week, Patch shared some facts on infertility yesterday. Today, the story gets personal as two women–Maria Small of Orange and Kerry Stewart of Hamden–share their quest to form a family while battling infertility.

Maria’s Story

Maria and Chris talked about having children just months after they started dating. They were married 14 months after they met, enjoying life for two years in Maria’s home-state of Pennsylvania. When they bought a house in Orange–Chris’s lifelong home–they decided it was time to start a family.

With an accounting background, Maria relied on research and knew it could take up to a year to conceive, but after eight months without results, they started to get worried. She had tried charting and ovulation kits before doing a series of intrauterine inseminations at her gynecologist. Chris was tested and there were no problems.

“Unfortunately, the IUIs were a waste of time because gynecologists don’t really understand infertility and the ins and outs of IUIs,” said Maria. “After that, she said we should go to a fertility doctor.”

That meant more tests and three more IUIs–this time with injected medicine. When those failed, the doctor said it was time for IVF. For the first round of IVF, Maria did acupuncture and after they transferred two embryos, she got a positive; however, it turned out to be a chemical pregnancy, which is “when a pregnancy is lost shortly after implantation,” according to the American Pregnancy Association. That was the only time in the last three years Maria has gotten pregnant–right after her 29th birthday.

“At that point, I realized this was going to be a pretty intense journey,” said Maria, who also joined a support group through RESOLVE. “I realized I needed to go to a therapist because I didn’t want it to ruin my life and overpower me and our family.”

So now it was time for a second round of IVF–the State of Connecticut mandates insurance cover three IUIs and two IVFs. The couple decided to do a fresh cycle so they could freeze the remaining harvested embryos.

“This time, mentally, I was in the best place I’d ever been in the three years of this whole process. I was healthy, I was happy, I was positive it was going to work,” said Maria. “We went through the whole process and it didn’t work at all. It was devastating. At that point, our life plummeted. We went into a very dark hole.”

They, then, had to mourn that loss. Chris has wanted to be a dad since he was little and Maria always dreamt of having five kids. After almost three years of trying to conceive, with only the chemical pregnancy, the couple now had to decide how to move forward.

With 10 frozen embryos remaining, they decided to start looking into adoption but trying one more cycle with the frozen embryos. Maria also had laparoscopic surgery to clear up slight endometriosis and a uterine function test, which both checked out fine.”

“We said, ‘Let’s go through one more frozen and if this doesn’t work, we think adoption is the best route for us’,” said Maria. “The day I got the negative was the day I called the agency and said we’re signing up with you, we’re in.”

That was in February and they recently completed their home study and are now in the process of creating a profile to send to birth mothers.

“Mentally I just couldn’t do it anymore,” said Maria. “We want to be a family. It means more to us to have a child than it does to be a biological child. It’s probably the hardest thing you have to grieve, but then I realize any kid we have is going to be a smart-aleck just like he is because he’s around them.”

Now in the middle of the adoption process, Maria and Chris are looking forward to being matched with a birth mother. They have even painted the baby’s room and can now look at baby clothes and gear without sadness.

“Finally, for the first time in three years, we can think, ‘We are going to have a baby.’ It can take a long time, but with adoption, at the end, we will have a baby,” said Maria. “You don’t know what the journey’s going to be.”

In the meantime, Maria continues to be active in her RESOLVE support group and is working to educate people about infertility. And if you do know someone struggling with infertility, Maria suggests not offering advice or suggestions, but rather just being supportive and listening.  

“A lot of people still don’t understand the effects it has on people emotionally, the strain it has on people,” she said. “In the beginning, I didn’t talk about it because you don’t want to talk about when you’re having a baby, you don’t want to talk about when you’re having sex. It’s a very personal subject that many people don’t feel like they can express. Maybe that’s why I’m so vocal about it is because I know so many people can’t and I want to be their voice.”

Kerry’s Story

Kerry and her husband Eben got married when she was 21 and Eben was 25. Knowing that she was diagnosed with endometriosis at age 18, the couple expected some issues when they began trying to conceive when Kerry was 25.

After nine months without a pregnancy, Kerry went to her OB, who recommended they start with Yale Fertility Center. In the first year, Kerry took Clomid, a drug that induces egg production, had surgery to clean up her endometriosis and tried intrauterine insemination with no results.

That led to in vitro fertilization (IVF) at age 26. Kerry got pregnant on her first cycle but miscarried and then on her second cycle, she miscarried twins. With the second cycle, they were able to freeze nine embryos.

“We then used three frozen and I didn’t get pregnant,” said Kerry. “At that point, I was done, hormonal and tired of being a pin cushion so we decided to pursue adoption.”

That road proved just as difficult as the infertility treatments. The couple started by pursuing an international adoption through Columbia, but in the three-year process, the laws changed, stating there must be centralized processing for adoptions.

“Countries like Columbia got stuck because they didn’t have the infrastructure to support that,” said Kerry. “All we were waiting for was a match and it wasn’t going to happen.”

Now 30, Kerry and Eben had been trying to start a family for five years with no luck. They met their social worker, who asked if they would be open to a trans-racial adoption. They put together a portfolio and a letter to the birth mother and waited.

“We just wanted to be a family–we don’t care what it looks like,” said Kerry.

The couple didn’t wait long to be matched as there was a woman in Florida due in three months and she wanted to meet the Stewarts. They flew to Florida, met the mother and flew home to get ready for their baby. Kerry and Eben returned to Florida before the birth.

“We’re sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting and she changed her mind right before she was going to have the baby,” said Kerry. “We flew home empty-handed. I fell apart because at this point, I’d had a couple miscarriages and now lost another baby.”

After the devastation and disappointment of the failed adoption, the couple took a break and focused on themselves. At some point throughout the process, each of them sought therapy to deal with the emotions.

A few months later, in April 2008, they reactivated with the agency but continued to have fun, planning weekends away and vacations. After one of their weekend getaways, Kerry picked up her phone and saw six missed calls from their social worker. When she returned the call at 8 p.m., she was told their was a baby boy being born that night in Florida by C-section.

“She said he was biracial and he was healthy–did we want him,” said Kerry, who was on a plane to Orlando the next afternoon with Eben. “We went to the hospital the next morning at 10 a.m. and they said, ‘Do you have the carseat?’ We said ‘What?’ They said ‘He’s already been discharged, he’s yours,’ and we left the hospital at 3 p.m. with a baby.”

They named their son Logan and the newly formed family stayed with a friend in Florida for two weeks before flying home. When Logan turned one, Kerry and Eben started talking about a second child.

Because of the cost of adoption, they decided to try their luck with the six frozen embryos they had left. They transferred three embryos in the fall of 2009 but nothing happened.

“I cried for about an hour and he woke up from a nap and life went on. I was already a mom so it wasn’t the ‘I’m never going to be a mom’ drama like before,” said Kerry. “So we said, ‘Let’s get through the holidays, we’ve got three left so we’ll use those and then we’ll be done.’”

The remaining three embryos were transferred on March 18, 2010. Kerry went home and took her medication but her hopes weren’t high. She and Eben actually set up a meeting with DCF about adopting through them.

Kerry’s pregnancy test came back inconclusive so the doctors asked her to come back. On Good Friday, she went for more bloodwork. She was shocked when the doctors called to tell her she was pregnant. She went back to the doctor on Easter Sunday to confirm. Though it was a difficult pregnancy, their daughter Eliza made her entrance into the world a month ahead of schedule, but perfectly healthy.

“The embryo that made her sat on ice for six years from when they were taken out to when they went back in so we were more than a little surprised,” said Kerry. “I’ve been through everything–the losses, the failed adoptions–and I was very lucky I had a success. We count our blessings on both of our kids because we couldn’t even imagine the first adoption working because Logan’s ours. We watch him and his mannerisms and there are parts of him that actually look like my husband, his mind works very much like his daddy’s. Then we have Eliza, who’s a mini-me—she looks like me and is temperamental like me. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.” 

Helpful Resources

• RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association 
• Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology 
• American Pregnancy Association
• Adoptive Families