Natural Pregnancy After Failed IVF

4 Failed IUI”s, 3 Failed IVF cycles

“I had my first daughter 5 years ago and had no trouble at all conceiving.  However, when my husband and I tried to have a second child we found ourselves catapulted into the incredibly painful world of infertility.  After 6 months of trying, I was worried and ran to the medical world looking for fast results and was willing to try any drugs offered me.  I was told that I had high FSH despite being relatively young and that was why I was experiencing secondary infertility.  The RE, quite matter-of-factly told me that I would likely go through menopause at around 40 and had about a 2% chance of conceiving naturally.   I was incredibly devastated and after days of crying, I dove into IUI—I went on do this 4 times, without any conceptions. After the failed IUIs we moved on to IVF.  We did 2 IVF cycles both of which failed and neither of which produced even a single fertilized egg!

My desperation grew, then hope & Woodstock

My devastation and desperation grew and I began to search incessantly on the internet for any solution to high FSH, despite the fact that the RE had told me explicitly that there was no way to lower one’s FSH.  I then stumbled on a blog post in a discussion about FSH that mentioned Julia’s book Inconceivable.

I got the book as fast as I could it and read it voraciously.  Suddenly, I felt like there might be something I could do to change things and to heal.  I immediately looked up Julia online and decided to attend her workshop in Woodstock.  It was such an emotional experience for me—I remember when we were doing imagery and singing, my tears were just endless and I felt deeply drawn to her work. This was the first place I had been during these years in which it was ok to cry and to feel.

3rd IVF ended with miscarriage at 6 weeks

After 2 failed IVF’s, the RE almost canceled my third IVF cycle mid-way since I seemed “too emotional”—apparently it’s not ok to cry when receiving bad news in her world. I had already started my third IVF cycle at the time and figured I would go through it while doing Julia’s work.  I bought a juicer, Julia’s cds, and supplements, and began. However a few weeks later my third IVF cycle ended with a miscarriage at 6 weeks.  We had only had one fertilized egg so it felt to me like we were back to square one.  To make matters worse the RE handed me a prescription for Valium, and told me there was nothing left they could do for me and shooed us out of their office as quickly as they could.  She said we needed to move forward to adoption, donor eggs, and a clinic for really severe cases.  I experienced deep mourning after that loss and felt completely hopeless.   In that moment I emailed Julia and I she replied that she believed I could turn things around.  I wasn’t sure about that, but I was willing to follow her and try.

I joined the Visionary Moms and began working more deeply

I joined the Visionary Moms Circle and began working much more deeply.  I learned so much about myself and had so many epiphanies with the OVUM work.  Working with Julia helped me in moments in which I absolutely had lost all hope of conceiving and participating in the forum and phone circles removed my deep feelings of isolation and gave me a healthy way of walking towards my babies”

I had really hit rock bottom

“I had really hit rock bottom after our third failed egg donation cycle.  I was feeling so defeated, so discouraged. We had gone through five or six embryos. There was no reason to believe the one we had left was going to work. They kept saying if I fixed the egg problem, it would be good. I fixed the egg problem, but nothing was good.

The night I got the call that it didn’t work I started reading The Fertile Female again because it was the only thing that made me feel better. That’s when I decided I needed to go to a workshop in Woodstock because the teleconference series wasn’t going to be enough. I felt very connected to what was in the book, but I also felt very overwhelmed as to where to begin. I started the dream journal and the food changes because those were things I understood.

The courage to show up

I felt I needed to attend the conferences in Woodstock to get a true sense of direction and that was really hard for me. I’ve always been very shy and never go tot new places or do new things on my own. I always needed to do it with another person. This was really putting myself out there. As much as it stressed me out, this was the challenge I needed. I needed to fix me before I moved on to the next donor cycle.

I remember crying just filling out the paperwork when I got there. I realized I wasn’t the only one and that made me feel less isolated. Julia remarked about how much courage it took to show up and that enabled me to move forward. I was able to be open and let my raw emotions come out. Listening to other women’s stories and Julia’s questions really struck a chord with me as to why I made certain decisions and what pushed me that way. One of the things she said was not to make any decisions when you feel defeated. I suddenly realized that  that’s how I had made every decision up until that point! Out of feeling defeated and out of panic. That’s what I did with every IVF cycle and every egg donor cycle. I just kept moving on to the next one and never let my emotions settle.

Issues in my tissues

During what Julia calls Body Truth exercises in the afternoon of the workshop,  I realized I had tightness in my chest. I always thought it was related to a dislocated rib from an old injury. Suddenly I breathed in and I could breathe fully. There was no tightness or knot over that rib. That was a really remarkable moment for me because something physically had released. What a difference I felt! When I did the teleconference series after I came back from Woodstock, it was helpful, but I felt that didn’t participate as much as I could have, because I was in my comfort zone in my home and I could hide the way I couldn’t quite hide in Woodstock.   Although many of the other women on the call were very open and it was good to have that connection and check in. Also Julia’s assignments helped me understand the tools more and to focus.

My top priority – heal myself

After Woodstock, my husband I decided not to  go back to see the doctor until January. I was turning 35 in mid-January and had been dreading that birthday – that’s suppose to be a significant number in the fertility world. I just wanted to be away from that kind of  negativity and enjoy the holidays with our family. I really didn’t know if I wanted to go through the whole thing again with the last embryo.

My top priority was healing myself.  I continued with the dietary changes and I understood the OVUM practice a lot better.  Julia helped me figure out which exercises to do and guided me through different strategies. I shared with Julia that my husband was worried about me.  He was scared that I was believing too much in the Fertile Heart practice –that I would be able to get pregnant on my own.  He was afraid to see me go through the cycles of hope and disappointment, and he felt that we were losing time. So as much as he was trying to support me, he didn’t understand the practice. I asked him to read Julia’s Fertile Female and he agreed.

I told him I just didn’t want to move forward with any bitterness and carry it with me. My goal was to heal myself so I could be a better mother, wife, friend –  a better person. Julia and her work changed my life in so many ways; changed who I am and how I have been moving forward with life. Getting pregnant was the highlight of it, but it was the whole journey and I can’t thank her enough for everything and her support. Carrying this baby is the happiest thing I could be doing right now. (Deidra’s full story is part of the upcoming Ebook: Egg Donation as an Instrument of Healing: The Fertile Heart Road to Getting Pregnant through Egg Donation)

I attended Julia’s workshop last November. I had read her book and joined a few phone circles as well. I am 43 years old and my husband and I had been trying to conceive since our wedding. We initially had no problem getting pregnant several times but I ended up with three miscarriages, and a second trimester termination.

After one failed IUI and three failed IVFs we were going to do one more IVF in January. It was around this time that I attended Julia’s group session in Woodstock. I attended alone while my husband explored the town. I remember during the early part of the session in the morning I was crying and sobbing deeply. I was embarrassed as it seemed that no one else was crying really hard or getting so emotional. But by the time I had come to the workshop I had so much pent up grief, frustration, disappointment, anger and sorrow over what we had been through that I just had to release it. And I felt like Julia’s story was so powerful and that she understood these feelings of desperation and grief.

After that workshop I truly felt lighter—the experience seemed like an awakening for me or a new chapter enabling me to move forward. I also felt happier. I thought about what Julia said about going back to things you really enjoyed doing when you were younger—one of the things I used to love to do was to go dancing. At Thanksgiving I found myself dancing to the radio and singing and felt really free and happier than I had felt in a long time. When I allowed myself to do the visualizations during the workshop I could really see my baby in a highchair smiling at me in the beginning of the visualization and then floating out in space as I went outside to go towards the bubble.

Only a few weeks after the workshop I got pregnant naturally in November. I gave birth to a healthy baby boy on August 14, 2006. His name is Isaiah—the name means “saved by God”. Given the grim statistics that the fertility doctors were giving me due to my age and the long journey it took to conceive Isaiah, this name seems very appropriate.

I want to thank you, Julia for sharing your story through your incredible book, the phone circles and for hosting these powerful workshops. I truly hope that my story can reach someone who is about to give up and inspire them to not give up, trust your heart and try to open your heart to the possibility of your dream—it can happen. I am grateful every day to you, Julia, and all the people in my life who have played a role in helping me keep my faith and belief. My dream came true and my beautiful boy landed from his bubble in the universe at a time when he was ready.