Surrogacy, the greatest gift
TW: This story contains miscarriage, successful pregnancies, and living children.
About the Author:
Jess, 31, is from Massachusetts, currently living on Long Island. She was an elementary teacher until recently, when she moved for her husband, Frank, to start his medical residency. Today, Jess is a mom to two children, one of which was born via surrogacy. She loves to travel, read, and spend time with her friends and family. She open about her family building experience, and has shared her story with us below:
Our Infertility Journey
My husband and I met in highschool and got married young. He was still in medical school and I knew I would need help getting pregnant due to endometriosis and finding an unrelated (benign) uterine mass when I was 23. I went straight to an REI after our honeymoon in 2016 at 24 years old. Because of the uterine mass, it was suggested that I go see an MFM for a pre-conception appointment. I was told it would be life threatening for me to carry a child because the mass was thought to be a uterine AVM after surgery (it could not be removed) which is extremely rare. I remember crying on the bathroom floor of the hospital that day.
I got a second opinion and that is when surrogacy was first put on the table. I went through two egg retrievals to bank embryos for surrogacy in 2016 and 2017. We matched with a surrogate the end of 2017, had a transfer in 2018 and our beautiful baby girl (who is about to turn 5) was born in 2019. Surrogacy was the greatest gift to us.
I continued to be monitored by interventional radiology and opened up the question if I could carry another baby myself. The mass changed drastically and no longer had a blood supply, we do not know why. So in 2021 it was decided by my medical team I could carry a pregnancy. I wanted to use our embryos and didn’t know my cycle so I thought IVF was the answer and went into a frozen embryo transfer in 2021 and miscarried. I had a second FET and miscarried again at the end of 2021. My REI wanted me to try to conceive on our own because we never had before. I was pregnant a month later and so scared of loss I didn’t even tell my husband for 24 hours. All scans went well and NIPT came back clear and I was so sure everything was good with our baby boy.
Then our anatomy scan came in May 2022. And there were 3 soft markers for Down syndrome, so we decided to have an amniocentesis. Everything started to come back clear until our micro array results showed a micro duplication of unknown significance. We truthfully were unsure about the future of our pregnancy until we found out that I have the same micro duplication without knowing. This wouldn’t have been picked up on any testing and so we decided to continue our pregnancy and our baby boy was born in September 2022. There’s still some anxiety but he is thriving and very happy.
We are currently looking to add to our family again as we envisioned having 3 kids once we had conceived on our own, but did not see any of the anatomy scan events coming, so we are going back through IVF to do PGT-M and test embryos for my micro duplication. I’m now waiting on our testing probe to be made and I will go through another egg retrieval in a couple months for our last baby.
My story is not linear at all and has a lot of pieces and I find myself questioning where I fit in the IVF community. I’ve learned that this journey is never certain even when you think it is. My story carries a lot of grief, although I am extremely fortunate to have two living children. And there are a lot of glimmers I will always hold onto despite the grief.
The doctors who would support me through some of the hardest moments, the stranger I met for the first time in a random Olive Garden who I knew would carry our baby, the dinner and drinks brought over by friends after loss, the constant check ins and gifts from our support system after an anatomy scan that tipped our world upside down. I have carried all of these positive moments and people with me into motherhood. Both the darkness and light have shaped me into the person and parent I am today.
