Katie Maxwell

My husband and I are high school sweethearts and we were married in 2016. My husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer two years later which aided in our decision to start trying for a baby. Our very first month trying resulted in our first of many chemical pregnancies.

After two years of cancer treatments and failed attempts at getting pregnant we sought the help of our provincial fertility clinic where we had cryopreserved sperm in 2018. Our first IVF cycle in 2020 resulted in a failed embryo transfer and no frozen embryos. We were devastated and, looking back, I feel pretty naive for expecting IVF to be a quick fix and answer to all of our problems.

Many tests and procedures later, we went forth with a second round of IVF in 2021. The embryos from this cycle ended with 4 failed transfers, 2 of which were chemical pregnancies. We decided to switch to the new fertility doctor that started at our clinic and we underwent even more testing and were finally officially diagnosed with “unexplained” infertility.

We took a leap of faith and did a 3rd egg retrieval with our new fertility specialist. This round resulted in 6 frozen embryos. After our first embryo transfer of the cycle failed, our doctor suggested we completely switch up our protocol and we did a natural cycle for our 7th transfer.

We finally got pregnant. We were pregnant for 7 short weeks. Heartbroken doesn’t seem strong enough of a word to describe that feeling in the ultrasound room when the doctor told us there was no heartbeat.

We finally found a protocol that worked for us and we went full steam ahead into our 8th embryo transfer, trying to catch that pregnancy bliss once again. After almost 6 years of trying, we finally got pregnant and stayed pregnant.

We were blessed with our beautiful rainbow baby boy in May 2024.

We still have 3 embryos frozen at our clinic and the thought of going back there is terrifying but we hope we will be lucky enough to provide our son with a sibling someday. Infertility was never a journey I would have thought we’d be forced to embark on but I couldn’t imagine enduring it with any other partner. It has made our relationship stronger than ever and we are incredibly grateful that our story has had a happy ending.

What is one piece of advice or something you wish you knew before embarking on the IVF journey you did? I would have told myself to have more patience - it’s not a process to be rushed through as much as I wanted to fast forward. I’d remind myself that even the smallest of steps were still steps in achieving our goal of a healthy baby.