Rebecca & Kyle

Life before trying to conceive was easygoing. My husband works in sales, and I work in physical therapy. We have an orange cat named Nemo who we love dearly! My husband and I met in college in 2013 and started dating our senior year in 2015. We got married in 2020.  

Finding a fertility care team at Shady Grove Fertility

After several months of trying to conceive on our own without success, I had a gut feeling something was wrong. My period cycles were long 38-40 days, some months I wouldn’t get a period.  
 
After reading and hearing good reviews, we turned to Shady Grove Fertility (SGF) for help. After our initial fertility testing, Dr. Tara Budinetz diagnosed me with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and a thin uterine lining. 

Experiencing challenges before success

We decided to move forward with intrauterine insemination (IUI). After two failed IUIs, we started the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process. IVF was the hardest thing I personally have ever gone through. It was scary the day I got all my medications, I felt very overwhelmed. When we finally got to egg retrieval, we were happy to get 15 eggs. From there, 7 matured.  

We did genetic testing after our egg retrieval to find only 3 of our embryos came back normal out of 7. Dr. B told us this could have been playing a factor in our inability to conceive due to abnormal eggs. 

When we finally started prepping for our transfer cycle, I could not get my lining above a 5.7 and continued to have cancelled cycles which left me heart broken. With the wonderful help from Dr. Budinetz, we were finally able to make it to a trilaminar 6.2 which is still considered thin, but she was confident, and we went ahead with the transfer anyway.

Meeting our miracle

We were successful with the first transfer!  

My pregnancy was overall pretty good. I had terrible acid reflux the entire pregnancy, which was my biggest complaint.  
 
My journey was filled with disappointment and tears for months and months. However, with the help from Shady Grove Fertility, and specifically Dr. Budinetz, we were able to finally have our wonderful baby boy Connor. 

Having our baby boy has changed our lives in so many ways I never could have ever imagined (for the better). Even on nights we don’t sleep or days he is super fussy, we enjoy every second because of the journey we had to go through to get to him. 
 
I have had a lot of people reach out to me who are going through similar experiences and my best advice is to trust the process and try your best to remain calm. Going through IVF was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I would do it a million times over for my son. The SGF care team never failed to reassure me that this journey would happen for me when I was having rough days and would cry. We maintained hope by the reassurance from our doctor and nurses at SGF. We were willing to keep going and do whatever possible to get our miracle! 
 
We will be back to Shady Grove Fertility for our second child in the future!