Emily & Chris

Emily & Chris's Story:

My journey to motherhood is long and fraught with many physical and emotional battles. Like so many other women faced with infertility diagnoses, I struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel for a long time. But exploring many procedures, protocols, and clinics/doctors like CNY Fertility has led to the most rewarding experience of my life.

My husband and I got married in 2016, bought a house in 2017, and then started trying to have a baby in 2018. After no luck conceiving by the end of 2019, we went to CNY Fertility to see what could be the issue. I was found to have a large uterine fibroid and also diagnosed with PCOS. My surgery to have the uterine fibroid removed was delayed a few months due to COVID, but by June 2020, the surgery was complete, and I recovered well.

In the fall of 2020, I went back to CNY Fertility and tried a few natural cycles with ovulation stimulation. I had one brief chemical pregnancy at the end of the year. In 2021, we did four IUI rounds, with no pregnancies resulting.

This is when I learned my uterine lining takes longer to grow and can be a bit tricky with the timing of insemination. I also had a pesky cyst on my left dominant ovary, which would come and go or increase and decrease in size. By the time we reached the end of summer 2021, we decided to pursue IVF.

In the fall of 2021, I successfully retrieved multiple eggs that resulted in multiple embryos. We transferred one of them the following month, and then I was pregnant. It seemed like it was finally it, but then we lost the heartbeat at 6 weeks. It was the most gut-wrenching experience I’ve ever had. A D&C was scheduled for later that week, and it took a couple of months for my HCG to drop before we could try again.

After some adjustments to protocol, we did another transfer around the end of February, and unfortunately, it resulted in a biochemical pregnancy. I was absolutely frustrated with my body and could see no light at the end. But of course, I didn’t want to give up, so after my HCG dropped, we moved on to the next transfer.

In summer 2022, I was pregnant again, but only for 6 weeks, again. At that point all I could think was this was it, this was all my body could do. Why was this my fate, why couldn’t my body manage a pregnancy?

It took months for my HCG to drop, and at that point, we started to look further into immunological reasons why I could be having issues. I did Pregmune testing and found my genes, and my husbands made it so my body would want to attack an embryo. I also could have a slight risk of clotting increase during a pregnancy. We did ERA testing, and luckily, most of that was fine, and it confirmed the best time to transfer an embryo.

After learning all this information, we transferred another embryo with modifications to my protocol. No pregnancy resulted. Then we did another transfer with two embryos, and it resulted in a biochemical that again took months for my HCG to drop. This was summer 2023.

We did another retrieval in the fall of 2023 and decided to send the embryos from that retrieval off for genetic testing. A few of them came back euploid and would be ready for the next transfer.

CNY supported my decision to work with a reproductive immunologist, Dr Giovanni Jubiz, for help. Under his regimen, I did my second laparoscopy and found other immunological markers that we needed to address, and by the time we did the next transfer, it was May 2024.

I did several rounds of IVIG to make sure all bases were covered. I found out I was pregnant at the end of May, learned it was a girl by July, and carried my pregnancy through to this month, January 2025 with a delivery via c section at 37 weeks 4 days.

My little girl passed all her tests during pregnancy and now we are enjoying her snuggles.

(Photos by Bella Baby Photos)

Favorite Team Member at CNY:

Kris Ziegler (RN), Eric Chang (MD), and all the wonderful nurses, physicians assistants, and staff at the Buffalo, NY office.

Helpful resources Emily & Chris found:

Fertile Hope Yoga (FHY), acupuncture, support groups, journaling, whole food dieting, meditation.

The Moment:

Hearing my daughter make her first cry the moment she was born was the moment I finally felt I could breathe and realize every heartbreak, struggle, and loss I experienced was part of the journey that made me her forever grateful mother.

Hope, Inspiration and Advice:

The journey I started over 6 years ago will never truly end. I will always worry about my little one in some capacity and that’s part of being a mom. You will always think about your eggs, embryos, and/or baby no matter the stage they’re in because the child you end up raising is always attached to you in some profound way. It’s been the hardest lesson I’ve ever learned and what helps me now is doing my best to set a good example for my daughter.

Infertility diagnoses are horrible, agonizing, and painful, but there are moments of great bliss, hope, and gratitude along this journey. The hard work pays off most of the time and when it doesn’t, we are redirected to the paths that will bring us what we need in life whether that’s still to be a mother of our own child or from a donor, a foster or adoptive mom, or a fur baby mom.

I offer these words of advice:
- Embrace your inner child and remind yourself she would be proud of you for all you’re doing.
- Be prepared to manage different opinions from different doctors and identify what’s common or makes most sense to you. Unfortunately, this process often involves learning more than we ever wanted to know about our bodies and making educated decisions based on how our bodies respond to things.
- Give yourself credit for all the shots and meds you’re taking. Invest in pill sorters and apps to remind you when to take something.
Invest in yoga practices through FHY as much as you can. I found it really benefited my mental and physical health going into transfers or when I was on breaks.
- Take advantage of support groups, because not only are there other women who can empathize and truly understand what you’re going through, but it can also open doors to other resources, options that hadn’t been called out to you before.
- When you see other pregnant women or moms with children, easier said than done, but choose in that moment to not relate their situation back to you. You are your own and you are not defined by having children. It’s horrible society still makes women out to be “baby makers”, but society is wrong and you contribute more to the world as your own person.

I’ve been given a great gift of greater empathy and compassion and understanding for others. I can help them through their anxieties, I can reassure them, I can be their shoulder when no one else wants to be. They trust me because they know I’ve struggled and it’s easier to lean on someone that knows what it’s like. You can reach so many more people with this experience and that gives even more meaning that it’s all worth it.

Life would be boring if everything was handed to us. We become warriors through struggle and a beacon for others who need help that can’t find it elsewhere.