I met Helen uh, in he psychology department at the University of Michigan and we had a
common friend who was both a friend and a professor of ours who uh, introduced us.
And as they say the rest was history.
I was 35 at that point and so I knew I want to have kids and I knew that this was, the
timing was, becoming important.
There was a time when we did start to talk about uh, wanting to have children together.
And uh, well it turns out we, we both agree that we both wanted to have kids.
I discovered I was pregnant about four months before our planned wedding.
And we
moved everything and then, right before the wedding I went for the ultrasound and
there was no heartbeat.
And so at that point ...
When you start thinking of yourself as a parent and you started, your mind starts
simulating, going forward.
Um, and then of course when it doesn't, doesn't work out
then it's something that you want even more.
We tried for I think seven or eight months, without any success.
And so then we
went to a fertility doctor and at that point we did a battery of tests and we started
with the IUI.
So we went through um, three IUIs and they didn't work.
IVF was the, the next natural step.
We had so much invested in it at this point.
And in
the process that uh, it seemed like a good thing that we're doing.
And so we did six years of IVF treatments and we loved the doctor, she was
really candid and she said, "At this point we should do some genetic screening of the
embryos."
And so that was then suddenly the light went off, because up until this point
it's been just undiagnosed infertility.
Which is a really annoying label.
And we found
a center that sort of specialized in my age group.
On the first round we actually got one healthy, normal embryo, which was incredible.
We had one
good one.
And for us that was pretty remarkable.
We did the implantation in July and we, the day that we were supposed to leave for a
vacation, we were doing the blood test.
And it came back positive.
But I still couldn't
believe it I mean, so at that point we called the doctor just to make sure that we were
actually, that really this was a positive test.
And he said, "Absolutely, congratulations
you're pregnant."
After a long six years you think, "This is never gonna happen.
This is not for me."
And
you know, at what point should we call it, at what point should we just concede that
this
is just not in the cards for us.
And so when it, I'm suddenly pregnant that, I can't believe this.
Once we done the screening for me it was different, because before that, there was just uncertainty
and knowing what I know now, we would've done the screening much, much earlier because to
me it was really confidence building.
The first time I held our baby was really a surreal experience.
Uh, they had put her head
next to me after the delivery.
And she had everything there.
I mean she was a perfectly
formed healthy baby girl that had a personality.
I mean, came in with a personality and
it was really an incredible experience.
I remember I was lying on the hospital bed and she had her little hand around my finger.
And uh, it was just such a special, special moment.
PGS screening for us for us was transformative.
It gave us hope and it gave us a child.
Anyone struggling with fertility issues, I think it's important that they know that there's
this tool out there that can actually elucidate many of the conditions that are just
termed as unknown infertility.
And I really think that uh, without this testing, we
wouldn't be here today with our fabulous daughter.