💛 Margie's Story

 

It’s real. I’m 10 weeks pregnant! After my bleed scare on Easter at 8 weeks due to a subchorionic hematoma, I was on pins and needles for a week and a half until my first OB appointment today, where I saw my baby on ultrasound wave to me as if to say “hi mom! Don’t worry!! I’m here!” That was all the reassurance I needed. Finally I feel ready to graduate from this amazing group and share the story of my journey to get here.

I joined this group as a founding member in January 2019. I knew Erin from when we did yoga teacher training together in Rochester more than 15 years ago (I was a medical student at the time!). I am so glad we stayed in touch on Facebook because when I saw her post about starting Fertile Hope Yoga, I knew I needed to find a way out of the cycles of negativity and despair that I had gotten stuck in during the difficult journey of infertility. I just didn’t know how.

When I made my first post in this group, I was at my lowest point and only a few months into my fertility journey. I was full of despair; the total absence of hope. I had just turned 41 and felt that maybe I had missed my chance at getting pregnant. I had just found out that my third round of egg retrieval /IVF had resulted in only one embryo — and like the other cycles before it, the embryo was PGS tested and came back abnormal. I was crushed and feared I was at the end of my path. My doctor recommended donor eggs. And so after mourning the loss of the ability to pass on my genetics, I opened up to the possibility of other avenues to having a baby. I found a donor who felt like a soul sister, who gave me hope again. After a few more bumps in the road causing delays (including a surprise new element of male factor infertility— my husband ultimately underwent TESE), we ended up with two normal Embryos! My hope increased even more when my doc gave me a 70% odds for success of a FET with one of these donor egg embryos. When my transfer failed, I was left wondering “why?” without any good answers.

I dug deeper into my meditation and gratitude practice, self care routine, made some diet changes (gluten free, plant based, zero caffeine), and grounded myself with my yoga practice.

It also gave me the space to develop the courage to consider an “abnormal” embryo I had created from my second egg retrieval and IVF cycle. It was an embryo that was missing a portion of the X chromosome in some of the cells. When I first learned about this embryo in December 2018, my doctor told me it had a higher rate of miscarriage and also Turners syndrome as a possible outcome. At that point, I was so full of despair I could not take on any more uncertainty and opted not to transfer this embryo.

But I kept wondering “what if”? Although my doc gave me a 20% chance of success with my mosaic embryo, he agreed to let me try the transfer. Honestly neither of us thought it would work, but I knew in my gut I had to give it a chance. At least to know I was brave enough to try. And thus my “little embryo that could” gave us quite the surprise when it implanted and now is thriving!! We have a long ways to go with close monitoring throughout this pregnancy, but every day I visualize that the chromosomal mosaicism is in the process of “self-correcting” (which most of them do once they implant). And I am confident that everything I have learned from this journey has given me the strength to handle whatever bumps may come along the road.

There is so much growth that happened along this journey, I am actually happy with how long it took. I don’t regret not immediately transferring the mosaic embryo when I learned about it in 2018. I wasn’t ready! I had a lot of growth and learning to do. I don’t regret trying the donor egg first and going through a failed first transfer — I learned more about how to prepare my body and mind for a successful pregnancy.

This journey required a deeper level of trust in my own body and intuition. My graduation gift is to leave you with the mantras that have guided me to get to this point:

Hope Over Fear;

&

Anything is Possible

 

💫 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

Join Now