Jaimie Selwa

My husband and I never thought we’d be diagnosed with infertility when trying to expand our family. But when life gave us lemons, I decided to make lemonade. I am making it my mission to educate and bring awareness to the many ways you can make a family.

My husband and I have been through quite the journey to try to expand our family. I never thought in a million years that we’d be struggling with infertility. I always wanted to be a mother, so how could something that comes so naturally for others be so hard for us?

Let me start from the beginning. In June 2017, after my husband and I were married, bought a house, had two dogs and felt stable in our careers, we decided we wanted to add a baby to the mix. After 9 months of trying I had a gut feeling that something was wrong, despite my OBGYN telling me that I was young and healthy and keep trying. I took to resources like FertilityIQ to find a Reproductive Endocrinologist in my area.

Advocating for myself was one of the scariest but best things I could have done. In the fall of 2018, we started down the path of testing and experimenting with Clomid and IUIs. In July 2019, I had laparoscopy surgery which revealed that my tubes are blocked. November 2019, brought us the news that IVF would be our best chance at bringing our own child into the world.

2020 not only brought the pandemic for us but it was full of IVF. We had our first egg retrieval in March, an unsuccessful fresh transfer in March and two unsuccessful transfers in June and October. In November 2020, we set down the path with a new doctor for a fresh perspective. We kicked off 2021 with another egg retrieval that resulted in two abnormal embryos. In April, we tried a new protocol and unfortunately only got one embryo, which came back abnormal.

That leads us to now (May), where we’re prepping for our fourth egg retrieval. Fourth times a charm, right?