BEFORE GABRIELA – 2 years of TTC, 1 failed IVF/ICSI cycle
My partner and I had been trying to conceive for two years. Fifteen years before that, I had been diagnosed with endometriosis and PCOS and told I wouldn’t know if we would have trouble conceiving until we tried. After having my fourth laparoscopy for endo removal, I was told everything looked good.
Two years later, we had not even a hint of a pregnancy. Supposedly, everything was fine – I was ovulating, and my partner’s tests had all returned to normal ranges. We were told our only option was to move to IVF.
I felt so useless and confused. How could everything appear fine, but I couldn’t get pregnant? Why was it so easy for other people? Nobody could answer why this happened, and I felt my time was running out. Surely, IVF would work! I felt so sad and terrified that I would never get the chance to be a mum. I felt so guilty and that it would be my fault that my partner may not be a dad.
So, on the advice of our fertility specialist, we began a cycle of IVF. My AMH was low, so we weren’t expecting many eggs. We got 5 eggs, 4 fertilized, and a one-day embryo that we transferred. I clearly remember seeing those two pink lines on the pregnancy test. I was terrified but secretly so excited. But that joy quickly turned to absolute heartbreak when I started bleeding and suffered a miscarriage at 6 weeks.
To say we were devastated would be an understatement – we were utterly crushed. My heart felt like it would never heal, and the sadness was heavy on our shoulders. We were left alone with only unanswered questions. Why didn’t it work? If it was a ‘perfect’ embryo, as we were told, why didn’t it work? What was wrong with me? I felt that I must have done something wrong. I blamed myself for not being able to hold onto the pregnancy.
I wanted answers, but nobody could give me anything other than to say it was ‘normal’ that one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage. Then they told us they don’t do any further investigations until 3 or more miscarriages. I was enraged at that news. That meant I had to have 3 miscarriages before anyone would do more testing?!
It did, and still does, feel outrageous that women and couples must go through utter heartbreak, physical and mental stress, and crushing emotional rollercoasters THREE TIMES before anyone takes a step back and looks at what may be happening underneath.
Our fertility specialist was sympathetic but offered no answers or reasons for what was happening. Once again, we were told it was ‘just a numbers game’ and we should try again. Even though I’d miscarried, it was a good cycle because I’d gotten pregnant. But I couldn’t be offered any explanation or anything we could do to try and prevent it from happening again. We were simply told to try again.
We were broken from our miscarriage and decided we needed a break to heal. I knew there had to be more that could be done, but I didn’t know what. I had started acupuncture and had been seeing a naturopath for many years. I told our naturopath that we would do anything to avoid going through the heartbreak of another miscarriage. It was then she referred me to Gabriela Rosa’s program.
AFTER GABRIELA
I had never heard of The Fertility Breakthrough Program™, so I researched. I read testimonials from patients. I read all about the program. I liked how in-depth it looked; almost like it was too good to be true since it seemed to address all our unanswered questions! Without the proper support, I would never know what tests and supplements we needed, and this program seemed to cover everything.
As we considered joining the program, I felt utterly stressed and anxious. The want to have a baby consumed me. I spent hours looking up anything and everything that could help. I realized we could try everything, but we were just going in circles unless we knew what we were doing. We knew we would need time to get ourselves into an optimum state for conception, especially after what we’d already been through, so we decided we had no more time to waste.
We decided to take the plunge and book in to assess our situation. We then had an appointment with Gabriela to see if we fit the program. We were so nervous that we wouldn’t get in; we felt like this was our last chance to have a baby. Gabriela made us feel comfortable and confident that the program was what exactly we sought, and we got in!
I remember when we received the extremely long questionnaire covering our entire history and current environment. It took us hours to complete, but it was refreshing to know that we would be looked after thoroughly based on all the required information.
I remember telling Jared that this must be a way of weeding people out who weren’t committed because anyone who wasn’t 100% committed wouldn’t take the time to gather the information and fill out the questionnaire!
The things that were covered were things we’d never been asked by anyone treating us, and it made us excited to wonder what we could achieve on the program as we’d never considered what an effect so many things could have on our fertility.
I loved that The Fertility Breakthrough Program™ had to be a team sport. We both had to be 100% in and committed, or it would never work. We had been told by everyone else that we had seen that there was nothing my partner could do; it was all my problem. Being on Gabriela’s program showed us how very untrue that was!
We were both in, committed to doing whatever it took to have a baby.
We had no idea how much we could have been doing to improve our fertility! To say the first few weeks of the program were an eye-opener would be an understatement. I won’t lie; it was overwhelming but in a good way. We finally had something positive to focus on; we felt we were DOING something to improve our chances instead of just doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result.
It felt so good to have someone to tell us exactly what to do and support us. We started with one thing at a time, which quickly became the norm.
During the following 16 months, we often met with our practitioner as she worked to help us get into the best shape possible to have a baby. We knew we’d have a lot of minor factors but needed to realize how many! It was hard. It was a lot of work, and sometimes it felt overwhelming, but we were so well supported, and everyone was so thorough that we continued to have hope that we’d eventually get our baby.
Everything we were doing was making us healthier, and Jared and I could feel the incredible difference it was all making to our health.
Ten months into The Fertility Breakthrough Program™, we were advised to have another laparoscopy done, and then we could begin trying to have a baby. I did a fifth laparoscopy and had endometriosis removed. We were ready! We waited 3 months and then started our next IVF cycle in June. Our practitioner believed we were on the wrong medication protocol for our cycle, and she was right. We only got 3 eggs, and none made it past day 3. We were devastated. After all our work, nothing.
We went away for a few days and enjoyed some sunshine. Our practitioner advised us to try a different IVF specialist and medication protocol. We did, moving IVF clinics and specialists to one who was more ‘on board’ with what we were doing through the program. And then we had our best results yet!
It was so exciting! We finally felt as if our hard work was finally paying off. We were so worried going into the cycle but getting such great results validated that everything we’d done and sacrificed wasn’t in vain. We were making the right decisions and following the right advice.
In this cycle, we had 8 eggs collected. We attempted 3 to be fertilized through IVF and 5 through ICSI. None of our IVF eggs fertilized, but 4 out of 5 of our ICSI ones did. We were so nervous that come day 5, there would be nothing left to transfer. We’d only ever had one embryo make it to day 5 and suffered a miscarriage. Those 5 days felt so long.
We were so scared we’d wake up on day 5 and get a call saying none had survived. But at our appointment, we learned that we had a perfect day 5 embryo ready to transfer with a grading of 3BB and another frozen on that day with a grading of 3AB. They told us they were watching the other 2 for another day. Our 3rd embryo was also frozen on day 6 with a grading of 4BB. We were so excited; we’d never had that many embryos survive. The hope was building, and this could be it.
Five days later, I got the start of a pink line on the pregnancy test. We were so cautiously excited! The line got darker and darker, and ten days after our transfer, our pregnancy was confirmed with a blood test!
We were nervous and scared of something going wrong, but our baby stuck with us and is now a happy, healthy, and gorgeous 7-month-old girl. Without Gabriela and the team, we would not have our beautiful girl or a healthy pregnancy. We are so grateful for your program – you gave us hope when we had none, which is why we have our family.
