Our IVF Twin Success Story

Our IVF Success Story

When we were starting IVF and going through the process one thing I really enjoyed was reading about others success stories. It was really great to read how everyones infertility journey was unique and different. It’s so crazy for us to look back at this infertility adventure and see where we are now with two baby girls.

We hope by sharing our story you will feel motivation to move forward and keep continuing with your journey wherever that may be. If you ever need a support friend, please let us know! We would love to cheer you on during your adventures!

Where It All Began

June 2016 is where it all began, we started trying for a baby. We were tracking and monitoring everything for success! After trying for 6 months and not being pregnant, I made an appointment with our OBGYN. Next we did clomid. After 3 months of no luck, I decided it was time to visit a fertility specialist. I didn’t want to mess around with medications and wanted to do some actually testing to see what was going on.

August 2017 we had our first appointment at Utah Fertility Clinic with Dr. Faulk. We had picked him because we had heard so many great things about him. (The wait to get an appointment felt like forever… but he was worth the wait). After meeting with him, Jake and I felt good about him being our doctor and moving forward in this infertility process. We did all the testing in a few weeks and discovered IVF was our next steps.

At the time we knew IVF was something we couldn’t do right away with finances, but we knew we would find a way to make it happen. IVF was something we honestly felt really great about, and looked forward to. We didn’t know at the time it would be the means to starting our family, but we had high hopes that it would be. Doing IVF was a gamble and a lot of cash out of pocket that we didn’t have, but we are so incredibly grateful it all worked out!

Officially Starting IVF

December 3, 2018, we officially started the IVF process! That will always be a special day to me! I started the birth control pills that day! It was an emotional day for me that we were actually getting started with IVF. It was something we knew we needed to do for almost 2 years and the day had finally come! We had been preparing for it for months financially and physically, mentally, spiritually and it was finally here! (You can check out our 4 things we did to prepare for IVF that we felt made a big difference in our journey HERE.)

During this time Jake and I were doing our best to stay positive, eat healthy foods, and go to acuputure appointments!

First Day of Injections!

As crazy as it sounds, I was most excited for this day in the IVF process! It felt like we were finally making some progress in the IVF world and starting to get things rolling! The neat thing is once injections start, the next few weeks go by super fast and are full of daily excitement!

Before we started injections, my sweet friend Emily Brady and her hubby came over and walked us through all our meds. They had done IVF 4 times (3 fresh, 1 frozen transfer… all worked as well). I have learned in this process to be open with others and ask questions! So grateful to amazing friends!

I remember our first day of injections! Jake and I woke up bright and early to do our shots at 8am. The night before, we rewatched all the injection videos our doctors office gave us to watch and got all our shots out, for the morning (except the ones that needed to be refrigerated). Jake was so great and did an awesome job giving me the shots. (You can see our first day of shots vlog here). And the amazing thing….?!?! They weren’t as bad as we thought!

Egg Retrieval Day

What an exciting day!!! The week leading up to this day felt so back and forth with my follicles not being big enough yet, and then all of a sudden they were. I kept trying to stay positive and focus on what I could during this time. We felt so blessed and were able to get 31 eggs! I was 31 at the time and thought that was very fitting 🙂 During my egg retrieval we also did something called Neuopgen. (You can read all about it here.)

Over the next five days while I rested and played tons of Mario Kart… we got updates on our precious little embryos. The best part was we even got pictures of our precious little embryo babies!

Fresh Embryo Transfer Day!

See the paper Jake is holding? The top two boxes with the big circles are the 2 embryos we transferred. Can you believe those are pictures of our two baby girls at 5 days old!?!?!? It is so neat to have pictures of our babies as embryos! I am so proud of them for growing so healthy and strong! That is one very unique thing about the IVF process is you get to see your babies from a very early stage! We did a fresh embryo transfer and didn’t test our embryos. I wanted those embryos back inside me as soon as possible 🙂 This was a magical day for us, and my favorite day of the entire IVF process!

After the embryo transfer I got to have my “princess days” where I was supposed to chill and do nothing for 3 days! It was awesome! I got to eat so much good food and play Mario Kart for days!

The Day We Found Out We Were Pregnant

We had a work trip to Puerto Vallarta 8 days after our embryo transfer so we thought we would have to wait till we got back from our trip to get my blood levels tested to see if we were pregnant. Our clinic was great let us come in on a Sunday morning after 7 days from our transfer and get some blood work done. This picture was taken right after we got the call that we were officially pregnant! We were so excited and happy!

Twins?!?!??! BEST DAY EVER!

We got to go in for our first ultra sound at 9 weeks. Guess what?!?!?! Both of our embryos took and we found out we were pregnant with twins! Amazingly enough we also got to hear the twins heartbeats. I just cried when I got to hear their heartbeats! It was the best ever! Our little gummy bears! We were hoping and praying for multiples and felt so grateful we were having 2 little babes!

14 Week Ultrasound

Over 3 months down! 🙂 I LOVED going in for ultrasounds! Every time we went in for appointments, it was always great to see how the babies were doing. This was an extra special ultrasound for us. I had just come off 6 days of bedrest and a pretty big scare. (We thought we lost one or more of the babies from some serious blood loss) It was a beyond happy day for us seeing that both babies were doing great and growing strong and healthy. At this point I felt like these babies wanted to be here and doing everything in their power to fight to live! They are such troopers!

We later down the road found out the blood loss came from baby b’s placenta detaching a bit from the uterus wall. The babies were troopers through it and grateful my body recovered quickly and well.

18 Weeks Twin Gender Reveal Party

At 18 weeks pregnant we were able to put together and have a gender reveal party! We really have felt so much love and support during this IVF process, we wanted to do a big celebration for everyone that we could fit in our backyard to say thanks!

When all the confetti cannons went off, we found out we were have 2 baby girls!!! Wahoo!!!

Pregnancy

Pregnancy was so special to me, I really enjoyed it so much! It felt like such a treat to be able to carry our 2 precious angels. Pregnancy can be rough for a lot of people and I am so grateful I had a smooth time. These girls were so chill and sweet! (Inside and out of moms belly 🙂

Jake and I got to go on a few babymoon adventures to Shanghai, Jackson Hole and Vegas. During every trip we just thought how we would trade it all to be holding our little baby girls! We were so excited for when our girls came to be able to take them on adventures as a family!

Babies Day Out!

Wow! What an amazing day! I had 2 baby girls!!!! Being able to have our girls and hold them was the most magical feeling ever! Everything we had experienced up until this point to get our babies… it was all worth it!

Hospital Life

Being at the hospital with our two baby girls felt so surreal! We got to stay at the hospital as a family for 5 fun filled days together! It was such an adventure learning how to feed a baby, swaddle a baby, put on a diaper on a 4lb baby, etc. We really loved our hospital stay and all the amazing nurses and doctors we got to meet on our journey.

Jake and I really tried to soak in all the time we could with our girls! Scout was sooo little Jake was making sure to do lots of skin to skin with her to keep her body temperature warm. He is such a caring and loving dad. It was so fun to see him jump into action and be watchful of his girls.

Life At Home With 2 Newborns

Bringing our two babies home from the hospital was the BEST!. We were so excited for the girls to meet their doggy Zeke and to start our life all together! The beginning had many sleepless nights, but those were my favorite! Jake was amazing and would stay up with me and help me feed the girls. We would look forward to binge watching movies and tv series. Those were some fond memories together! It’s so wild now the girls are 7 months old! I now get the saying that “time flys fast with kids!”

What’s next for us?

Jake and I want to do IVF again for sure. When??? Not sure. Ideally we would like to sooner than later since we don’t know what the outcome would be. To be honest, I would be up for it right now! But I know my body still needs time to heal and get healthy again for IVF. We also really want to enjoy our girls as much as we can right now and give them all the love, snuggles and attention we can!

Next time we do IVF we will be doing frozen transfer. That will be a new ball game for us, but we are so grateful that is an option for us! We have 5 frozen embryos. Jake and I are hoping for twins again! Bring on the fun! 🙂