Carrie and Steve tried to conceive for four years before choosing to work with HRC and Dr. Jane Frederick. Their long journey to parenthood had many emotional highs and lows, but Carrie said feeling overwhelmed wasn’t one of them.
“With HRC, you are assigned a coordinator who is always available via text or phone. Whenever I contacted my coordinator, she would get right back to me.”
It’s no secret that fertility treatment requires a lot of medication in varying doses and at different times to work optimally. For Carrie, many of her texts and calls were about her medication schedule amd the coordinators were right on top of it.
When asked about the highs and lows the couple felt about treatment, Carrie was quick and direct about the lows.
“The lows are every month when you get your period,” she recalled. “Every month you are so hopeful….” She paused a moment before continuing. “We wanted a child so badly. Those were the lows.”
Since Carrie and her husband had tried for four years to get pregnant, Dr. Frederick right away recommended IVF. While their hopes were high, they both agreed that their first failed embryo transfer was the lowest point for them.”
“That was definitely devastating,” she said.
However, the couple also had high points, such as the time Carrie cheated by taking home pregnancy test too early right after her second cycle.
“Steve was out of town running a marathon and I was home,” she said. “I took a pregnancy test, and there were no positive lines. This was our second attempt at IVF, and I was just devastated. “I thought – ‘Okay. We’re never going to have a child.’ I put the pregnancy test down, and walked away. A couple of minutes later there was a line on it. I flipped out because I had given up hope and then all of a sudden, we had a positive pregnancy test. The hope and joy that came with that. It’s hard to beat that high.”
Carrie, who is now 16 weeks pregnant with her second child after a third embryo transfer, did the same thing after her third IVF cycle but cautions to “listen to your doctor and don’t do the test!”
Steve admits that he was more detached from the whole process because he wasn’t experiencing the symptoms.
“Anytime Carrier experienced what might be a pregnancy-related symptom, those ups and downs were difficult,” he said. “What really helped us through this process was our faith and trusting that God ultimately had a plan. We were going to accept whatever was meant to be.”
With Dr. Frederick’s help, Carrie and Steve are the proud parents of the Kenzie and eager for the birth of their second daughter. They really feel like their strongly-held beliefs and church community helped them get through their fertility treatment journey–and highs and lows–together.