Rochelle & Travis

Rochelle & Travis's Story:

The story of Atlas began in 2019 when my husband and I had our egg retrieval, which turned out four perfect embryos. Well, I suppose his story started earlier than that, in 2013 when Travis and I got married. We knew we didn’t want kids right away, and after 2 years, we decided we were ready. But the first month, we didn’t get pregnant! Or the second. Or third. Or 20th, or 36th.

It took 3 years for us to realize we had tried every crazy bit of social media advice, and SOMETHING wasn’t working. And we never considered assisted fertility, assuming we’d never be able to afford it.

Then I ran into a friend who was going through the same thing and told me about CNY and how affordable it was.

Suddenly, we had another option. But it took us two more years to gather the courage to act.

Through all the testing, we didn't find the reason for our infertility. But in August of 2019, we had a successful egg retrieval that gave us our 4 embryos, and we decided to freeze. And wouldn’t you know it, the next month, we got pregnant naturally. My first ever positive pregnancy test! But unfortunately, at our ultrasound, we learned there was no heartbeat.

We took our time and waited until February 2020 to transfer our first embryo, and that gave us our beautiful and perfect baby girl, Sydney. She was born at 20 weeks and 5 days. She was with us for 99 minutes, but we didn’t get to keep her. My husband and I took our time to let those days bring us closer together.

After a lot of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear, we transferred our second embryo on September 28th, 2021. After a full 9 month pregnancy of ups and downs, shots and meds, surgery, and ultrasounds, we got to take home our rainbow baby boy born 6/13/2022.

Every second with him is all that we could have imagined and more. We are so blessed.

The Moment:

Finding out I was pregnant didn't bring all the joyful, happy, hopeful feelings I once thought it would. After having and losing two babies, a positive pregnancy test didn’t guarantee me anything. I hesitated to tell anyone, because I didn’t want to go back and say, “We lost another one.”

I didn’t want a baby shower, because I didn’t want to send any gifts back. But I relented because of my super supportive mother in law.

When I held him in my arms after he was born, all I could imagine was taking this new born photo. Not of a ring of needles or meds, but held by the real reason we were able to have this baby: the love and support of everyone we had come across over the last 7 years. All the prayers, and hugs, and tears, and patience from those around us.

Hope, Inspiration and Advice:

Buckle up.
It can be HARD.
And it changes everything about you. Your perception of yourself, friends, and family. Your ability to fall and get back up. The strength you didn’t want to have, but do now. 10 years later I can look back and be proud of how it changed me, but in the thick of it, I felt like I would never be my happy, optimistic, joyful self. Remembering those days is when I hug my child the tightest.