I’m pregnant with twins now, but I started out with quintuplets. Yes, of course I had In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). These things don’t just happen in nature very often – with good reason.
My road from near obstetrical disaster to hopeful expectancy was gut wrenching and at times, dark and lonely. If you’re on it or even just curious about it, I want to share with you how it went for me, and hopefully offer something that might make the road a little easier for you.
The topic of higher order multiples hasn’t received the kind of media coverage women undergoing fertility treatment need. So, this post will be part of a mini-series on higher order multiples, and will include a mix of my personal story and some facts and resources you’ll want to know about.
Some background on my infertility woes
My own infertility issues stem from blocked fallopian tubes. One tube was blocked after a naturally occurring ectopic pregnancy I had in 2007. The other tube, who knows? “Could have been a number of things. An infection you had and never knew about. Maybe Chlamydia…” my doctor said, in front of my husband. Nice, right? “I’ve never had Chlamydia” I told him. “Well, you could have had it and not known about it.” Why did he keep going down this road? Seriously now.
The upshot was both tubes were jammed and my only option for getting pregnant was IVF. In the context of the long initial explanation of the IVF process, our doctor talked about the number of embryos that might be transferred back into my uterus after fertilization. Briefly. My recollection is that this part of the discussion was real quick, with the risk of multiple implantations – multiple potential babies – minimized. To paraphrase,
“Given your age, we’d probably go ahead and put three or four embryos back, depending on the quality. There is a risk of multiples when you put more back, but the risk of triplets or higher is very low, and most couple are usually alright with twins if it works out that way.”
We were downright psyched at the possibility of twins, but not so much about the possibility of triplets or more. But the risk was very low, right? We didn’t ask any more questions about it at that time. Why would we?
Duking it out in the IVF ring
Our first IVF attempt didn’t produce very good embryos. There were four viable, but there was a good deal of fragmentation in each and they weren’t growing so well (if you’ve been down the IVF road, you know of what I speak, but if not, you can read about process here). Still, my doctor felt there was a small chance of pregnancy if we transferred all four. There was little worry about multiples as the odds of even one implanting weren’t good. So we went for it, and were predictably disappointed when there was no resulting pregnancy two weeks later.
During round two, the embryos looked a little better, but it was recommended that we go ahead and again put four embryos (all the viable embryos that we had produced that round) back as well, given our previous failure. We were more hopeful, and more disappointed when there was no resulting pregnancy.
For my third and final try of IVF that would be covered by my health insurance (love New Jersey for this – if you live here and have insurance, your carrier is required to pay for IVF or other fertility treatments), I had much better looking embryos. That didn’t stop the doctor from recommending we go ahead and put all five back. After all, we’d had such terrible luck before. And you know, my age. Who was I to question the doctor? I really wanted a baby and this was my last chance. “Put them all back!” I was wholeheartedly for it.
Edit: Jump to Part II
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