A Journey Through Pregnancy Loss, Embryo Adoption and IVF
My fertility journey began over half my lifetime ago, and maybe yours did too. When I was twelve, I got my period. My mother and school nurse had prepared me for this, but I hadn’t expected it to be so painful. After several months of irregular, heavy cycles with increasing pelvic pain, and many ultrasounds my doctors suspected endometriosis. A laparoscopy when I was 13 confirmed that I did indeed have endometriosis. My doctors recommended birth control pills. Over the next few years, I tried nearly every form of birth control and I was still in pain.
After getting married to my husband, we decided to stop birth control. When we decided to officially begin trying, I immediately started using ovulation prediction kits and tracking my cycle. After several cycles with no pregnancies, we reached out to my doctors who eventually diagnosed me with a severe vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D deficiency can cause thyroid issues, depression, chronic fatigue, and as my doctor discovered in an ultrasound, a severely thin uterine lining. Unfortunately, due to my treatments my doctor recommended NOT getting pregnant while my thyroid and vitamin D levels returned to normal.
When we were finally given all clear, we began desperately trying everything we could. After an early miscarriage, we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. We tried some treatment options that I did not respond well to (my husband still turns pale at the mention of the word Clomid). We both knew my fertility issues may prevent us from having biological children. So, we committed to growing our family through domestic adoption, and we spent the spring of 2019 researching ethical adoption agencies, completing our home study, designing our profile book, and learning from birth moms and adoptees on adoption etiquette. We became an active hopeful adoptive family in August, and by October we had matched with an expectant mother.
In late October, the expectant mama we were matched with gave birth. We were briefly taking care of her baby girl, and then her mama changed her mind. Mama C made an adoption plan, and then she worked harder than anyone I know to change her circumstances and parent her child. She loves her baby so much; we love her and her baby so much. As much as we love them, we still had to grieve the loss of the life we had hoped for. When you’re given the opportunity to parent a child, no matter for how long, you open your heart up. We can celebrate and support families staying together and reunification, and still feel deeply hurt by our empty nest. My husband and I decided, after grief counseling and therapy, that we were not ready to find another agency or become an active adoptive family. In my husband’s words, “Every child deserves to have its family 100% all in from the moment they first come together, and I can’t be all in for an adoption right now.” So, Nathan and I decided we would stop pursuing domestic infant adoption.
Financially, we weren’t prepared for IVF. That’s when we learned about embryo donation. We both agreed it was the path we wanted to take. So, we put ourselves out there. We posted our profile and were quickly found by our embryo donors. Our donors offered us two day six embryos, that had been vitrified in the same vial. We graciously accepted, hired a lawyer, and contacted the clinic the embryos were stored at. We instantly fell in love with the embryos’ clinic and our reproductive endocrinologist. We arrived in St. Louis in December, almost four weeks after our protocol began. We were SO excited and hopeful that we would have our rainbow baby by Christmas.
Three hours before our transfer, we got a call from the clinic. Our embryos did not survive the thaw. I have never grieved so hard. All we had worked for in 2019 was to become parents, and it wasn’t going to happen. There was nothing we could do. Our reproductive endocrinologist said one of the embryos was abnormal, and the embryos disintegrated during the thaw. We immediately texted our Snowflake Family and they cried with us. This had NEVER happened to any of the embryos before.
A week later, after coming off of all my fertility medications and spending four days eating nothing but powdered donuts and kombucha (because BALANCE), one of the other recipients in our Snowflake Family offered us her last two embryos. These were a day 5 and a day 6 frozen in separate vials. We were shocked that she would be so selfless and generous. We immediately accepted and moved forward with our lawyer and prepared transportation for our two new embryos.
When we arrived at my clinic for our February FET, we learned that we would not be transferring our day five embryo as we had planned. My reproductive endocrinologist came into the room and explained that our day five embryo was missing. The embryologist had flushed and flushed the straw, kept searching, and even called the lab the embryo was created at and spoke to the embryologist there. After close examination of the straw, both embryologists realized the straw had been cracked and fragments of the straw and our embryo were missing. At some point in transportation to our clinic, our embaby’s home was destroyed, it had fallen out of the straw, and it had died.
To hear our embryo never had a chance at life was devastating. I cried. I updated our entire Snowflake family, and they supported me. But then they reminded me that this embryo is a fighter. It HAD survived transportation, it HAD survived the thaw, it had seamlessly been transferred inside of me and it IS getting a chance at life. Our doctor then showed me the first picture of our day six embryo, and the straw it had been in, which was perfectly intact. She was really optimistic and hopeful; she even called our embryo beautiful. Our transfer of our day six donor embryo went perfectly.
On Sunday, February 23rd, we got our first faint pink line. I was pregnant. I’ve spent every day since then peeing on multiple pregnancy tests and sharing the news with my Snowflake Family. We have beta testing at the end of this week to see how our pregnancy is progressing. I don’t know what this pregnancy will be like, but I hope and pray this little embryo grows and keeps fighting for the next 37-38 weeks.
Whatever path to parenthood you are on, you aren’t alone. You are enough and worthy of parenthood. Whenever you begin to doubt that, turn to your support system. We’ve got your back.
Bio: Kayla Kohl is a doula and a blogger living in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband, two cats, and dog. She is passionate about supporting others with their fertility journey and breaking the stigma around infertility and loss. She graduated with a B.S. in Elementary Education, and a Deaf studies minor. She is currently pregnant after her first frozen embryo transfer with a donor embryo.
Medical Disclaimer:
The information provided in this blog is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider or qualified medical professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this blog.