If you’ve been following us for awhile, you likely know infertility has become such a major part of our lives. And so begins our infertility journey. But if you’re new here, it’s looked something like this: we got married in 2011. A year later after enjoying married life, we decided it was time to add a kiddo to the clan. We thought it would happen right away. It didn’t. After a year of trying, we sought professional help and after two additional years of tests, medications, appointments, and eventually IVF, we finally had our little Olivia. But this post isn’t about Olivia. This one is about the newest member of our family and the journey we went on the second time around to get us little Everett.
Welcome to the Crew, Everett!
We’ll start with present day and work backward a little bit. A few weeks ago, one of the most incredible days took place (tied with when Olivia was born). Our little boy, Everett Hayes, was born weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 3 oz! We instantly fell in love for the second time and ever since, we’ve been adjusting to life as a family of four.
To the Beginning of our Infertility Journey
But backing up a little bit, we wanted to share a little of our story about our infertility journey with baby #2. If you haven’t seen it yet, we made a nice little video that summarizes our experience quite well. Be sure to check that out for our full story. For now, a quick summary.
Shortly before Olivia turned 2, we decided it was time to try for baby #2. We still had some frozen embryos left from our previous IVF retrieval and we were hopeful it would happen quickly the second time around. Well, that didn’t happen. We ended up having two failed transfers followed by an ERA. An ERA, or endometrial receptivity test, is a fairly new method to ensure you are transferring your embryo on the correct day. There is some dispute on whether ERAs are successful based on the limited data available, but our doctor strongly recommended it, so we went with it. Turns out, she was right because we found out we weren’t in fact transferring on the correct day. After tweaking some medications and dates, we tried again. And two weeks later, a positive pregnancy test.
Life on Standby
While that is a pretty rapid fire summary, the process was long and uncertain. We dealt with unexplained infertility the first time around and had no clearer answers the second time. The ERA may not work for everyone, but in our case, trusting our doctor made all the difference. When you go through infertility and ultimately have success, you get tricked into thinking the second time may not be as difficult. Which, that can be the case. Or you can be in for another emotional roller coaster.
At the end of the day, though, we have the same feelings with baby #2 that we did for baby #1. He is totally worth the wait. And all the tests, procedures, medications, and needles were worth every second to see that adorable baby boy stare up at us for the first time.
So we’d figure we’d end with some cute newborn photos (proud parents – we kind of have to).