5 years ago we began our infertility journey. As an accountant and engineer we had a plan. We were going to focus on our careers, travel, and grow our friendships. Once we felt established and “ready” we’d start a family and surely we’d have several beautiful children, perfectly spaced a part and at the exact time in life we planned for. While we still ended up blessed with children, the journey to get to where we are is not at all what we could have imagined due to infertility. Once the baby fever set in we again planned for the perfect time to start trying to get pregnant. Reality started to set in with each passing month that ended in negative pregnancy tests. After a couple of years of obsessing over pregnancy tests, symptoms, crazy diets, surgery, and planning our life around trying to get pregnant…we started our IVF journey.
After all the needles, crazy hormones, and endless doctor appointments, we retrieved 19 eggs that ended in 6 successfully fertilized embryos. After two cycles of IVF we’ve been blessed with a 3-year old daughter and a baby boy due in July. We feel very fortunate to have had the resources, medical care, support, and faith to carry us through this journey and understand that this is not everyone’s reality. I hope that through our story and others we can bring awareness to the heartbreak that so many families experience through infertility and give a little bit of hope to those going through this difficult time building a family as they always planned. Jacob and Shelby Reese