Keely and Maxime

Our names are Keely and Maxime Hunter. We have been together since October 2013 and have been married since May 2019. I am from beautiful Sydney, Australia, now a permanent resident of Canada, and my husband is from Quebec City, Canada.

I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 16 years old in 2000. My mother took me to the doctor after I didn’t have a menstrual cycle for a year, and she was concerned. After many tests, I was diagnosed with the horrible condition. It’s been a struggle ever since with the acne, weight gain, skin tags, and many other symptoms thanks to PCOS, and sadly, infertility. Our journey with infertility has not been a fun one but which journey of infertility is? I have always dreamt of being a mother, I feel that’s what I was put on this earth to do. My husband and I started trying for a baby in 2015 but without having medical insurance coverage in Canada, it made seeking help to have a baby difficult and expensive. We did not have the means to be able to afford fertility treatment without universal medical coverage. In 2017, I was deemed eligible for certain tests and procedures as I was a now a permanent resident of Canada.

We soon found out that I don’t ovulate or grow follicles without medication. I was put on Metformin and 2.5mg of Letrozole for 5 days, but it did not work and had no effect on me at all. The next month, I was prescribed 5mg of Letrozole along with Metformin for 5 days, but there was still no effect. The doctors then had me continue Metformin with 7.5mg of Letrozole for 10 days and that is the magic formula that had me grow just 1 follicle. We were on this dose for a few months.

In May of 2018, I developed one nice big follicle, was given the trigger shot, and I became pregnant! However, at only 10 weeks gestation, we found the baby no longer had the heartbeat that we had seen at 5 weeks gestation and we had lost the baby. It was a terrible shock. We have no rainbow baby yet but are hoping for our miracle. We moved onto Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) in late 2018 and have had 4 with no luck and we have 5 more to go, we are at a private clinic to finish those off with stronger medications in hope it will work. I am still on Metformin but a lower dose of 2.5mg and that is paired with 75ui of Gonal F we are unsure if this is working as our ultrasound to check the progress was cancelled due to the pandemic that is going on.

PCOS has plagued my life and my dream of becoming a mother ever since I was diagnosed 19 years ago. It is my ultimate dream to be a mother. It is heartbreaking to see negative test after negative test every month. Luckily, my husband and I always have lots of laughs together and endless loving moments and memories. Even though he is bilingual, his mother tongue is French and sometimes he gets his words or pronunciation of words mixed up. When he uses the wrong word or mispronounces a word, confusion from me usually follows, as well uncontrollable laughter! It’s the same when I try to pronounce a French word and I just can’t get it right; he finds it so funny! Who knew ‘lawyer’ and ‘avocado’ were the same word in French! I am so glad I met him, and I feel so blessed to be his wife even if I had to travel to the other side of the world to find him! We would love to have a baby and share our love with him or her. Having a baby would complete our little family and we want nothing else in the whole world.