My Story: Infertility, Pregnancy Loss, Surrogacy and Twiblings

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My Story: Infertility, Pregnancy Loss, Surrogacy and Twiblings

10/10/2023

Guest Blog By: Alexandra Slate
My fertility story is long. It is full of hope and it is full of hopelessness. For better or for worse, those two feelings coexisted through every step.

After almost seven years of multiple rounds of IVF, five pregnancy losses, multiple medical protocols and no true diagnosis, my husband and I decided to move onto surrogacy and, quite literally, put our eggs in another basket. We had only one remaining genetically normal embryo frozen and we had just experienced a failed embryo transfer ourselves, along with all of our previous losses, so this was our next step.

 

After a great deal of research, we signed up with a surrogacy agency and were so lucky to meet our selfless, kind and loving surrogate, Trish within only a few months. Many months went by as we tackled paperwork, contracts, medical clearance and psychological clearances for all of us. Trish, being from New Brunswick, had to fly to Toronto for her medical clearance and we finally got to give her a huge, REAL hug.

A few weeks before Trish was about to start her medications for the transfer of our one and only embryo, I found myself spontaneously pregnant for the sixth time. My initial thoughts? Disappointment, fear, and sadness. Though, somehow, I was still able to feel the tiniest bit of hope shining through.

I was convinced that I would miscarry again as I had so many times before. The only change was that I was with a new fertility doctor who had agreed to start me on a medical protocol for autoimmune issues, something I had never tried, but that would possibly impact my body’s ability to carry a pregnancy to term. I immediately started those medications and as soon as we confirmed my pregnancy (with multiple blood tests!) we called Trish to let her know what was happening.

I was worried that she wouldn’t want to move forward with transferring our embryo, knowing that I was already pregnant, but she was thrilled for us. Of course, my husband and I were still planning to transfer our little frozen embryo to Trish, but I was afraid that this pregnancy could have changed her mind on things and we hoped that she would still want to help us grow our family. I should have known all along that someone as wonderful as Trish would be with us through it all.

 

There were so many reasons that we felt we wanted to move forward – this was the original plan, after all! After so many years of infertility struggles, I knew that even if I was pregnant and Trish was pregnant it didn’t mean we’d end up with two babies or even one baby in nine months. I also knew that there was the small possibility that both of us could go on to have these babies and we could end up being the luckiest we’d ever been. So, we did it. Trish transferred our embryo the following month.

 

As I write this, my two toddler boys (who were born seven weeks apart) are sleeping soundly in their beds. I am overwhelmingly grateful every day that we found Trish and that she grew, nourished and cared for our youngest (yet also technically our oldest, since his embryo was created in 2020) little baby for nine months. She has truly made our life so full of love and warmth and joy and I will never be able to thank her enough for as long as I live.

 

These babies are not what I would consider miracles. They are products of the hardest work my husband and I have ever put into anything in our entire lives, combined with the most selfless gift a human being could ever give. We jumped in blindly with so much hope and doubt, knowing that fertility journeys like ours do not always end happily. For a long time, we felt ours would be one of the sad endings, too. But after years of hope and hopelessness, here we are now, thanks to the incredible developments in modern medicine and the most beautiful, giving heart of our babies’ beloved Auntie Trish, with the happy ending we dreamed of for so long.

 

Written by Alexandra Slate. Alexandra is a born and raised Torontonian, a part-time real estate agent and a full-time mom of twiblings. What’s a twibling? Great question! Her babies were born seven weeks apart. One via surrogacy and one she birthed herself. She’s been on a wild ride of many years of infertility and pregnancy loss, tandem pregnancies, infancy and now toddlerhood.

She openly shares much of her life on Instagram. You can follow along with her journey (or scroll back through it) on Instagram @rockabyemaybe

 

 

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