💛 Mary Jo's Story

There’s so many things to say about this journey. At times it's rewarding, at other times it's the most frustrating thing ever. For five years my husband and I have been trying to have another child to complete our family. Our second pregnancy after my son, ended in a miscarriage. I was told not to worry as I’d be pregnant again soon. Well, life happened, and we didn’t get pregnant right away. I tried a few clomid cycles, and IUI’s. The doctor we were seeing pushed us towards embryo adoption, and I just wasn’t there yet. I knew my low ovarian reserve, and my husband's low morphology was not on our side, but we had one child. I was sure we could have another. We knew we didn’t have enough money for IVF, so we tried 3 IUI’s and hoped for the best. It happened that a friend told us about a clinic in New York that was much cheaper than anywhere in Ohio. Over the course of 2 years, we ended up doing an IUI and 3 retrievals there.

The retrievals took a lot out of me mentally and physically. I am one of those horror stories, and my IV perforated during my first retrieval, so I was awake for the whole thing and felt everything! (Yes, OUCH!). Without Erin, FHY, and the help of my fellow zoomers, I NEVER would have made it past the first one, but I did. The 3 transfers I had resulted in two pregnancies, but they didn’t stick. After my third retrieval in March I knew no matter the outcome, I would be at peace with all that we had done and I would not do any more retrievals.

Also in the process, I decided to see a doctor who took a more natural approach. We did some testing, nothing fertility related, but determined foods that I may have an intolerance to. He told me to stay away from them for a while. Then after an elimination diet, I added eggs back in and immediately had a reaction. So I took some drastic diet changes and stayed away from eggs, raspberries, corn, and gluten. At church they also had started a healing ministry. I had been thinking of going for a while, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Finally, one day I worked myself up to it, and at the beginning of February and March, they prayed over me. The first time I felt a sense of healing and I cried. The second time…I felt relief. I felt a presence radiate in my body and I knew everything would be ok. My grandmother gave me a Novena to pray to Saint Teresa, the little flower of Jesus, and instead of saying it for 9 days I said it every day for months. During the secret snowflake program I won a book called Not Broken by Lora Shahine, and that led me to the book Carrying to Term by Dr. Jordan Robertson. I read both books and looked for situations that fit mine and started a regime of vitamins and supplements I hoped would help. I also looked back at what I was doing when I conceived my son. I started using maca powder again, and I finally kicked the coffee habit.

At some point there was another fertility doctor I saw, the third one. She was very positive and ran a RPL panel (due to five losses), ERA, and karyotyping. Ultimately, it was too expensive for us to do a cycle through her, but she gave us some good information, and faith that our dream was still viable.

Then corona hit. I was bound and determined that we would do a FET sooner than later. I felt my clock ticking as I’m 39 and my husband is 41. My husband pushed for later. He didn’t want to travel in the middle of what we thought might be the peak. I conceded and agreed to wait a month or two. So in April we didn’t do anything. I started walking and doing yoga everyday, because I was teaching at home, and because being at home working with my five year old full time was stressful. I was trying to hold it all together. I found that through yoga, I really enjoyed laying on the floor with my feet up the wall. So no matter what yoga session I was doing, I always added that pose at the end. I felt it calmed and grounded me.

So I was waiting for my cycle to start because I had determined one month of waiting was enough. I was crabby and I had spotted the week before so I was sure it was coming. I was anxious to get the FET started. Well…turns out my cycle never came. One morning after it still hadn’t started I decided to take a pregnancy test to rule it out, like I had so many times before. When I looked at it, I couldn’t believe that it was positive! My disbelief soon turned to worry, as I had been here before. I called my OB and she’s great but didn’t want to see me for a few weeks. So I called CNY and they agreed to monitor me for the beginning. I started to think it was real when my HCG levels were higher than ever before. The monitoring continued and I breathed a sigh of relief when we heard the heartbeat at 6 weeks, but then still more waiting and worry. Now I’m at the 9 week mark and doing well. My fears have subsided, but I know I will feel the most relief in January when I hold my little one.

My husband said, “You know we could be mad that we spent all this money and time on treatments to get pregnant naturally…but what if we needed to do that to get here.” I honestly couldn’t have said it better myself.

To all of you, I know your time is coming. You are preparing your body and mind and good things will come your way! Stay the course.

💫 In honor of NIAW

I want to make support more accessible this week.

For a limited time, I’m offering:

50% OFF ANY Fertile Hope membership forever
(including the already discounted 6-month NURTURE plan)

Use code: NIAW2026 at checkout