Infertility
Emily has a beautiful story, a heart wrenching and hard story, but one of hope and happiness. I share it with you in hopes that, those who are struggling and those who know people who are, will find peace, hope and a connection.
I know there are many who still long for a child, those who, for some reason, medical help or adoption have failed. To you, I send my love and prayers that you might find every opportunity to be a loving mother. -Love, Nicole
Hi! I'm Emily Hutchings and I met all these lovely Momma Mob
Squad ladies while attending Dental School in Kirksville, MO. I think you
can all agree that they are pretty fantastic. I am going to be sharing my
Infertility journey with you in hopes of encouraging others in similar
circumstances and enlightening those who know others with infertility
issues.
I came from a family of 11 children so I have always had hopes and
dreams of being a mother to many children. Before I married I had a
brother whose family was having infertility issues and had done several round
of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). I learned a lot through watching my
sister-in-law experience infertility but NEVER expected to have any issues with
getting pregnant. After being married for about 4 months my husband and I
both felt inspired to start a family. We began trying with no luck....and
then no luck...and then no luck. I was terrified because I had seen the emotional
trauma that Infertility brings so we began seeking out doctors after a year of
trying. We did several round of Artificial Insemination with no results
and so we felt that we should go ahead and look into IVF. We moved to a
different state and I started working with a company that covered IVF, for the
most part.
We started our first round of IVF about two years after we
first started trying to get pregnant and had pretty good results at the
beginning. When I went in for our "transfer" (when they put the
embryos back in) I thought we had 17 healthy embryos. When I arrived they
were startled to discover that I hadn't received a phone call that morning
giving me the news that our Embryos had almost all multi-nucleated and were no
longer viable. I was DEVASTATED. They mentioned we had 3 left but
they were very poor quality and they would highly recommend not going through
the transfer process because there was 0% chance of pregnancy. However, I
was already there so we decided to go ahead.
The next few days I entered a very deep depression and
anger. I was in a black hole and nothing was getting me out. In
direct defiance to doctor's orders I went to work and was lifting extremely
heavy boxes (I worked in a warehouse) day in and day out just out of anger. About
12 days after the transfer I received a call at work that altered my
universe. I was pregnant!!!! Somehow a miracle was growing in my
belly. The next 9 months were the longest months of my life until our
sweet miracle, Cooper, was born in October of 2006.
Another miracle happened on January 1, 2008, when we were able to
adopt our son, Luke. Shortly after, against all odds, we became pregnant
with our 3rd child, Ethan, who was born December 30th of
the same year. I call him my "Immaculate Conception" baby
because I honestly don't know how we became pregnant with him as I swear my
husband was out of town. But I'm not complaining. I was a very busy Mama
of 3 kids under 2 years old. I had a few miscarriages in-between these
kids but I knew I was being blessed so I didn't grieve too much.
Fast foward 3 years and my husband, Jake, and I both felt that our
family wasn't complete but we were living paycheck to paycheck in New Mexico
and we knew we were starting dental school very soon and we would have no
chance of doing IVF once in school. We made a big decision to try another
round in Chicago with a fabulous doctor and doing our monitoring in
Albuquerque. The logistics were a complete nightmare and it ended up
costing twice the amount we originally though for several reasons. We
flew to Chicago for our transfer and left our 3 little children with my
mother-in-law. We were in Chicago for about 2 weeks but were very hopeful
as we had great results again and had about 21 embryos. On day 3 the exact
same thing happened as our first round, our embryos were multi-nucleating and
we only had 4 viable embryos left and they were not looking good either.
We convinced our doctor to put 3 embryos in because there was little hope of
getting pregnant. I entered a deep depression again and was completely
hopeless and discouraged.
About 2 weeks later, much to our
surprise we discovered we were pregnant with twins! We were elated!
We had 3 ultrasounds that showed the 2 babies were doing wonderful. On my
4th ultrasound, by myself, the technicians discovered a 3rd baby--WHAT?!?
I was terrified, overwhelmed, but still feeling grateful. The pregnancy
went very well and we ended up with 3 beautiful, healthy babies: Anderson,
Bennett, and Taya. I finally got my baby girl! We had quite the
chaotic house with 6 children under 6 years old.
My triplets are almost 5 now and I can look back on my journey
with understanding, gratitude, and perspective. However, in the thick of
it, it is so so hard to see the positive and the point in the struggle. I
have had 3 sister-in-laws now who also have to get pregnant via IVF and have
had MANY failed cycles and I have had to watch them grieve and mourn and give
gratitude when they are blessed with children.
Infertility is a struggle
that I would wish on none but a blessing that we are capable of having babies
due to Science and adoption. Please reach out to others who
struggle. Let them know you love them, you care about them, and you know
it is so hard. The gift of Motherhood is such a powerful internal desire
and those of us who struggle to become a mother need the comfort and thoughts
of family and friends.
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