***Trigger alert: pregnancy loss is mentioned in this episode.***
Today is the last episode in our fertility journey stories series, though I’m sure we’ll have more fertility stories in the future. In this episode, we share a fertility journey story (2, actually), that may be particularly useful for folks who identify as queer and who are on the TTC path.
Ashley tells her and her wife’s story of overlapping pregnancies via IVF using 1 anonymous sperm donor for both of them so their children could be genetically half-siblings. Ashley’s pregnancy followed enduring 6 failed IUI’s, a 7th IUI that resulted in an ectopic pregnancy as well as one IVF transfer that resulted in an early miscarriage at 5 weeks. Her wife conceived via IVF on the first try following 6 failed IUIs and in Ashley’s 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Ashley details some the research she needed to do in order to advocate for herself, the benefits of acupuncture, and the valuable community she discovered as well as family support she and her wife had. She also reflects on aspects of the emotional journey & mindset shifts she needed to make for this journey to meet their daughter, Ava, to feel like a successful and positive one.
Episode Topics:
Both Ashley & her wife always wanted to be moms, didn’t necessarily intend to overlap in the process but it turned out that her wife got pregnant via IVF in Ashley’s 3rd trimester
Support found through an pregnancy app that had an LGBTQ+ area
Researching cryobanks & clinics
Importance of doing research
Insurance nuances, using up both lifetime IVF
Chose anonymous donor based on preferred attributes, using same donor for both kids (so their 2 will be half-siblings)
Going through IUI, natural cycle first 5 times, next 2 used medications
Ectopic pregnancy details
Mindset shift after this loss after the 7th IUI
Deciding to shift to IVF, getting to watch them do the procedure
Covid hits right after this 2nd IVF and the clinic shuts down
Doing a very early pregnancy test
Lots of self-care during pregnancy due to anxiety
Shift to Dr. Palter in Woodbury for her wife’s IVF -- much happier with this experience
Feeling supported by both sets of parents
Wife’s pregnancy and the difference in their temperaments
Finding out their 2nd baby will be a boy
Being sure you and your partner are communicating throughout fertility journey
Resources:
Ashley Marie Photography (baby photography on Long Island & NYC)
Dr. Steven Palter, Gold Coast IVF - fertility doctor in Woodbury, NY (Long Island)
Glow app - for fertility and beyond
Interview Transcript
Lisa: Hi, Ashley. It's so good to see you today.
[00:00:02] Ashley: Hi, Lisa, how are you?
[00:00:04] Lisa: I'm great, thanks. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your story. I'm really excited to hear about your journey.
[00:00:10] Ashley: Thank you. I'm really excited to talk about it and hopefully give some positive feedback and stories for those to come.
[00:00:17] Lisa: Well, so as we get started here, could you just tell us a little bit about you and your family and maybe how long ago you gave birth, where you live? Just any of those essentials?
[00:00:27] Ashley: Sure. So my name is Ashley Simmons. I'm from Massapequa in Long Island. I am a portrait and lifestyle photographer, it's what I do for business and I gave birth on November 12th, 2020. I had a scheduled C-section.
[00:00:42] Lisa: And because your baby was breech, right?
[00:00:45] Ashley: My baby was breech the entire time. She did not want to flip at all. So I just, yeah. I just rolled with the rollercoaster and whatever was going to happen was going to happen.
[00:00:55] Lisa: Absolutely as we have to do with these things to
[00:00:58] Ashley: Correct, yes. Since birth it has been a rollercoaster for sure. An enjoyable one.
[00:01:04] Lisa: 12 weeks ago. So you're just on the other side of the fourth trimester you're exiting the first three months that are so intense.
[00:01:13] Ashley: They are very intense, but everyone tells you about it and be prepared. And honestly, sometimes you feel not so great. Looking back, I wouldn't trade any single moment. Not one.
[00:01:30] Lisa: So, and when you said you're a photographer, so you do some like baby photography?
[00:01:35] Ashley: Yeah, I also do newborns and children. So anywhere from birth capturing the milestones up until their first year. Really exciting. I love it. It's a passion of mine. I love kids, so.
[00:01:47] Lisa: Nice. Well, I'll be sure to link to your website in the show notes. So for anyone looking in the Long Island area, and do you travel to New York City to do photography?
[00:01:56] Ashley: I haven't, but I'm open.
[00:01:58] Lisa: Great. All right. Well, can you start by giving us a little background on, did you and your wife always want children? Did you always both want to be pregnant and give birth? What did that look like?
[00:02:12] Ashley: So I'll start with myself. I always wanted to have children. It's something I thought about from when I was little.
[00:02:18]You know, when you go back into those stereotypical like children playing with baby dolls, and I always had my favorite baby dolls and my Barbies and they were my kids. And so that's something that I always dreamed of is being a mother. And my wife as well. She always wanted to be a mom.
[00:02:35] So I think that's something that when we got together, we've been together for eight years now. We talked about that early on. And so it was really exciting for me to know that not only did she want to have children, but she wanted to carry children. Sometimes you find in the queer community, especially among lesbians, I would say generally, there's usually one who would like to carry more than the other. And I know from my personal experience, like I had never been with anyone who wanted to carry before. So this was like really exciting for me knowing that we would get to experience it on both ends.
[00:03:07] Lisa: Yeah. And so did you both say we're going to do this at the same time or we're going to do it back to back? Or what was that like?
[00:03:14] Ashley: No. So it kind of happened not really as we planned. I tried first, we had been trying for two years and I had a hard time getting pregnant. So at one point I had suffered an ectopic pregnancy and I had to be on medication, which I wasn't able to try to conceive for three months after that.
[00:03:32] So the medication could take its course. So in that time, my wife decided that she wanted to try while I was taking a break. And I ended up taking a whole year off instead. And so then she tried and she was having trouble. And then somehow we just ended up on the same wavelength and here we are.
[00:03:48] And you know, I'm 12 weeks postpartum, she's 21 weeks pregnant, and we're going to have babies that are seven months apart.
[00:03:55] Lisa: So I was trying to calculate this. So does she get pregnant in your final trimester. Is that how that worked?
[00:04:00] Ashley: Yes. So when I gave birth, she was like eight weeks or something crazy.
[00:04:06] Lisa: Oh, the hormones in your household.
[00:04:08] Ashley: Oh, I think the hardest time was really when I gave birth because she was in the first trimester, not feeling so hot. And I was, I was recovering from surgery and it was just, it was difficult.
[00:04:19] Lisa: Oh, I bet. Oh my goodness. And in a pandemic.
[00:04:24] Ashley: Correct.
[00:04:25] Lisa: Oh my goodness. Were you able to have any other support in those early weeks after you gave birth?
[00:04:32] Ashley: It was really just the two of us. We did allow our parents actually. Well, it was actually just my parents because her parents actually had COVID. They had to quarantine, so they didn't meet the baby for almost a month. But we did allow my parents; they were the only people who could come in and meet and protocols -- it was, you know, obviously wash hands, wear masks. We had to kind of really take those precautions, but that was it. But it was good to have someone else there other than my wife to help navigate.
[00:04:59] Lisa: Definitely. And also, I guess another question is, did you have friends who had gone through this before you, were you sort of just feeling your way in the dark? What was that like?
[00:05:10] Ashley: So in the beginning we were just doing our own research and kind of doing things on our own. And we did find out along the way that a mutual friend -- actually my brother's, who he used to work with -- they were going through something similar. So we were able to kind of reach out and connect that way. And we built a relationship, which was really nice. And we were able to talk to each other as we both went through it.
[00:05:33] And then I joined an online community. That's something that really helped. And I kind of, there was an LGBTQ portion in that community. So I signed up for that and I was able to read stories of people like us who were going through this. So I kind of was able to navigate through some things that way. But yeah, other than that, we just kind of did our own research.
[00:05:53] Lisa: Okay. And when you said the community you joined, I missed one of the words, was it like a geographically specific group?
[00:06:00] Ashley: It's not, not the whole app, but under the LGBTQ tab, you can find LGBTQ in NYC and Metro areas, or in Massachusetts or wherever you want it to go. So it did help narrow it down a little bit, because then you could speak to more specifics like doctors and does anyone have this type of insurance and things like that. It was helpful.
[00:06:22] Lisa: Great, okay. Well maybe I'll ask you if that's information that can be public, I'm happy to link to that on the show notes to help other people find that community. Because it sounds like that could be really useful.
[00:06:34] Okay. So I guess, do you just want to launch into wherever you want to start in terms of this whole journey?
[00:06:41] Ashley: Yeah, so I guess the biggest thing was how we chose our clinic that we wanted to go to and sperm donors and sperm cryobanks and things like that.
[00:06:52] So we had researched several cryobanks. We finally landed on one, which is our first sperm donor. You'll see that we kind of switched along the way. And then we had to look for a doctor. So it was really dictated on my insurance at the time. So through my employer we had, you know, a set number of places that we could go. So we did a lot of phone consultations, some in-person consultations with these doctors, and that really helped us. I think it was really important for me to be able to be face-to-face with someone and really get a feel for how they were going to interact with us as a same-sex couple and ask the important questions of have they done fertility treatments for same sex couples before? What was that protocol like? What kind of tests need to be done? Is there anything different than if they were to sit there with a husband and a wife that we would need to know? So I think those were really important to have that in-person sit down. And we ended up landing on a doctor that we had liked and felt that could really help us. So that was the biggest part. And if I were to give any advice, it would be really to do your research and do those consultations. Because it's really important to find the right doctor.
[00:07:59] Lisa: Definitely. Was there insurance trickiness?
[00:08:03] Ashley: Yeah. Not for us in particular, there wasn't anything that really held us back. The only thing that changed for us [was that] I ended up having to switch from that clinic because my insurance did change with my employer. And unfortunately that only gave me two clinics that I could choose from. And quite honestly, I wasn't a fan of either of them, but I knew if I wanted to get pregnant, I did have to choose one. So I did kind of what I feel like is chose the lesser of two evils, I guess, in a way not to really put it that way, but it's hard when you can't really pick the doctor that you want to go to.
[00:08:40] Lisa: Had you just heard kind of like that they weren't inclusive or weren't compassionate? Or what, what was the feedback you had heard?
[00:08:47] Ashley: It was more of like, they just kind of treated you like everyone else. And so what I had felt was at that point, when I had switched, I had already gone through my seven IUIs. So I was going to start IVF at that point. And they were still talking to me and treating me as if the only issue I had was that I just didn't have sperm to help me get pregnant.
[00:09:09] As opposed to like you have failed seven cycles. Maybe there's something else going on. And checking for infertility issues or different ways, different medications. I felt like they just wanted to do the same thing over and over. And that's where I ran into an issue.
[00:09:27] Lisa: Yeah. That makes sense because, wow. Huh. That's surprising that they wouldn't explore what might be going on.
[00:09:34] Ashley: So I mean, they ended up doing it and that's how I got pregnant. Honestly, I advocated for myself and that's something that you know, I was going to share around some of the highlights of this journey is really being an advocate for yourself.
[00:09:46] And that's why I said in the beginning, really do your research and kind of understand the process yourself. And what kind of tools and resources are out there. Because if my friends who had gone through this didn't tell me about this specific test. I would have never asked to get it done. And that test was the deciding factor of me being able to get pregnant or not. So don't be afraid to ask questions is what I would say for sure.
[00:10:11] Lisa: That's great. Yeah. Self-advocacy, I'm big on that in birth classes and teaching and everything. Yeah. Everything in your healthcare journey in general it's so important.
[00:10:21] Ashley: Well, some people are afraid to ask questions, right? They're afraid that you know, well, maybe they haven't heard this before and I'm sure they have heard of everything. They just might not think it's right for you for whatever reason, but I think if you push it and you feel it's right for you, then it's going to be important to the doctor.
[00:10:38] Lisa: So I have a question in terms of the number of IUIs sure that each of you did before moving to IVF, was that by choice or was that required by insurance?
[00:10:49] Ashley: So my first insurance, it was required. I had to have completed and failed 10 IUIs before they would cover me for IVF at all.
[00:10:59] Lisa: 10?!
[00:11:00] Ashley: So, yeah. So when we talk about some of the challenges of insurance, that was a challenge. Because no woman -- it doesn't matter, queer or not. No woman should have to feel like they have to fail 10 times at something to be able to be awarded at another chance of winning.
[00:11:16] Lisa: You're so, right, Ashley.
[00:11:18] Ashley: I mean, how hard and the process in general is so draining and emotional and you get so frustrated along the way, and those are all valid feelings. But then to know that you have to keep doing it in order to be covered for that big procedure is really tough. It's really tough.
[00:11:38] Lisa: So then are you saying that when you switched insurance, the requirement was a lower number?
[00:11:44] Ashley: The requirement changed. So I switched after seven cause I had the ectopic and we decided that we were going to do IVF. We didn't want to feel like we wasted any more time on the IUI if it was a process that wasn't working. So at the same time we decided to do IVF, we decided to change our sperm donor as well.
[00:12:01]We kind of just wanted a clean slate. And we said, "We went through seven times. Let's just start over. Let's do this all again and pretend that we can just start new and hopefully have a better outcome." So the insurance changed and I was allowed two full IVF cycles covered by insurance. And that's it, unless you were to do IUI, but I knew I was going to do IVF.
[00:12:24] Lisa: No pressure!
[00:12:25] Ashley: No pressure. Just two cycles. It's fine. But unfortunately like many women, I miscarried my first IVF cycle. So, you know, there's one cycle gone already and then you feel the pressure like, "Oh my gosh, what if I don't get pregnant for this next one?" And then you start thinking about the monetary aspect and like then insurance isn't gonna cover anything.
[00:12:43] And how do you deal with that? And lucky for me, I did, I got pregnant that second IVF. But that did leave my wife to not be able to be covered by insurance at that point. So that was another challenge.
[00:12:56] Lisa: Oh, because you had two, two per plan?
[00:12:59] Ashley: It was two cycles per household for lifetime. So it wasn't even like every year you can sign up for new benefits. It was like, no matter what, per lifetime you get two.
[00:13:10] Lisa: Oh, wow. That's expensive.
[00:13:14] Ashley: It is expensive. So yeah, our mind set had shifted at that point as to, "Okay, well, we're going to do some things different because now we might have a little bit more coming out of our pocket." So that was definitely a challenge.
[00:13:26] Lisa: Would you mind talking at all about the sperm donor selection process? Cause we had one other story shared where they used a sperm donor. But it was a friend of theirs. So maybe a different experience?
[00:13:42] Ashley: It's different. So we chose to do and anonymous donor and that donor has the ability though, when our children are 18, if they want to find out more about him, they're more than welcome to do that. He's open to that, which is cool. We don't want to make that decision for our children. We feel like that's their choice; if they want to, that's great.
[00:13:58] So we chose the anonymous route. and I'm going to make it like super simple. It's kind of like you're online shopping. There's a whole bunch of criteria. There's certain medical things that you need to know about yourself first that you need to plug in to filter because you have to be compatible with the donor you're going to choose. That's like the top priority. So if anyone is going through the process, when they go to their doctor and they start getting their blood work, they'll know that. So once you plug in that necessary stuff, you can literally filter through: do you want to have a Caucasian donor? Do you want to have an Asian donor? Do you want to have a Black donor or do you want to have someone who's six feet tall, five foot tall, you know athletic. Do you want somebody to be [a] graduate high school? Do you need them to have a master's degree? Do you want somebody who likes to read, who plays an instrument?
[00:14:46] You can literally filter it. Blonde hair, blue eyes, brown hair, anything that you want, you kind of just go in and you check all the boxes and you hit filter and it pops up all the donors that match your requirements. So, yeah, it was pretty interesting, but you know, then you get to go in and read their profiles and about them. And some of them allow you to see pictures either baby pictures or adult pictures or both. You can hear their voice for some of them. You get a family history, so you get to really learn about that person that you're going to choose. Which was really, really important. Yeah.
[00:15:25] Lisa: Did that feel challenging to make those choices as you're filtering out the different qualities, like it just, it feels surreal to me.
[00:15:34] Ashley: It is, because it's like you're building a person kind of, which is weird.
[00:15:37] Lisa: Because it's the DNA you're looking at.
[00:15:39] Ashley: Yeah. It's like, who do you want to be compatible with your own DNA? So it's honestly strange. I think the most challenging part was obviously just me and my wife being on the same page with what we wanted.
[00:15:51] And luckily that process was easy. We were on the same page. It's definitely, it could be daunting is what I'll say. Because sometimes you'll pop up, you'll filter and you'll have like 25 to 30 pages of people to look through. And so sometimes maybe you want to narrow it down more or, you know, some people get bored after like the third page. So it's truly amazing that you can do that.
[00:16:15] Lisa: And do you mind my asking, did you both choose the same donor?
[00:16:18] Ashley: Yes. We have the same donor so our children will be half siblings, which is awesome.
[00:16:23] Lisa: That's really cool. Oh, nice.
[00:16:26] Ashley: Yeah, it was, that was important to us too. That's something from beginning we wanted. So we made sure that we were prepared to purchase the additional vials to make sure we were set.
[00:16:37] Lisa: And then in that selection process, once you find this is the one we want, is it a pretty much a done deal or is there--
[00:16:44] Ashley: Yes and no. So you have to then like contact the Cryobank and they'll give you some additional information. They can let you know how many vials are in stock. Cause it doesn't really show you that on the website, you have to speak to someone. They'll tell you how many vials are in stock, what types of vials. 'Cause there's ICI, IUI all different types that you can use. And if he's an active donor ; things like that.
[00:17:06]There are certain requirements too. They'll only allow a donor to donate to X amount of families, or he's only allowed to have X amount of offspring produced, you know, in a certain time period and things like that. So they'll tell you that over the phone which helps. And then once you do that and you're okay with, you know exactly how many vials you want, you just complete the transaction. It's just like a business deal at that point. Wait, which is kind of weird.
[00:17:30] Lisa: I would think that that's something that part of this is not covered by insurance.
[00:17:36] Ashley: Now you are correct, it's not covered.
[00:17:38] Lisa: Because our system is very set up for heterosexual--
[00:17:40] Ashley: Correct. It is, unfortunately. So, yeah, even if you have insurance, there's a lot of out-of-pocket expenses that you have to be prepared for 100%.
[00:17:50] Lisa: And is that just a flat fee or does it depend how many different types of vials you need?
[00:17:55] Ashley: So if it's over a certain amount of vials, there's discounted rates. But it's per vile pricing. And then the different types, like I was saying, if you buy IUI or ICI, those can also be valued differently. So depending on what you need, the prices could vary.
[00:18:13] Lisa: Okay. I'm just curious, what's the ballpark cost for, I don't know one IVF vial or, or if you just remember like some of what everything cost?
[00:18:25] Ashley: If I remember correctly, this might sound crazy, I want to say it was like somewhere between seven to $800. I think it was around there. If I had to remember correctly, depending on what you wanted. And then we bought a lot of vials, so it ended up being a lot more. Yes, [that price is] for one vial and that one vial lasts you one procedure.
[00:18:51] So If you're doing an IUI or -- yeah, it adds up. Unless you're doing IVF off the bat and one vial should typically do the trick because you're just extracting eggs from that. You're not letting it go like a normal cycle.
[00:19:08] Do you want to go into the nitty gritty about your IUIs or the IVF?
[00:19:16]I can share just kind of what it was like. I mean the IUIs is to me were super, for me, it was nerve-wracking in the beginning, but as you kept doing them, they got easier and easier. The entire procedure is less than three minutes. It's all the prep that's the work. So you can do a natural cycle and rely on your own natural ovulation, or you can get medicated cycles to help you if maybe something's not working or your egg's not dropping correctly. But the entire procedure, it's like a small little catheter. They stick it in and they just pump the vial of sperm through. And that's it. Your body does the rest. The IUI is the easiest part, I think. So.
[00:19:54] Lisa: And given that you did it seven times. Did you at first do natural cycle or did you start with taking medication or?
[00:20:01] Ashley: I did. I started natural cycles. And in hindsight I wish -- I did five of them -- and I wish I would have stopped after three and taken a different approach. I think for myself and my wife, we were a little bit naive because we still didn't really know anyone going through it other than that one couple, and they had very different experience. So I think we were just trying to stay hopeful that yes, like my body can do this on its own. Like I don't need assistance.
[00:20:27] And I felt like I was like succumbing to something or failing if I had to get medicated to have my body do something it should be doing. So I ended up doing two medicated cycles after that and that second medicated cycle I got pregnant. I just suffered from an ectopic pregnancy, so it didn't see its way through.
[00:20:46] Lisa: Do you want to share at all about the ectopic pregnancy? How did you know something was wrong if it's not too upsetting?
[00:20:53] Ashley: No, that's okay. It's like any other pregnancy you find out you're pregnant. For having IUI cycles or IVF, you're timed. So they give you a certain timeframe of when they're going to do blood work for you and things like that.
[00:21:04] So my blood work had shown I was pregnant, but my beta number, they give you that beta, which is the pregnancy hormone. The HCG, it was pretty low at the beginning where it should have been. So mine was at an eight, it started at an eight. And normally when you first find out you're pregnant, that first blood draws usually anywhere from 50 to over a hundred.
[00:21:24] And then they watch that number grow every 48 hours. So my number wasn't growing for a week. And so they had to do more tests and they did some ultrasounds and things like that. And then what happened is going into that following week, my beta number started to grow and grow and grow and it started to double and it started to triple.
[00:21:44] At that point, that really only happens if you have an ectopic pregnancy. There was no other signs of pregnancy other than the hormone increasing. So that kind of tipped them off as to something wasn't right. And then the ultrasounds then proved that there was no embryo in my uterus and it had landed somewhere else in my body. So that's kind of where that ended up.
[00:22:06] Lisa: And that was on the seventh IUI you said, right?
[00:22:07] Ashley: That was on the seventh.
[00:22:09] Lisa: How were you feeling then? I can only imagine.
[00:22:13] Ashley: I was a mess, to be quite honest. I think emotionally, I was like super drained at that point. I think after the third IUI, it really starts to affect your psyche a little bit because you start thinking all these other what ifs and why me? How come it's not happening? I know so many other women who get pregnant on their first or second try. And here I was, I mean, this was number seven and I got pregnant and I was so excited and it didn't turn out. But what I will say what helped get me through that is really shifting my mindset to that I'm supposed to have the baby that I'm meant to have. And this baby unfortunately, was not the child that I was meant to have, that we were meant to have as a family. And I just started trying to shift my mindset on what can we do different to make sure that the next time we have the best chance to get that child.
[00:23:08]If I didn't start thinking forward and I stayed in that present moment, I don't think that I was going to cope very well.
[00:23:16] Lisa: That makes sense. And what was it -- was it just an epiphany you had, or was it something you read or you heard that helped you to make that mindset shift?
[00:23:27] Ashley: So I actually, I suffer from an anxiety. So I think for me, I knew it was going to be a huge trigger for me to sit in that head space. And honestly, it was an epiphany sitting down communicating with my wife and being super open and honest and vulnerable with her. Obviously that's part of a relationship, but really sitting down and like spilling how I felt because she wasn't physically going through it.
[00:23:55] And so there's a part of your partner that cannot relate to some of those things. So yeah, I think it just came out of communicating with her. And the biggest thing was hearing the words, "I support, whatever decision you make," from her allowed me to know that it didn't matter if I wanted to stop and I want it to halt or if I want to keep going, she was fine. Because she had faith that no matter what, one day I would be pregnant
[00:24:21] Lisa: Yay for supportive spouses.
[00:24:23] Ashley: Yeah, it was amazing. I couldn't have done this entire thing if I did not have her.
[00:24:28] Lisa: And so then after that seventh one, what then? You shifted to IVF, but then what happened?
[00:24:35] Ashley: We shifted to IVF. My doctor at the time had been asking probably since my fifth IUI if I wanted to do it. At that time I just wasn't ready.
[00:24:46] I just wasn't ready. I want us to hold out the hope that I didn't want to go through the medication. You know, the egg retrieval surgery. I didn't want to do it and I just felt like I was denying that part to myself, that I just didn't want to put myself through that to have a child. And, you know, while I was kind of on my fertility hiatus, I'll call it.
[00:25:07]For that year I did a lot of self-reflecting and I knew that my best shot was to try IVF. It was just to try it and I would do my first round and see how it went and hopefully it turned out great. So that's kind of how we, we ended up there. I kind of really sat down and said maybe it's time.
[00:25:29] Lisa: And did any of the reluctance to move on to IVF, have to do with the lifetime limit of two? Or was it really mostly just about the other stuff you just said?
[00:25:39] Ashley: Mostly about the other stuff, but I did know if I moved into this new insurance plan at the time, going with IUI and if the IUI didn't work, I think they would give you like each one cycle -- it was either one full IVF or four covered IUIs. That's how it broke down. So I knew if I started doing IUIs again, I thought of it as like a pizza pie. If I started to use half the pie, when I was ready for IVF, I wouldn't have enough coverage to cover my cycle anymore. Does that make sense?
[00:26:11] Lisa: I think so.
[00:26:13] Ashley: So I either had to do a whole full cycle of IVF or choose to do IUI really. And I said, I'm just going to go all in and do it.
[00:26:24] Lisa: So can you just detail a little bit about what IVF was like for you then?
[00:26:29] Ashley: Yeah, so IVF : I read a lot about it and thought it was really scary -- I used the word scary -- reading about it. Just because so many people talk about, and you, I'm sure some of the listeners too, probably have, if they've been through it, you see all the things on Instagram or people post like all the needles and stuff and medications that they use in it's like, it kind of is scary.
[00:26:52] So that's all I thought about it. I was thinking about like the physical, actual stuff of doing it rather than what the process was. So again for me, I had to take all of the medication I was going to have to take out of the equation. And just remember that I was having a baby. It was just in a different way, focus on that.
[00:27:11] Focus on the baby. But yeah, you have to take a bunch of medications. They have to manipulate your cycle. In order to have the best results for the egg retrieval. So you take your medications, you do your egg retrieval, and then you can either do a fresh transfer of the embryo, which means after the retrieval, you wait like one to two days and they reimplant those embryos back into you, or you can do a frozen cycle, which is what I chose to do.
[00:27:34] And then they freeze them. And let them grow a little bit longer and then you can choose to implant them whenever you feel ready.
[00:27:41] And how did you make that choice to do the frozen cycle? Did your doctor tell you these are the chances?
[00:27:47] Yeah, so there is definitely information out there. I do believe it's a little bit conflicting because there are some people who are like fresh transfers are the way to go, and then there's some people who are like, no frozen [is] the best. And to be quite honest, I think it depends on how your doctor views it as well. So they're going to have their own type of idea.
[00:28:07]I think for me it was important to have my body recovering from that surgery, I felt better knowing that my body would be in a better place to accept an embryo if I waited than to do it fresh. So that was really my deciding factor. So I only waited a month. I waited one month and then we tried.
[00:28:27] Lisa: And so that first try worked but then--
[00:28:31] Ashley: I had an early miscarriage at five weeks with that [round]. Yeah. And so what was difficult -- and I think this is where my story gets a little crazy -- is I had, all in all, 13 embryos retrieved. They go through different stages of development. I ended up with eight, eight made it to my day five stage, and then they send them all for genetic testing.
[00:28:53]There is not a doctor who will implant an embryo for you, if it is genetically not viable. So after they sent my eight embryos out, I actually only ended up with two healthy embryos. So I had two cycles to try, two embryos and now I just lost one. So it was the last cycle I was going to have covered and my last embryo. So it was kind of like my last hope.
[00:29:17] Lisa: Oh my goodness, the pressure.
[00:29:22] Ashley: Yeah. So if you could only imagine like the things that were going through my head.
[00:29:26] Lisa: Especially if you've dealt with anxiety in the past, I can't, I can't even... Were you doing some deep breathing and self-care?
[00:29:33] Ashley: Deep breathing and acupuncture saved my life.
[00:29:37] Lisa: Ah, love acupuncture.
[00:29:38] Ashley: Saved my life. I thank every day for my acupuncturist. And just putting my faith into her and really taking the time to self-care and do the acupuncture when I needed it. I honestly didn't know how much it was relaxing me until the entire procedure was over. It was truly amazing and I would highly recommend that to anyone on this journey.
[00:30:01] Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. I've heard others as well, sing the praises of acupuncture while doing fertility treatments. Were you doing acupuncture before this whole fertility journey.
[00:30:10] Ashley: No.
[00:30:11] Lisa: Okay. And how did you hear about the benefits of that? Do you remember?
[00:30:15] Ashley: Yes. The couple that I knew that was also trying, they actually were already pregnant at this point. She got pregnant right after she did acupuncture and she was like, "I swear, Ashley, you need to do it. Like, this is what gave me my son. You have to try it. There's nothing to lose in doing it." So I was like, "Okay." I was like, "Fine, I'll try it." So I researched someone and there was someone local to me and she was amazing. She was so amazing.
[00:30:42] Lisa: And did you seek out somebody who had special expertise in fertility work?
[00:30:45] Ashley: She does have specific expertise in that. So it was great to just feel like you were going to someone who was able to home in on exactly what you needed. And it was super thorough. She asks a ton of questions. Like, what was the journey like, where some of your issues, she wanted to know even health issues. Because she's like, "Believe it or not, if you have something else going on, it affects everything." Which again, you don't really correlate.
[00:31:11] Lisa: Yeah. Our allopathic medical system does not have a holistic view of our health and it all makes so much sense to me.
[00:31:20] Ashley: It does, right?
[00:31:21] Lisa: How can we not acknowledge this? It's all connected.
[00:31:23] Ashley: I know. It is a hundred percent connected and I truly feel that is what helped me get pregnant.
[00:31:30] Lisa: That's so great. So do you want to move on to the second IVF?
[00:31:37] Ashley: Sure. So at that point, the egg retrieval's done. So you just have the one embryo. Again, I think I took another few months off before I tried to do it again, just to make sure my headspace was right. I wanted to have a certain amount of acupuncture in and relaxation and get my mind right so that I felt so confident going into this cycle.
[00:31:58] I actually did acupuncture the morning of my transfer. And then right after the transfer, I ran right back to her and she did one right after the transfer. Which was amazing. And I was like, "Are you sure you have to do it twice?" She's like, "I promise you actually you need to come back when you are done. I don't care if my office is closed. You call me; you're coming here." I was like, "Okay."
[00:32:18] So you go in for that and they prep you in the OR and it's the same thing. It's just like a catheter that goes in. And what's really cool with IVF is most clinics will allow you to watch it happen. So you sit there like on your little table in the OR and they get everything ready and the embryologist shows you your embryo on the screen and you verify everything. And as they put the catheter and you're watching on camera live them inject the embryo into you and it's like really an experience like you haven't imagined. And it's really cool.
[00:32:51] I mean the only downfall is my clinic at the time wouldn't allow my spouse in the room, so she couldn't be in there to watch it. But when I was done, they pulled the monitor out of the OR and they like replayed it for her, which was cool.
[00:33:01] Lisa: Oh, good.
[00:33:03] Ashley: So she still got to experience it a little bit.
[00:33:06] Lisa: Nice. So then what was the journey like after there and finding out and everything?
[00:33:14] Ashley: Yeah, so what's really weird is I had the second transfer and three days later, my clinic closed because of COVID. So I made it in -- yeah, it was right in the beginning of the pandemic as they were starting to figure things out.
[00:33:27] So I kind of like made it into my procedure by the skin of my teeth. That's kind of how my cycle worked out. I know it's like suspenseful, this whole round. So I just made it in and I remember it's still a standard two week wait and I got anxious. And I had tried to test myself a week after, and I saw the slightest pink line, but because I had already been through, you know, two losses, I didn't trust a pink line anymore.
[00:33:59] So I wanted to hear from the doctor, like when I got blood work, I just didn't believe it. And once that two week mark hit and I went for my blood work, I was like on eggshells all day. Like, "When is she going to go call?" And she calls and my number just to like have like the correlation is when I got pregnant the first time it was an eight when I had ectopic. My number was 324 this time, which is like almost double what it typically is, or should be as a starting range. So that was like super exciting for me. And then they test you, they do your blood work, like every two days, just to make sure it's doubling until it gets to a point where they don't need to take blood anymore and you're just pregnant and then they start doing the ultrasounds.
[00:34:44] So I will say though, it took me awhile to really like, understand that I was pregnant and believe that I was pregnant and that I was staying pregnant. So each day I was like, "Okay, one more day that I stayed pregnant." And I kind of coached myself through the rest of the pregnancy that way.
[00:35:04] Lisa: So you're saying you said that the clinic shut down. How long was it before you were able to go in? Sounds like you were going in to test the levels.
[00:35:15] Ashley: Yeah. So you were allowed to go into the office to get your blood work if you had already had a procedure done. And nobody new -- so no one was allowed to -- I literally just made it. If my cycle had been off for another day or two, I wouldn't have made it.
[00:35:32] Lisa: Oh my goodness. You might still be waiting to do it.
[00:35:35] Ashley: I might still be waiting; I could still be waiting. So that was exciting. And, you know, so then I went through my all nine months just waiting for this little babe. And I did a lot of meditation while I was pregnant to, again, keep myself calm and to get me through my little milestones. I would wait for my 12 week and then I'd be like, "Hey, I just need to make it to 15. Great. I needed to make it to 24," and I would kind of just count down.
[00:36:00] And then it was around like I was due in November. So it was around September when my wife -- she had already had her egg retrieval at this point. And her clinic had closed as well. She actually used a whole different doctor. So we left where I was at. Cause I didn't have insurance anymore. I use both of my cycles.
[00:36:16] And we knew at that point that we wanted to find the best doctor, like who we really wanted to go to. And so we found this doctor who I can name his name is Dr. Palter. He's in Woodbury here on Long Island. He is amazing, absolutely amazing. If I was going to have 10 more babies, I would go to him for sure.
[00:36:36] So she had done her egg retrieval already and her clinic had just opened up. She got the call that, "Hey, we're letting you know a few people back in if you're interested in having your transfer done." And she was like, "Okay." So we sat down and talked about it and I was like, "Okay, like, we just need to understand here, like, I'm already pregnant. Like I'm due in two months. Are we sure, like, this is what we want to do?" And she's like, "I have waited so long and like, you know, you started then stopped. And then I started and stopped." And she's like, "I just don't want to stop anymore. I want to go." And I was like, "All right, let's go. We're all in." And she got pregnant her first IVF transfer and here we are.
[00:37:16] Lisa: Oh, my goodness. You guys are going to have to closely spaced babies.
[00:37:21] Ashley: Yes. It's going to be honestly like having twins, I think.
[00:37:25] Lisa: Yeah. Very similar to that for sure. Anything on specifically how you found Dr. Palter and why you chose him?
[00:37:35] Ashley: Yes. So I had actually put like some feelers out there on my Instagram page, quite honestly. I have a lot of friends in the, you know, LGBTQ community obviously, but I didn't know anyone else's story of if they have gone through IVF or fertility treatments. And I was just kind of putting it out there to see if anyone had any recommendations. So he came as a recommendation from somebody that I knew from mutual friends and we got to talking and she has twins. And then now she has a son and she goes, "I got pregnant first time, both times. He's amazing. He does a thorough check on you. He will not start a procedure unless he knows a hundred percent that he's ruled out everything else that could possibly go wrong." And immediately I like felt this sense of calm.
[00:38:18] And I was like, "That's what I wish I had all along." And so we kind of did our own research and he's done amazing things. He's done all this research. He has like this state-of-the-art technology. He's on the board of a ton of fertility boards and he does webinars and seminars. Once a month, he logs onto his computer all during the pandemic and he talked about different fertility topics. So we could sign on quickly every Tuesday and listen to him talk. And it was amazing. So we did our consultation and we just felt like, when you find the one, I guess it's kind of like, "Yes, you're it. We need to be with you." So.
[00:38:57] Lisa: Did the two of you feel like you had the emotional support you needed, or did you feel isolated in this journey besides, I know you said you found the community, so maybe that was your main support system, but can you just speak to that a little bit?
[00:39:11] Ashley: Absolutely. We did, actually, both of our families are super supportive, super involved, like loved the idea and we're blessed in that way for sure. Because I know that not everyone does have that. But our families have been itching for grandbabies for a while.
[00:39:29] So they had some, but they wanted us to have them because we had been married for almost five years. So like, when are you going to have babies? So they were super excited and through everything, honestly, the ups, the downs, the in-betweens, I felt comfortable enough to call up whether it was my mother or my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my sister, my brother, whoever it was just to be like, "Hey, I'm having a hard time." Or, "Hey, like walk me through some of the things like, can you talk me off the ledge? Like, I just need someone to talk to." And it was really great knowing that they were there to be like, "Yeah, whatever you need. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter time, night, I can drive you to the doctors." Like that was huge.
[00:40:07] And honestly, whether I took their advice or whether I took the offer for them to drive me to an appointment or not knowing that it was there was, was really, really important.
[00:40:19] Lisa: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. I mean, because like you're saying so many people don't have that support. Queer or not. I mean, even lots of hetero folks, I know just didn't want to tell anybody, even their parents, you know, because they didn't want to have people like that whole watched pot never boils kind of idea.
[00:40:41] Ashley: And yes it is. And I think that's kind of how I felt when I was pregnant. When I finally got pregnant with my daughter. I didn't want to tell anyone right away, because I was nervous because of my other two losses that I was like, it can happen at any point. Like what if I tell them I'm pregnant? And then next week I have to tell them that I lost the baby again. And I think what I had said the most that my wife would kind of rephrase back to me and be like, "Listen to what you're saying," is I would always say, "I don't want to disappoint anyone by my failures." And I'm not disappointing anyone, no one is disappointing anyone. And I think that's the important thing to remember and it was my journey and this is what I was meant to go through in order to have my child. And if I didn't go through those experiences, my daughter Ava, would not be here with me now. And that's something that I really had to constantly remind myself.
[00:41:39] Lisa: That's such an amazing mindset. I love that. Also, I want to ask if with your wife, if you think she's comfortable with that.
[00:41:47] Ashley: Sure.
[00:41:47] Lisa: With her pregnancy, have your experiences colored any of her journey. In terms of like you were saying, just being nervous during your pregnancy, like, is it gonna stick? Is it, has she felt any of that anxiety or what's that been like?
[00:42:03] Ashley: No, I'm laughing because it's just funny because she is complete opposite of me. Our personalities are very different
[00:42:09] Lisa: Couples often complement each other, right?
[00:42:11] Ashley: Yes. Like I'm type A; she is very laid back. Like she is like, "Whatever's going to happen's going to happen? This is life. This is it. It is what it is." You know, but I mean, other than like morning sickness though, she's coasted through this first half of pregnancy. Like no problem. I don't even think half the time she realizes or remember she's even pregnant. 'Cause she only just started to pop like last week. So for so long, she still didn't look like she was pregnant and I popped early. I was like 10 weeks and I already had a belly.
[00:42:40] I'm like, you're some sort of wonder woman over here. So our experiences have been very different, but I'm very happy that she is having an easy pregnancy and just is able to keep her mind clear and open to whatever may happen and not really stress about the what ifs.
[00:42:58] That's great. And I imagine that you being, you know, in early parenting, I mean, both of you were into parenting of course, but you're not the pregnant one right now you're focused on that a lot that maybe that's a good distraction for you from worrying about her?
[00:43:15] I think so; yes and no. I ask her all the time. I'm always like, "How are you feeling? Has your morning sickness gone away? Oh, have you felt the baby yet? Have you done this?" And she's like, "I don't know. I don't, I don't think so. I don't know. I work all the time. I don't feel anything." And I just like laugh and I'm like, "Okay, she'll tell me when she wants to."
[00:43:34] But I am, I'm focused really on the baby a lot. Not that I don't think about her; I do. I ask the questions, but if she doesn't tell me anything new and interesting, then I just assume she's doing fine.
[00:43:47] Lisa: One thing I didn't ask is in your pregnancy, did you choose to find out the biological sex?
[00:43:55] Ashley: Yes, we did.
[00:43:56] Lisa: And for both pregnancies
[00:43:57] For both pregnancies, yes.
[00:43:59] Ashley: Like I said, I'm kind of type A and I want to prepare. I personally just don't like the surprise of it and I just needed to have the nursery done. I needed to have the clothes. I didn't want a whole bunch of extras that were not necessary.
[00:44:11] And honestly, I just, I can't wait; I'm impatient. So having to wait nine and a half months to find out was just a hard thought. So I chose to find out and she did as well. So she's actually having a son. We're having a son. Yeah, one and one.
[00:44:25] Lisa: Did you have hopes on anything in particular with both of them?
[00:44:29] Ashley: No, honestly, I thought we were, we're going to have another girl, so I was surprised. I was like, "Oh my gosh, wait, what?" But yeah, so it was amazing. I'm just so happy. I'm just thrilled that she was able to get pregnant and we are able to have two children.
[00:44:43] Lisa: Yeah. So I imagine that anatomy scan was probably in the last few weeks, right.
[00:44:48] Ashley: Yeah. She went last week.
[00:44:49] Lisa: So you probably weren't able to go?
[00:44:51] No, I wasn't.
[00:44:54] Ashley: I wasn't able; this doctor didn't allow FaceTime, which is fine. But earlier when we were at -- our OB allows it. So every time she goes there for an ultrasound, I can tap in as long as my daughter is cooperating.
[00:45:06] Lisa: Right. There's the trick.
[00:45:08] Ashley: Yes, that is the trick. 'Cause I don't want them to hear a screaming baby in the background, but yeah, so I usually get tapped in for that. But she brought the ultrasound pictures home, so we got to see his cute little feet and his little button nose, and it's really nice to see.
[00:45:22] Lisa: Nice. I'm excited for you guys.
[00:45:25] Ashley: Thank you.
[00:45:26] Lisa: Well, is there anything that you haven't gotten to share that you'd like to share before we start to wrap things up?
[00:45:33]I don't think so. I think we covered a lot I know we were giving tips of research, being your own best self-advocate. I really love that mindset shift that you described. Are there any other tips or insights that you'd want to share with people who are along a similar path?
[00:45:51] Ashley: Yeah. I mean, I think those are the biggest things for me, at least. I just stick with education is key. If you haven't started your journey yet, educate yourself about the processes. I think being knowledgeable, going in to talk to your doctor really helps because you kind of already know what you're looking for, as opposed to listening to someone else telling you what you need.
[00:46:14]Without obviously doing some sort of medical background yet. And I think the biggest thing is the communication with your partner, too. Making sure that you're both on the same page, looking for the same outcomes a hundred percent supporting each other and knowing that you can be vulnerable with that person.
[00:46:32] And they're going to support you no matter what you go through or how things pan out. I think those are the biggest things. I don't think I had anything else that I wanted to really highlight. It was just asking questions and being an advocate for yourself. I just feel like if I didn't ask questions to the friends that I knew who were in this situation, I wouldn't have brought those points to my doctor, whether I wanted to or not.
[00:46:57] And like I said, it was, for me, it was the difference of one test that allowed me to get pregnant. I needed to get the transfer done on my sixth day after medication instead of my fifth day, that's how my body responds. But I wouldn't know that.
[00:47:08] Lisa: That timing can really make a big difference, I'm learning.
[00:47:11] Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't know that; I didn't know this existed. And if you feel something's not right, or you want to change things up because that's what you feel. I feel like you listen to your gut a lot. You know yourself more than anyone else does. And I think when you're going through fertility treatments it's super important to be intuitive to yourself.
[00:47:31] Lisa: That's great wisdom. Thank you so much, Ashley. Again, I'm really grateful that you've taken the time to share your story. I really think it will be so helpful to people on a similar path.
[00:47:43] Ashley: Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. I really appreciate it. And I really hope that there's some little nuggets in here that people can walk away with and feel like they've gained some knowledge.