Brittany & Chris
Treatment(s)
- Embryo Freezing
- Frozen embryo transfer (FET)
- In vitro Fertilization (IVF)
Location(s)
- Albany
Physician(s)
- Michael Grossman, MD
Brittany & Chris's Story:
We started trying in the summer of 2018. In 2020, we got pregnant with our first IVF baby after two transfers and we were blessed that she was born healthy in 2021.
When she was 15 months old, we went back to CNY to try for a sibling. I had my "initial testing" done again since it had been a few years and they found two polyps that they wanted to remove.
I waited three months to have the surgery and then we officially started trying when our oldest was 18 months. I had 5 embryos left from my first retrieval, so we did our first transfer and sadly, it didn't take. Our second transfer was again successful, but we sadly lost that baby at 8 weeks. We still are not sure if I had a typical miscarriage or if a subchorionic haematoma (SCH) detached the baby from the womb. We went through the last three embryos, and in Feb 2023, we had a second retrieval.
We got 7 untested embryos from that retrieval. We did two transfers and still had no success. At this point, we had done 6 transfers to try and give our child a sibling, and I started to lose hope it would ever work.
We decided to transfer 2 embryos at once in hopes of saving time and money. To our surprise, both took! Then at 7 weeks we found out one actually split, so we weren't having twins like we thought, but triplets. Mo/di twins and one in it's own sac.
We were scared as we already had an almost 3-year-old, but we were ready to take on the challenge. All was going smoothly until we went for our 18-week appointment where we found out the identical twins (Baby A and Baby B) had sadly passed. The one in its own sac (Baby C) was still doing well. We were terrified that we would lose him too (they were all boys), but I tried to remain positive.
At 32 weeks 5 days, my water broke. I was 4cm dilated, and I ended up delivering one of the demised twins. Luckily, labor did not start, and I was able to stay in the hospital for 11 days before we had a planned C-section to deliver our living triplet and the other demised twin. That time was very difficult for me as I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Would labor start randomly? Would infection set in? Would I be able to make it to 34 weeks? Should I wait as long as possible past 34 weeks?
Every day I tried to occupy myself so I wouldn't hyper focus on his movements. Due to the fact that I remained dilated at 3cm the whole time, I did have the unfortunate experience of passing remains of the demised twin that was left. This would be enough to put anyone over the edge, so I made the decision to go ahead with the c-section at 34 weeks exactly, even though I technically could've waited longer due to the fact that it didn't seem like there was an infection.
Baby C was delivered safely and spent 8 days in the NICU. He did not need any help to breathe or eat, and we were very grateful for how well he was doing. I thought for sure it would be a 2 or 3-week stay, but I think the steroids they gave me to help his lungs really did their job. One positive thing that came out of my water breaking early was that we were able to get the ashes of Baby A and Baby B and some closure to the loss.
Favorite Team Member at CNY:
Dr. Grossman is my absolute favorite. He did almost all of my transfers and I loved his calming voice and bedside manner.
The Moment:
Since transferring two embryos was sort of a hail mary attempt for us, I went through all of the emotions of thinking it worked and didn't work.
I had implantation bleeding for the first time and decided to take a test the night before Beta. It came back positive and I was hoping this would be the one to give us a living child and a sibling for our oldest after a year of doing IVF. I did not think it was multiples as I didn't think the line was dark enough, but had a feeling when my beta at 9dp5dt was over 400 that it probably was at least twins.
The moment they lifted him over the curtain and I heard him cry, I knew he was safe. I cried happy tears knowing that my infertility journey was finally over and I hopefully never had to endure shots, ultrasounds, or pills again. We could finally live our life as a family of four.
Hope, Inspiration and Advice:
Treatment can be a strain on your mental health and marriage. Take time for yourself and your partner. Cry it out when necessary and celebrate the wins. Think twice before transferring more than one embryo as it could definitely come with complications.
