Real Patient Stories | Fertility Resources

Feb 06, 2018 | Real Patient Stories

Sarah & Brian

After our first FET attempt failed, it was a little disheartening, but we pulled ourselves together and had our sweet embryo #12 transferred in May of 2017. The embryologist who was in charge of our procedure even commented on what a beautiful hatching embryo we had - and something about this round of treatment just felt different. I tested faint positive 4 days later. Our precious miracle baby, Cohen, arrived on January 26, 2018 and he is everything we have hoped and prayed for.

Nov 07, 2017 | Real Patient Stories

Julie & Eric

After 3.5 years of trying to conceive, I scheduled a doctor appointment to see why my husband and I were not getting pregnant. We first went to my OBGYN who performed different tests on both myself and my husband. Both of our tests came back normal, so the doctor recommended proceeding with an IUI. We scheduled this procedure and continued to do so three times without any success. After the third failed IUI, our doctor referred us to a fertility clinic.

Of course, not knowing anything about fertility challenges and IVF, I started to do some research on my own as I patiently awaited our first appointment. We met with the doctor who explained the process. A few weeks later, I found myself standing in our kitchen every morning before work, icing and numbing my stomach, combining vials and poking myself with a needle. I remember driving to work and thinking to myself, what is going on? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? All I could think about is the end of the day, going home and having to do it all over again… like clockwork! I pulled out the meds from my new designated drawer in the fridge, take an ice pack out from the freezer, mix the vials and pull the syringe. For about 10 days, this was my morning and night routine. It was all I could think about (besides from the morning blood withdrawals, which occurred every morning at 6:30am on my way to work). Then came the phone call the day before the retrieval… the HCG "DA-DUM" shot!

In the beginning we weren’t sure of what to expect during the egg retrieval, but we learned quickly by round 3! My husband travels for work so if he happened to be away, there were times he booked a last minute flight or drove hours to be home for the retrieval. This continued for 5 rounds. At one point my doctor (at the time) even told us while sitting across from him at his desk, the words no women ever wants to hear, "you may want to consider an egg donor", since we have had five unsuccessful cycles. We sat in his office discussing what this would entail, the financial details, the process, etc. The emotions that I encountered at that moment, I cannot put into words. HEARTBROKEN does not even come close!

As a woman who has always loved children and could not imagine my life without them, I was destroyed by this suggestion. I don’t think there is anything wrong with an egg donor. It was just a shock that I wasn’t able to create MY OWN. Not to mention the financial burden and stress of going down that path. I went home and buried myself in my bed for two days. I wasn’t able to speak to family members, so my husband called them to update them of this new development. After taking a break from IVF, I was told about Dr. Cardone, a "miracle" doctor! Well, his office location was bit of a stretch from my home and office, but I made him and his visits my priority in life! And if no one was STILL providing me a scientific reason after test, after test, as to why I wasn’t conceiving, well, I WASN'T giving up!!

Dr. Cardone did a test on my ovaries which wasn’t performed in the past, and luckily it came back fine. We started a cycle which caused me to have over-hyper stimulation of the ovaries so I couldn’t do the egg retrieval. We then waited and did cycle #7, and IT WORKED!!!! As you can imagine, we were ecstatic! We held our breath for the next 13 weeks and cried tears of joy every day. Fast forward 36 weeks where baby Logan decided to arrive 4 weeks early! We spent Christmas morning 2014 at Newton Wellesley hospital and Logan arrived on December 26. He spent three weeks in the special care nursery where he was given the absolute BEST care in the world. I was there every day from 6:00 am until 11:00 pm just cuddling, loving and feeding my boy!

I praise Dr. Cardone and all of the nurses at Boston IVF and Newton Wellesley Hospital! Today, we are thankful and blessed to have a very spunky, healthy, beyond happy almost three year-old boy!

Jun 27, 2017 | Real Patient Stories

Nicole & Paul

It's the tale as old as time in the infertility world: My husband and I were trying for a while to get pregnant and had no success. We pursued testing to see the reasons behind the infertility (as my husband had an adult child from a previous marriage) so we were looking into all the options. That's when we met the amazing Dr. Steven Bayer! The "infertility" was deemed on my side (female factor) through diagnostic testing. It confirmed PCOS w/insulin resistance and hypothyroidism. Dr. Bayer worked with us for six years and we went through sixteen cycles together: 8 IUI & 8 IVF. At the end of that journey, we walked away with three beautiful, healthy, happy boys!! One singleton boy born in 2012 and fraternal twin boys born in 2014. We were beyond blessed with these wonderful children that we so desperately wanted.

Apr 13, 2017 | Real Patient Stories

Leigh & Brad

Brad and I discussed early on in our relationship that we wanted children. After dating for a year, we got engaged and six months later got married. We began trying for a family immediately. Month after month pregnancy tests came back negative. After 17 months of trying on our own, we finally made an appointment with Dr. Brian Berger. The moment we met Dr. Berger we were given hope. Hope that truthfully seemed to slip away with every negative pregnancy test. Dr. Berger explained how he would go about identifying any causes of infertility and that we would have a diagnosis and a treatment plan at our next visit, a month later.

After our initial diagnosis, we underwent two rounds of IUI which was mandated by insurance (thank you Massachusetts!). Both rounds were unsuccessful. We jumped right into an IVF cycle, which Dr. Berger explained in such understandable terms. Our fresh cycle failed and although we were a little sad, Dr. Berger was right there, getting us ready for our frozen transfer. We had a successful transfer in March of 2016. My husband and I are the incredibly proud and overwhelmingly grateful parents of a beautiful, baby girl.

Jan 26, 2017 | Real Patient Stories

Amanda & Brian

Our story to and through the IVF process is a little more uncommon than most. My husband and I found out after getting married in November, 2013 that he and I were both carriers of the Cystic Fibrosis gene mutation DF508. This is both the most common as well as most severe CF gene mutation. This meant if we tried and conceived naturally, we had a 1 in 4 chance that our child would have Cystic Fibrosis of the most severe type. I grew up knowing that both of my maternal aunts died from CF and that it is a disease that tore my family apart. After consulting with my OB, she recommended IVF with PGD to help us achieve a healthy pregnancy with the ultimate goal of a child that would have a greatly reduced chance of not having Cystic Fibrosis. I, at the time, had no idea such an option was even available.

My husband and I ultimately decided that the most incredible gift that we could ever gift our child with, would be the gift of a healthy life, free from CF. Through our faith, God and our incredible team at Boston IVF, we achieved just that and welcomed our healthy, Cystic Fibrosis free daughter, Addison Grace September 6, 2015.

Jan 26, 2017 | Real Patient Stories

Jamilyn & Andrew

Boston IVF was our second clinic. The first one we went to refused to do anything unless I lost 60 pounds. I lost 30 on my own and they still wouldn't do anything and charged us for every procedure, even a 10 minute phone call. We decided to leave after 2 years. When we met Dr. Lannon we felt like he really listened to us. We tried the first cycle in July 2014. Due to complications we retrieved 7 eggs, 4 fertilized and 2 made it to day 5. My hormones were incredibly high though and for safety, we decided to freeze the 2 embryos we had left. We did a frozen transfer in October, 2014 (it took until then for my body to go back to normal) but unfortunately it didn't work. That was one of the hardest days we'd been through.

We waited until June 2015 and tried another frozen transfer with our last embryo. Much to our surprise and excitement, it worked and we're blessed with our beautiful baby girl on March 23.

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Liz & Joe

Our infertility journey started in 2010. For our first child we did four rounds of Clomid (with a chemical pregnancy) and finally one successful IUI. For our second child we did six rounds of IUI, two months of not responding to medications, one month of birth control pills, one fresh embryo transfer with a chemical pregnancy, and finally the frozen embryo transfer that worked. For the third baby, my frozen embryo transfer worked on the first attempt.

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Cathy & Jerry

We were married 13 years and tried for 13 years to have our son. We started in 1995. We did two IVF cycles in 2008 and our son was born December, 2008! Lots of injections with timed cycles IUI's and time where we needed to take a break. Our son has brought us so much joy to us!

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Meghan & Paul

I always knew it would be very difficult to get pregnant, so I met with my doctor before my husband and I wanted to start trying to get a baseline and discuss what treatment would look like. A few months later we started our journey. This took many months, many cycles where we monitored, took blood and tried to get everything to align correctly. Our last cycle before moving on to IVF was in November of 2015. We did it just to get to the next step and try once again. I decided not to monitor and just try to time things right since I had had so many monitored cycles previously. I went in to get blood work the Monday after Thanksgiving, with the thought that it would once again be negative and just a necessary test that would confirm this. To my surprise it was positive! I immediately called my mother to tell her, crying and in disbelief. I told my husband that night and the long journey of pregnancy began!

It was not an easy pregnancy, but everything progressed very well and very healthy. We chose not to learn the gender of the baby until birth. On August 15th I delivered a healthy baby boy weighing in at 8.2lbs and 19 inches long. We named him Archer and he is coming up on 2 months old now and is such an amazing baby!

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Stephanie & Neil

Neil and I were just like many other couples, happily married and ready to start a family. After months of actively trying with no success we decided to get further testing. We never anticipated the long, hard, emotional road that was ahead of us. After months of tests on myself and husband it was discovered that Neil had congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens but plenty of healthy sperm internally. This occurs in males when the tubes that carry sperm fail to develop properly. He had major surgery to try to correct the problem. We were told we may or may not be able to conceive naturally after surgery and that it was best to start the IVF process.

We were referred to Boston IVF by a lovely couple who had gone through the process and had twins. We teamed up with Dr. Bayer and started our IVF journey. After our first meeting with him, we knew we were going to become parents. He was very reassuring and always had a positive attitude. Our first 2 transfers were unsuccessful, and in the moments of hearing this news it was very painful, but we pushed through the pain and emotions and kept trying. Our third transfer was a frozen transfer with 2 embryos. This time we were pregnant! We welcomed our beautiful daughter May 23, 2014. Nine months later, to our surprise we found out were were pregnant again. My husbands surgery had worked after all and we welcomed our son October 5, 2015.

Two beautiful babies born under 2 years apart, never would I have imagined this would be our story. We could not have done it without the help of Dr. Bayer and the wonderful staff at Boston IVF. We will be forever grateful for our most precious gifts. ❤

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Nichole & Michael

After years of trying and fertility treatment we finally became pregnant with our oldest son. A year after his birth we went back into treatment and I became pregnant with twins in our first round of IVF! My oldest is 6 and the twins are 5! Worth the journey!

Oct 17, 2016 | Real Patient Stories

Sara & Jason

We tried to conceive on our own for about a year and half. We decided to contact Boston IVF to see what was going on. We had a diagnosis of unexplained infertility and decided to go with IVF. We started our journey in November, 2015 and had a successful first transfer in December, 2015. In 2016, our daughter, Maeve Lynne was born, 6lbs 4oz. I am so very grateful to everyone at Boston IVF.