On Episode 95, we have single mom by choice, Melissa on to share her IVF journey at 42. At 40, she thought she was probably running out of time to have a baby but always wanted to be a mother. Her friends suggested she should get a dog instead. She got a golden retriever she named Marvin. After having Marvin for a year, Melissa decided she still wanted to conceive. She says she hasn’t met the person she wants to have a child with yet, so she decided she would do this journey on her own.
If this is your first time here, I’m Jamie Massey and the host of the podcast. It took us 3 years, 5 pregnancies, failed IVF, and a failed embryo transfer to have our first baby using donor eggs at 43 years old. You can go here to learn more about my story.
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Episode 95 Transcript:
Jamie: Melissa, welcome to the show.
Melissa: Thank you. Excited to be here.
Jamie: And so exciting. We are sharing Melissa’s story at 43. Melissa, before we get into your story, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Melissa: Sure. My name’s Melissa. Now I currently live in Boston. I’m an associate director of quality systems at the pharmaceutical industry. Bounced around between food and medical device and pharma my whole life.
At 40 I realized that I was probably running outta time to have a baby and always wanted to be a mother. So my friends told me to get a dog. That that, that should be my next step. Get a dog,
Jamie: what solution.
Melissa: See if I can keep the dog alive, and if I still want a baby after a dog, then think about it.
So I did that. I got a dog named Marvin. He’s a golden retriever. He is the first baby in my life and the love of my life. But after having Marvin for a year, I decided I still wanted, still wanted to conceive. So unfortunately, or fortunately, it doesn’t matter how, how you look at it I never had met the person that I wanted to have a child with and just decided that I would do this on my own.
Jamie: So take us through like the process of like, how did you decide on a donor and going to an IVF clinic.
Melissa: Yeah, so there’s there’s a few big IVF clinics here in Boston. I started with one of the larger ones. It happened to be very close to my house when I first moved to the, to the area.
As far as donors go the first, so my, my story is really long as far as how many egg retrievals and transfers I had. I had eight egg retrievals and five transfers. Wow. So mid, mid story, I had to change sperm donors. So the first time I picked a donor, I picked it in a very methodical way, like I do everything else in my life.
I had a spreadsheet.
Jamie: Whoa. Wait, wait, wait. Let’s go back to this egg retrieval situation. Eight egg retrievals.
Melissa: Eight egg retrievals.
Jamie: Now, what was happening with these eight egg retrievals that you kept doing them?
Melissa: So my first retrieval, I got something like, I don’t know, 30 eggs. Oh my God. 26 fertilized two made it to freeze and neither embryo was healthy.
Jamie: Ugh.
Melissa: My second retrieval, I got like eight eggs. It was a crazy drop. Wow. It was like six fertilized two made it to freeze. Neither was healthy. Wow. So at this point I was getting really nervous because I thought, okay, well my A MH is still fine. My FSH is still fine, but I’m not making healthy embryos. So am I going to be able to make healthy embryos or am I like past, past that point?
So I had a, a candid conversation with my doctor and said, there’s gotta be something else I can do. What else can I do? And she recommended that I get on coq 10. So I did that and I started fertility acupuncture.
And then my third retrieval, I got maybe like 16 eggs. So better. 13? Yeah, a little bit better. 13, something like that. Fertilized. And then two made it to freeze because obviously in my 40 I wanted to test them. And when I kept getting this stupid two number, I could never get away from two.
Jamie: Yeah.
Melissa: Making it to freeze, whether I started with 30 or I started with four. Right. And so I was on pins and needles waiting for the PGTA results for those embryos. And they came back. One was healthy, one was not. Oh. So at that point I was like, oh my God, I did it. I gotta healthy one. I’m all set.
It’s wonderful. But I thought, well, maybe I’ll add one a second. I’m still, early forties. Let me just do one more retrieval just in case I still have some sperm leftover. So I did one more retrieval with that clinic, and I don’t remember how many eggs I started with, but four made it to freeze and I was like, wow, this, I just have this happen.
And three came back healthy.
Jamie: Wow.
Melissa: It was like, now I have four embryos. I am completely set. Because they tell you at the fertility clinics, like for every one child you wanna have, your goal should be like two to three healthy embryos.
Jamie: Yeah. Wait, do you think that the, it was because the coq 10 that you got more healthy embryos? Any ideas?
Melissa: So there was a couple things. The coq 10 was one thing that they say can help. Additionally, I changed from Medipure to low dose HCG. So my protocol was medipure and gono F and for the first two. And then for the third and fourth retrieval, it was low dose HCG and yl F.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: And that my doctor also said can sometimes make a difference whether that was the difference or not.
I can’t answer that. You don’t? You never know. I’ll never know. But for me, it was worth a shot. And when I talked to you about my second clinic, I think at least in my case, in my body, the low dose HCG did work better because I, we had the same thing happen in the next clinic.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So at that point I started doing transfers.
Oh. Wait,
Jamie: will you tell us a little bit about how you chose a donor?
Melissa: Yes. So the first time, for the first four Egg retrievals, I was very methodical. I had a spreadsheet, I had a list of things that mattered to me. I I went with Fairfax Cryobank just because when I initially put in like, five, 10 to six, four, whatever, and I don’t even know what I put at this point, but like, whatever the, the parameters were, I got the most hits with them.
So that’s who I went with. And I did the package, whatever package allowed you to have pictures, baby pictures, adult pictures, voice recordings, things like that, so that I wasn’t doing a bunch of add-ons. I think my first go around there was maybe 10 different donors, 15 different donors that matched the criteria.
So I listed all of those on the spreadsheet. I scored them from like zero to five on each item. I multiplied it out as if it was like a risk assessment and landed with two different donors at the end.
Jamie: So what was important to you?
Melissa: So I did all the physical characteristics. I did education. I cared less about things that I think are more environmentally, that you more environmentally. Mold you. So I didn’t really, really care, like if you liked pets, because I think if you grow up with pets, you’re probably gonna like pets. Right? Okay. Like if you didn’t grow up with pets, then okay, maybe you won’t like pets.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But like things like that I didn’t really pay any attention to.
I might’ve paid attention to some physicality, like did they play sports or things like that. I definitely looked at education. I also looked at age. I didn’t really want someone who was 18 because I feel like at 18 you have no idea what you’re doing. And even though you’re signing up for this to help pay for your college or your vacation or whatever. Mm-hmm. Now, nowadays everything’s open. ID donors and I didn’t want my child to get the information later and this person be like, why did I ever do this? So I think my donor was actually like late twenties.
Jamie: Mm. Okay.
Melissa: So not on the other end of the spectrum either, but still I felt old enough, , past 25 where. Your brain is fully developed and you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Then I ended up with two different donors that kind of met my criteria. Neither one of them looked anything alike, which kind of follow suit with the people that I’ve dated in my life. I don’t really have a type per se.
If you looked at one person to the next person, you would think I was two different people. But what the deciding factor between the two of them was, was CMV status because I am CMV negative. And while you can use somebody that’s CMV positive, you don’t wanna get CMV while you’re pregnant is what I was told. So I just went with the CMV negative person.
Jamie: Will you tell us a little bit about what that really means?
Melissa: I can’t really go into like huge detail on it. I know CNV is cytomegalovirus. I don’t, I don’t think it has any, actual things that happen to an adult person that get it. Like, I don’t even know if you would notice that you got it, but if you were to contract it while you’re pregnant, it has major implications on the unborn child.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: So if you have sperm, that’s CMV positive and an egg that’s CMV negative, there’s a chance that that could create a problem.
Jamie: Okay?
Melissa: Right. They wash the sperm so it shouldn’t matter. But all things considered two donors equally liked both went with the CMV negative one.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, you might as well. So now how many do you have? Six or do you have four frozen embryos at that point? I had four. Four. Okay. Now you’re ready to do transfers.
Melissa: Now I’m ready to do transfers. I think at this point I’m 42. I started all this when I was 41.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Do my first transfer was really not nervous about it at all. Really didn’t I thought the hurdle was, well, I have eggs at my age.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: And then the next hurdle was, can I make a healthy embryo? Mm-hmm. It never ever occurred to me that with healthy embryos and regular periods and super uber, uber thick lining, like nine 10 lining that I could have a problem getting pregnant, it just never occurred to me.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So go in for the transfer, do the transfer walk out, kind of like teary, like, oh my god, I’m probably pregnant now. This is amazing. Went to McDonald’s, got the french fries, came home, started the two week wait, started testing at I think five days post transfer, negative six, negative seven negative.
Now I’m panicking. I’m starting to look at all of the boards. I’m part of an IVF support group here in Massachusetts. I’m like frantically going through the Facebook group saying, when did you get your positive? You know, what’s the latest positive you got? At this point, it’s eight days. It’s clear to me it’s not gonna happen.
Mm-hmm. They say, don’t give up until you get, actually get your blood test. But in my mind, I wish I could say I’m an optimist by nature, but I’m not. So I was like, okay, this is a done deal. This didn’t work. Like this is terrible. So, no beta was zero. No h, no HCG, like, it was just done.
Like, just didn’t work. Yeah. So reconvene with the doctor and she said, don’t worry about it. You know, it’s not uncommon for a first transfer to fail. That’s why we recommend two to three embryos per her live birth that you’re aiming for. Usually by the second one, 80% of people would be pregnant.
If even that didn’t work, by the third transfer, 95% of women would be pregnant. So, it’s, it just. Relax, Melissa. So I said, okay. So then we, gear up for the second one. And I think part of the problem with this whole IVF process was with me was not even just the ups and downs of like getting healthy embryos and, transfers and is the transfer gonna work and whatnot, but like the, the waiting in between,
Jamie: it’s tough.
Melissa: It’s awful. Yeah. Like when I was doing the, the retrievals and I would get no healthy embryos, all I wanted to do was start immediately again, I’m a mm-hmm. Just keep going type person. And then having to wait like months and months for insurance approval. Oh. And then periods, start dates and all those kinds of things.
So with the transfers, same thing. I was like, let’s just go. So we go to do the second transfer and I go in and I’ve calmed myself down and I’m like, okay, it’s gonna work. No problem. She assured me like, no big deal that the first one didn’t work. Two week wait, zero. Ugh. Nothing worked. So now I’m like, okay, there’s gotta be something going on.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: I’m just not comfortable continuing doing this without a little bit more investigation.
Jamie: Right. Tell me there’s something wrong with me so we can fix it.
Melissa: Yeah. Tell me there’s something that we can do. Right. Yeah. So I think at that point I had a hysteroscopy or something like that. Mm-hmm. They looked in the uterine cavity and they said, well, you may have, may have a very small polyp. And so I said, well, that can that make me, can make this fail? And she was like, yeah, it could. And so I said, okay, so what do we do with that? She goes, well, we just remove the poll. I said, great, so have the polyp removed.
And she actually, my doctor at the time said that sometimes when you do something like that, or even like an endometrial scratch or something along those lines where the tissue heals is a good place for an embryo to transplant. So sometimes that actually has a, a positive effect. So I was like, okay, great.
So we did that and then now we’re gearing up for transfer number three and go in, have transfer number three. And now I’m testing at like four days post transfer. I’m not waiting until five and four days post transfer pm I think it was like 10 o’clock at night. I see a very, very, very, very, very faint line.
Jamie: What’d you think?
Melissa: Like, oh my god. Oh, so I, my, at this point my dad was living with me to try to like help a little bit with my dog.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Because after like retrievals and things, I would need to be driven home or somebody would need to walk the dog, et cetera. So I went and woke him up and was like, do you see this?
And poor guy was like dead asleep. And he’s like looking at the thing, he is looking under the light. He is like putting glasses on, taking glasses off. And he’s like, I think I see something. And I’m like, so I was just ecstatic. I don’t think I slept at all. I was just waiting for the next morning so I could pee on a stick again.
So next morning comes and I pee on a stick and it’s a little bit darker and I’m like, oh my God, it worked. And then my dog starts acting all crazy. He will not leave me. He’s like staring at me. I’d be doing something in the kitchen. He’d be sitting in the living room like behind me here, and he would just stare at me uhhuh.
And I’m like, oh my God. I think he knew something. So this goes on for a couple days, but the line is not getting darker. And I’m like. What does that mean? I, at this point, I hadn’t even heard of a chemical pregnancy or anything like that. I hadn’t heard of, like, getting a positive and then it not working.
Like I just, I didn’t even go down that rabbit hole because I was just trying to get a positive. Mm-hmm. So now I’m in the IVF group and I’m searching like, what, my line’s not getting darker and I’m seeing like this thing called chemical pregnancy.
So I’m like, what the fuck? Like, you’ve gotta be kidding me. I finally get a positive and, and now it’s not gonna work again. So I, I continue testing and all of a sudden my dog stop staring at me. And now I’m like, oh my God. It’s, he knows, he knows I know the line’s going away. I go in, you know, anything under, under over 10, I think they tell you to keep taking the medication.
From an HCG standpoint until like the next test, my beta came back three. Ugh. So, and then they’re, they’re like, well, you should really just keep taking the med. I’m like, no, I’m not taking any more medication. Like at this point I was just, I was livid. I was, I, because I went from sad to angry pretty quickly every time
Jamie: I get it.
Melissa: So then we go to the fourth transfer and the difference this time is. I had had really bad period cramps my entire life. Mm-hmm. And I had asked about possible endometriosis and that being a reason why I’m not getting pregnant. And it was kind of poo-pooed in that, well you have some bad period cramps, but in all of the many ultrasounds you’ve had for four retrievals and four transfers, there’s nothing on the ultrasounds that make us think that you have endo.
Everything moves freely. Nothing is like weirdly positioned. It is possible, but we really don’t think so. They sent me to like another type of ultrasound place to have a diagnostic ultrasound, and the doctor was like, no, I don’t think you have that, but like for the fourth transfer, just to be different and kind of cover our bases, we’ll do some Lupron for two weeks before transfer and we’ll do a medicated cycle.
So like with the progesterone and oil, everything else had either been like a modified natural or a natural cycle. So I go into transfer four, optimistic that we’ve again, changed something and done something different and do the transfer test. I think again, five, four or five days, nothing. Six, nothing.
Seven, nothing didn’t stick at all.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: So at this point, I, I have no more embryos left. I’ve gone through all four. I am now maybe a year and a half older.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Almost two years older and I’m devastated. I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to make a healthy embryos again. I told myself the wine in the sand to begin with, this was a few things.
I wanted to use my own own eggs just because I did no, no issue with other people using donor eggs. It’s just for me, I needed, I needed a line where I said, okay, I can’t go past this.
Jamie: Sure.
Melissa: Because otherwise I would just do this indefinitely, right? Mm-hmm. And the other thing was insurance. When insurance stops covering this, I’m done.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: So I thought about it and my doctor was like, putting in another, retrieval plan to go back to square one. And I’m like, I really think I need a second opinion. So I went to another clinic here in Massachusetts. The director used to run my previous clinic. So very well known in the, in the industry.
Good reputation, pretty. Pretty straightforward. Like there, there’s not like a feelgood type person. She’ll tell you like it is, which I actually appreciate. So I went to her and she said, I think given the history and all the failures with perfectly healthy, high quality, top of the line embryos, we really should explore the endo thing a little bit more.
So she sent me to a diagnostic MRI, which I know the, the gold standard for diagnosis of endo is laparoscopic surgery. Nobody can tell you a, a like firm that you either have or do not have endo without the surgery.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But an MRI can sometimes be useful. And in my case it showed deep intrinsic lesions all throughout my pelvis.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: So she was like, I’m pretty sure you have endo. Wow. So now you have to make a decision. We can start the retrievals. You can stay with this clinic. I’ll be your doctor. I’m not sure if you’re gonna get healthy embryos. It wasn’t that long ago that you were getting healthy embryos, so we’re gonna assume that you can still make them, or at least healthy eggs, right?
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But then for transfers, we’re gonna do something different. So I said, okay let’s go. So, but this point, now I have to find another donor. My donor don’t, don’t have any more sperm, uhhuh. That person’s not in the system anymore. So second time around I went completely different. No spreadsheets, no no crazy scoring system.
I looked at pictures and said, this is from somebody I would date. That’s who I’m going with. I kept it really, really simple.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: But I did care about the age he was again, not, you know, an 18-year-old that doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Jamie: It’s so shocking that they allow 18 year olds to donate.
Yeah.
Melissa: I don’t think you should be able to do this until they’re 25,
Jamie: at least 21 to me.
Melissa: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: I’m like an 18-year-old is a baby.
Melissa: Yeah.
Jamie: Wow.
Melissa: Okay. I just think back to what I was at 18 and like I didn’t know what I was doing. Right. Oh my God. Okay. So if my child said they wanted to do this at 18, I’d be like, please don’t.
Please don’t. Please don’t. Yeah. I mean, I’m happy for you to do it once you, like are out of school and, you know, have your life together and whatever, but please don’t do this at 18.
Jamie: Right. That’s wild.
Melissa: Yeah. Okay. So again, first retrieval, we go back to Medipure and Connell. And I said, well, I didn’t have very good success with Medipure once I switched a low dose HCG that worked.
And she said, I think that was a fluke. Mm-hmm. And I said, okay, well you’re the one who’s been doing this for forever and you’re the, the, the super genius with fertility. So I’ll acquiesce and go with the MANIPUR again.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: But if that doesn’t work, can we go to the low dose H cg? And she said, yeah. She said, if you wanna do the low dose H cg now we can, but I don’t think you need to. I think it’s better. I think it’s actually better to do the medipure. So I’m like, okay, great. So we do that. Not sure how many eggs I started with, ’cause it’s always now a blur.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But I know that two made its testing again, back to this stupid two number.
You two, yeah. Can’t get more than two except for that one. Results come back neither healthy. Ugh. So I’m like, okay. Let’s do the, the low dose H cg ’cause that’s the only thing that changed. I’m still doing the fertility acupuncture. I’m still taking the coq 10. I’m still taking all the other supplements that I was taking, like the fish oil. And my acupuncturist had me taking some beef liver pills and I I’m already on a baby aspirin ’cause I had open heart surgery when I was 37. Vitamin DI was taking. Mm-hmm. So we go back to the low dose HCG next retrieval. I’m not sure how many eggs I got, but two make it to testing again and one comes back healthy.
So I’m like, okay, now we’re at least making healthy embryos again. Given the history though, I’m not comfortable proceeding with transfers with only one embryo because again, the longer this goes, the less likely I’m going to be to be able to make healthy embryos at my age. Additionally my FSH had started to skyrocket and insurance was going to deny coverage.
Oh. So I asked the clinic, I’m like, well, is there anything I can do to get it to come back down? And they said, my nurse was like, well, I don’t know if there’s any actual scientific evidence to this, but we can, we can test you on day two instead of day three. And that’s fine. They, they’re somehow a lot to do that.
And then a lot of people eat at Iami ’cause it’s got es the soy estrogen makes your FSH come down. So for the next month, while I was waiting for another day two to have my FSH tested again to have insurance cover the cycle, I think I ate like giant containers of AMI every day. And then I had also looked it up online and somebody said, wheatgrass can help.
So I was taking all these wheat grass supplements, so like my delicious of like the size of my hand. I didn’t even know how many pills I was taking in a day. But then go back in for day two. And I think my FSH had gone from like 15 to two, so I was like, oh, that’s great.
Jamie: You want it to be lower?
Melissa: Yes.
Jamie: 15 to two.
Melissa: You want a MH to be higher? FSH to be lower.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: So insurance would cover it again. So we do another cycle again. Two, make it to testing, one comes back healthy and one comes back inconclusive. So now I have to decide, do I wanna retest the inconclusive embryo? If you retest it, there’s a possibility you could damage the embryo, but at 43, almost 44, I’m not gonna use an an embryo that I don’t know the status of. So I mean, I was just like, okay, yes, we’ll retest it and do one more retrieval. So now I’m equal at both clinics, right? Four retrievals at one, four retrievals at the other. Oh my gosh. How many embryos? Four from the first one. How many will I end up with?
The second one, I don’t know. I’m aiming for four because that’s what I had last time and still didn’t have success. Uhhuh. So we do one more retrieval, two embryos, make it to testing again. So I’ve never gotten past two at the second clinic and neither are healthy, but the inconclusive embryo does retest healthy.
So I have a total of three embryos.
Jamie: Three, okay.
Melissa: Yes. So I’m like, okay, well that’s, you know, what they say two to three. Her live birth. We’ll go back to that again and hope that, you know, things will be different. And so then with the presumptive endometriosis, I had to decide, do I do the laparoscopic surgery to have it removed, or do I do depo luron?
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Well, I don’t have anybody to take care of my dog at this point. I can’t have a surgery and then not have anybody to take care of him. I am, again, a single, person here. I’ve got responsibilities. I’m like, I, I don’t have the bandwidth to be recovering from any sort of surgery, so I’m gonna have to go with the depo loop route.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So we did that. If your listeners don’t know what that does to you, it basically puts you in chemical menopause overnight, because when you’re in menopause, your estrogen plummets and estrogen feeds endo. So the thought is if you starve the endo of estrogen, it’ll calm the endo down. It doesn’t get rid of it, but it kind of like just tamps down what it does.
Jamie: Uhhuh,
Melissa: and then hopefully the uterine cavity would be more receptive to a transfer.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So did that for two months. Some people have really bad side effects on Depo Lupron. I took the approach from the beginning of IVF that I would not read any of the inserts on any of the drugs that I was taking.
Jamie: Probably for the best.
Melissa: ’cause my mind, if I did that, I would have every symptom that elicit.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Like the mind is very powerful. So yeah, in general, I will, going back to the all the eight retrievals and the transfers, I really didn’t feel bad at all. I mean, the only thing I can say is I gained like, like 50 pounds, but over the course of, that many retrievals and, and that many transfers, but didn’t really have a problem with the side effects, I knew that there were some I was probably gonna get with the double Lupron just from.
Boards and people talking. But again, I didn’t read the insert so I might have had more than I thought. But you know, had the hot flashes carried around a little portable fan and just had it attached to me all the time. Told people at work that I was trying to deal with endometriosis. ’cause at this point the only person at at work that knew that I was doing this was my boss
Jamie: Uhhuh.
Melissa: I worked with Japan a lot and they wanted me to go to Japan and I couldn’t because I was doing all this IVF stuff, so I had to tell him. And then everybody else just thought I had an endo problem. So I guess she walking around with this fan and like having hot flashes and sweating crazy in meetings. Like I am, I have endometriosis and I’m trying to deal with it, is what I told people. Yeah.
Jamie: Just curious why you didn’t tell people. Like, did you just feel they would treat you different or what was your thoughts behind that?
Melissa: I don’t really, I mean, like, people in my personal life knew I told everybody, even the people that I met walking my dog that I was doing IVFI just, for some reason, I’ve always really tried to keep my personal life and my professional life very separate.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: And so for me it was just, it was like, I wouldn’t tell anybody if I was dating someone or, or, you know, get getting divorced.
I mean, I don’t know how much of that I would ever share at work. So I’m like, let me just keep this separate until I actually have something to say.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: I mean, obviously if I got pregnant I would have to tell them, but I just, I don’t know. I just, it didn’t occur to me that that was something I needed to tell them or that they should know.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: And I will say that the, the chemical happened at this job that I’m on, I had, I also changed jobs in, in the course of all of this. Mm-hmm. So my first. My, my retrievals, my first four retrievals and my first two transfers were at one job. And then my last two transfers and my next four retrievals were at another job. So the loss of the chemical happened at the new job.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: And I kind of like touched, touched base with my boss. ’cause I wanted to make sure that the, the emotional load I was carrying and the loss and the grief and all of that wasn’t gonna impact my performance or I wasn’t letting people see that.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: I didn’t want people to know that. Sure. And he was, he, he said, no, I, I wouldn’t have, have no idea that any of this was going on until you told me.
Mm-hmm. So that was reassuring to me. So had the hot flashes, had some insomnia they don’t tell you that you can Well. Maybe it tells me the insert that I didn’t read, but when I, on all the boards, I never saw anybody complain about odor. But I had this terrible odor, like I was taking like 20 showers a day. Like I just, it was awful to the point that I went to, to my doctor and was like, do I have some sort of infection? You need to like check like I can’t. And they’re like, no, everything is fine. And come to find out that a sudden drop in estrogen can create odor issues.
Jamie: Oh, interesting.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah.
So that was really all I had with the de l LeBron. And then my, my transfer cycle now had a lot of different medications. So I did a blood thinner, an injectable blood thinner a steroid and Claritin as an immune protocol. And then, it was a medicated cycle with the progesterone and oil and all of that.
There was like more, more medications that I was on that I don’t even remember at this point. Also the baby aspirin, but again, the baby aspirin I have to be on for my heart. So that was neither here nor there to me. Go in for the transfer. I remember like legs in the little things and looking at my doctor and going, is this gonna work? Like, I mean, at this point I’m afraid to hope for anything. And she’s like, Melissa, it’s a perfectly healthy embryo. Mm-hmm.
We’ve done all the things that we can do. Your lining looks fantastic. You’ve done all of the medications. Mm-hmm. We’ve basically thrown the entire kitchen sink at you. I have no reason to think it’s not gonna work.
Can I tell you? Yeah. I promise you it’s gonna work. No, but I think you have every reason to be optimistic and so I left.
Jamie: And what number of transfer was this?
Melissa: This was five.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: First at the new clinic. Five overall.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So I left and went to McDonald’s and got the french fries and came home. And one thing I did differently was I took some time off of work.
I took a few days after transfer, maybe three days after. And I vowed that I was only gonna watch like funny things and just kind of binge watch funny things. So I think I watched only the Golden Girls for several days. My dog and I went on nice long slow walks to something called the Arboretum by my house.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: ‘Cause I loved seeing him enjoy that and I thought, okay, nice healthy blood flow. That’s gotta be a good thing. I hadn’t decided yet whether I was gonna test or not. I had some pregnancy tests, but I’m like, should I do this differently? Should I like wait for the blood test this time? And I was really trying to do that.
I was really trying not to test, but at the same time. I’m not a patient person. I’m not good with not knowing. So I made it through day four morning without testing. But then day four, evening, I’m like, okay, I gotta test. So I tested and sure as shit there is a light line. And so I called my neighbor downstairs because throughout all of this you have to do the progesterone and oil, I think for like 12 weeks or something. Crazy.
Jamie: Yeah. I think I did 10.
Melissa: I at this point was too fat. To reach around and like inject the thing myself, even with an auto-injector. So I would load the syringe in the auto-injector and bring it downstairs to my neighbor and she would, push the little trigger and, and push the, the medication.
And if she couldn’t do it, her husband would do it for me because they also did IVF, so they were like familiar with the IVF process.
Jamie: Oh, how nice.
Melissa: And then if they weren’t available, my next door neighbors in the building over would help me. So basically I always had somebody, even if it was like some bum off the streets, I’d be like, listen, I just need you to push the needle.
It’s gotta be done at 8:00 PM here. Okay, let me, let me show you what to do. But, so I called her, I had already done my shot for the night and I said, okay, I tested, I have a, I think I have a positive, I gotta show you. She’s like, show me. So I went downstairs and I showed her and she was like, yeah, no, I definitely see a line.
It’s, it’s faint, but I definitely see one. And so I was like, okay. So then the next morning test again, it’s still there. I’m like, okay, this is progress. It’s still there. And then. The nighttime test again. Now, this time my dog is not staring at me, so I’m like, was that a fluke? You know, I don’t know, is this a bad sign?
Like I’m not really a superstitious person, but at this point I’m kind of getting superstitious with this. Mm-hmm. And I’m like, Marvin, can you just stare at mommy? Look at mommy. Here come, come look at mommy. Right? And he’s like, brings me a toy. He is like, I’m done with you. So day six, the line is still there.
It’s a little bit darker, but we’re not really, I’m not, it’s not getting like substantially darker.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: And now I’m getting worried. I’m like, oh my God, it’s gonna be a chemical again. And I keep going. And day seven, day eight, it’s there. It’s a little bit darker, but it’s not like you hear like die stealers and stuff.
Like I’m no one near anything like that. Like, I’m like, why is this not like darker uhhuh now? Mine should be. I have to say and admit, and I have no idea if this has any sort of like correlation to darkness of wines, but I drink a ridiculous amount of fluid. I was a pack a day smoker for most of my life.
And so without smoking, I drink in place of smoking. So I probably drink just under a gallon of water a day. I drank,
Jamie: oh my,
Melissa: several pans of diet Coke. I have very large cups of coffee. Like, so maybe I was just diluting the urine enough that it wasn’t getting darker. I don’t know. But at this point it’s time for the HCG test and I am terrified and I’m hearing like, okay, anything over a hundred, you’re pretty much in like safe land, anything under a hundred.
It’s not that it’s not safe, but you definitely need to come back for the second and see what’s what, where are you head? So I’m, I’m leaving the doctor’s office and I’m just praying, please God. Any just a hundred or more? Just 101. I get the results. 109. So I’m like, oh my God, I’m actually pregnant.
I am like actually pregnant. Mm-hmm. I don’t even know what to, at this point, I’m like, I don’t even know what to do. And I had had them write down the sex of the embryo on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope for me. Uhhuh. The first time around with the first four embryos, I knew what I had. I had three girls and one boy.
The second time around, I didn’t wanna know anything. I was like, I got too attached that way. Don’t tell me anything. If I’m pregnant, I’ll open the paper.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So now I’m like, do I open the paper? And I’m like, no, no, no. I’m gonna wait. I’m gonna wait until I know, like everything is fine. So go back for the next test.
And my HCG had not doubled.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: It wasn’t bad, but it hadn’t fully doubled.
Jamie: Uhhuh.
Melissa: And the clinic explained to me that it doesn’t have to double. Like it really doesn’t. It’s okay. And so I was like, well, but I’m not comfortable. Like, I have read all these things that it has to double. And they’re like, well, we can do a third test for you.
So I was like, okay, so now I’m calculating my head. If it was 109, the next time it should be what? 218? If it doubled. Mm-hmm. And then the next one should be like, somewhere in the mid four, four hundreds. The next one comes back, it’s like 600, the third one. So I’m like, okay. So now we’re like back on track more than Dublin, then we’re good. I think I’m actually pregnant. I’m like starting to really believe that this is happening.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So go in for the heartbeat check or whatever and see the little flicker and everything is great. I’m like, now I am actually pregnant. There is a heartbeat there. Like, I can’t believe this. I’m opening the paper.
It’s a girl. Aw. I’m so excited. And then I get home and start bleeding.
Jamie: Ugh.
Melissa: And I was like, you have to be kidding me. Like you have to be. And it’s just spotting. And I had, I had researched like. Reasons for bleeding. And I had heard of something called a sub chorionic hemorrhage. I told myself, okay, that’s gotta be what?
I’m not losing the baby. It’s gotta be an SCH, it’s gotta be an SCH. And I had told my mom, you know, if, if something were to happen and I started bleeding, remind me that I had seen this thing about an SCH so I don’t panic. And she said, Melissa, remember you told me to remind you about some s thing that you saw?
‘Cause I had called her in a panic that I was bleeding. And I said, okay, yeah, yeah, I remember. And so I called the clinic and they said, we saw the heartbeat. Everything looked fine. It, it could be an SCH. Come to find out later, it’s actually a relatively common complication with IVF patients. Don’t worry about it. You know, really, you only have to go seek treatment if you’re filling a pad every hour.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So I said, okay. So waited out that night, everything’s just kind of like a little bit blood on a liner, no big deal. Then all of a sudden I start like bleeding. Bleeding, like really bleeding.
Like I am filling a pack. So now I’m going to the emergency room and they do a scan. The embryo is still there. The fetus is still there. And they say, it’s probably an SCH but you need to go back to your fertility clinic. So I set up an appointment with them. I’m afraid to walk my dog.
’cause every time I stand up I start bleeding. So my dad had since moved back to South Florida. He came up to, to help with the dog and the clinic tells me, yes, it’s an SCH. We don’t think it’s that large at that point. You’ll come back in, another week for another ultrasound. In the meantime, do like modified pelvic rest.
So not bed bedrest, but like try to sit down a lot. Don’t stand for long periods of time.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: So I go to my eight week graduation at the clinic and the doctor scans and she says, well you have a pretty large SCH, we’re just gonna have to wait and see. If it resolves, you’re graduating the clinic now, so good luck.
I mean, I, I wish you the best. I, I have a good feeling, but I can’t promise you anything again and go see maternal fetal medicine. So I show up there for the first time and there’s no ultrasound. So I don’t know what’s going on with the SCH. All I know is I’ve now been in the emergency room four times for bleeding.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: To the point that like the last time it happened, I was at work and I felt like a gush and I went to the bathroom and there was like blood all over the floor and I just like pulled up my pants and ran out. I’m going to the emergency room. I don’t know, I don’t even say goodbye to anybody.
I just like literally pulled up my pants, grabbed my, my backpack of like keys and wallet and ran out the door and on my way to home at the time, I was like, I’m not gonna make it home. Like I’m getting like really nervous and dizzy and my blood pressure is skyrocketing. And so I just went to the emergency room instead.
Jamie: Wow.
Melissa: And so they continue to tell me to do this pelvic rest. And so I have to wait, I don’t even know when the first actual scan is with the, maybe the clinic is eight weeks and you graduate. And then the ultrasound at the MFM is 12 or 13 weeks. I don’t remember what it was, but I have to wait for that ultrasound.
They won’t do one to lemme know what’s happening. And so my friend came with me because I was very nervous and the, the doctor comes in and she’s like, oh, the, the, the baby looks great. And I’m like, what about the SEH? Don’t tell me anything about the baby right now. I just wanna know about the SCH. And she’s like, what? SCH? And I said, huh. And she goes, there’s no SCH and it’s gone. And, and the thing about the Quranic hemorrhage is you either hear like stories like mine that everything goes fine and it goes away and it’s no big deal. Or you hear like it was huge and it prevented the fetus from growing. There was not enough space for the baby to grow until you lost the baby.
Or it was like right on top of your cervix and you went into preterm labor and lost the baby. So I was just on pins and needles until they gave me this news. And once they told me it was gone. Now for the first time in eight retrievals and five transfers, I took a breath and was like, this is happening.
Oh wow. This is happening. It’s been three years and this is finally happening and I finally can kind of relax. Yeah.
Jamie: You feel relief finally.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s where we were. The rest of my pregnancy actually went swimmingly. I never had one instance of morning sickness. I had, I didn’t like salmon.
I didn’t have any true fruit aversions, but I didn’t like salmon anymore. And I’m big salmon fan, so like fishy fish just tasted fishy to me, so I didn’t eat that.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: I had some lower back pain, but, but nothing that I couldn’t manage with some biofreeze and a little bit of, you know, back rubs. I did have a significant amount of out of breath on, especially on stairs.
And then I got pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome. Mm-hmm. So like all night long my hands would go numb and I would go to roll over and be like shaking my hands, like trying to get them to come back with the pins and needles. So between the constant peeing in the third trimester and the numb hands, that would wake me up.
I don’t think I slept for the last, bit of my pregnancy. Okay. But other than that, I had no issues. My blood pressure stayed totally fine. I passed the gestational diabetes test with flying colors going back to the heart thing. Mm-hmm. Because I had open heart surgery and have an a valve that’s not my own.
I had to have regular echocardiograms throughout the P pregnancy and eventually I had to have the equivalent of an MRI, without contrast, just to make sure that my valve was staying okay. And all of that went swimmingly. And FM and cardiology worked together.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: No problems. And so then we just got to the end and it was like, okay, well what’s my birth plan? My mother is not in the picture and didn’t wanna be, so my niece stepped in and said and was gonna be my, support system hospital uhhuh. I had had tons of pelvic floor issues my whole life. So the thought of pushing out a baby was just not something I really wanted to do. Yeah. But I didn’t think it was an option to have an elective C-section.
However, talking with my doctor, she said it was uhhuh, so I was like, okay, that’s great. Schedule the C-section. So we scheduled it for 38 plus one because that’s when she would be available to do it. Otherwise, if I were to go early, I would’ve just had whoever was on call do the C-section.
Jamie: Now, why 38?
That seems so early to me.
Melissa: It was. I think it was too early. Looking back now and given what I know about my daughter’s GI issues right now, I think it was too early.
Jamie: Mm.
Melissa: But that’s what we did.
Jamie: Was there any like product or anything that like helped you, that you could recommend that helped you with pregnancy?
Melissa: I just really like that Biofreeze. It’s like a roll on, like a deodorant stick type thing. But for my back pain, I really did, I tried very hard not to take anything.
Jamie: Yeah.
Melissa: Okay. And there’s been some weird studies with Tylenol lately. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just, I really didn’t wanna take any pain medicine if I didn’t have to. So, again, occasionally I’d have to take Tylenol or something ’cause my back got really bad, but mm-hmm. I, really tried not to take anything.
Jamie: Okay.
Melissa: And that biofreeze, if I would put it on first thing in the morning, would really help my back pain.
I had had ice packs that were for your wrists. And every night, like half an hour before I would go to sleep, I would put the ice packs on my wrist for 20 minutes and that would get me through the night with a little bit less hand numbing. Okay. Like, it would get me through like, at least the first half of the night without my hands going numb. And then the second half of the night would be miserable with that. But the, I couldn’t have lived without the ice packs.
Jamie: And did you take any classes or anything? How did you prepare for baby?
Melissa: Because I knew I was gonna have the c-section. I didn’t have to do like, the whole birthing class.
Mm-hmm. They, they did have like a c-section class on what to expect in the hospital. Okay. And then just like at mass gen, like where do you park and what does your delivery day look like and all that stuff. So I took that and then I took an infant CPR class and I took like an infant care class and I took a breastfeeding class all through the hospital.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: How much of that I actually retained, I don’t know. I feel like you take your classes ’cause you wanna prepare, especially somebody like me who’s an A type personality and a perfectionist by nature, you like wanna have all your ducks in a row and everything lined up. But given again, the insanely colicky maybe I ended up with none of those classes have, have helped, helped me much, but that’s okay.
It was still something I could do in the moment to feel like I was doing something. Yeah. And when you’re nervous and your life’s about to change, you need to feel like you’re doing something. At least I did.
Jamie: Definitely.
Melissa: So it gave me something to do.
Jamie: Yeah. So you wanna go into your c-section or is there anything else you wanna mention about your pregnancy?
Melissa: I mean, other than, other than the SCH, the P again, the pregnancy was really smooth, so I don’t really have much to talk about with the pregnancy. I’ll tell you that my, my daughter never wanted to show her face on any of the ultrasounds. Oh. So at one point I went to like one of those out outside ultrasound places so that they could like, have time and I finally got to see her face.
But like in all of, in all of the ultrasounds at the doctor’s offices, she was like this. And she still does that. Like she’s still always got her hands in her face. So that was interesting.
Jamie: Okay. Well let’s get into your C-section. Sure. Take us, take us back to that day. Who was with you?
Melissa: So my niece came with me to the hospital. She actually, she lives maybe 30 minutes away, although now she’s moving, so I’m sad about that. Oh. But she lived, close by, so she ubered to my house in the morning. My dad was m had since moved back here and is living with me again. He has advanced Parkinson’s, so I’m taking care of him as well.
I’m sorry. That’s okay. But he was here and he was gonna watch the dog while I was, in the hospital. And my uncle and aunt, my mom’s brother and his wife drove up from North Carolina, so they were gonna be there. And then my childhood nanny, for lack of a better word, when I met her and now like sister also came up
Jamie: Oh, neat.
Melissa: To help kind of my dad and me in the hospital. So morning of, I leave Beatrice and my dad here at my house, my niece and I go to the hospital. I had walked the dog that morning my last walk with my dog without a baby, which I could hear about that because that was really, I was like hysterical.
Saying goodbye to Marvin. And we go to the hospital and get to labor and delivery, and they take me back and they talk about, the spinal that they’re gonna do. And I’m signing all of like, the consents. And now I’m just terrified. I’m not terrified of like the c-section, but terrified that something’s gonna go wrong with the spinal.
They’re gonna hit my spinal cord and I’m gonna end up paralyzed. Nobody’s gonna be able to walk my dog. I’m not gonna be able to take care of the baby. Doo and gloom. Everything bad goes through my head. So. They start the, the procedure and the, the anesthesiologist is like, are you okay?
And I’m like, yeah, I’m all right. And then all of a sudden I wasn’t. And he’s like, yeah the needle isn’t actually long enough to get through the part that’s numb. So once we get through the tissue that we’ve numb, that’s when you feel like the, the sensation. And I’m like, so you’re telling me I’m too fat for the needle?
I’m just, I was, I didn’t understand what he was saying. He’s like, no, no, no. That’s normal. That’s what we want. And I’m like, like, couldn’t you use a longer needle? Like, anyways, so, they lay me down and they’re like, are you feeling numb? And I’m like, no. They’re like, are you feeling numb? And I’m like, no.
And they’re like, we’ll, give her a little bit more medication and are you feeling numb? And I’m like, my feet are numb. And they’re like, okay, let’s just wait. Wait it out, wait it out. And so time goes by and they go to do like the test on your stomach, and I don’t feel anything. So they’re like, yeah, you’re numb.
And then I realize, okay, I’m also naked and there’s a billion people in the room and I’m a very modest person and I’m very uncomfortable with this. And I’m like, am I ever gonna get like, like a sheet over me at some point? And they’re like, yeah, we’re, we’re about to start the graying. And I’m like, okay.
So they do all the draping and then my niece comes in and start the C-section. It must have been a couple minutes until she was out. It wasn’t long at all. And as soon as they pulled her out, I heard the loudest screaming and my doctor was like, welcome Charlotte, because my daughter’s name is Charlotte Mackenzie, AKA, Charlie Mack.
I worked backwards from her nickname of Charlie Mack to the her full name.
Jamie: That’s cute.
Melissa: And they’re like, oh, she’s got a great set of lungs and immediately did some skin to skin and then they took her away to clean her up and do whatever they have to do, and then brought her back and they’re, you know, doing all the sewing up of me and whatnot.
And so this part takes, I don’t know, 30, 40 minutes. I mean, it’s like much longer the after than the actual delivery part. And the anesthesiologist was like, what is that noise? I’m like, what? And he looks and he’s like, oh my God, she’s snoring.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: She’s like laying on my chest snoring. And it was the cutest little thing.
And she still snored and I snore really loudly. So I’m like, oh, this is adorable. But yeah, she was, she was fantastic. And finally got out of the, or got back to the room, recovered for a little while. Then they take you one floor down, you get a private room in this hospital, which was nice with a bathroom.
And now I have to get from the stretcher into the bed and they’re like not helping me. They’re like forcing me to kind of do this myself. Oh. And I am in so much pain. And I had like this whole discussion with anesthesia before this about pain management because normal pain medications don’t work on me.
So like after open heart surgery, it was a total train wreck. And now I’m like, this is my worst fear come to life. I’m in so much pain, I’m not gonna be able to take care of her. Like and so they’re like, okay, well we can give you some more stuff. Hold on. Let’s just gotta get you in the bed. And so they did.
And then they gave me something else and then it started to get better. And little by little it started to get better. And so that first day was pretty rocky, but then by the second day I was a lot better. So that, that was a big win for me. ’cause that was probably what I was most scared of. Mm-hmm. Is the pain afterwards.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: And so immediately started trying to breastfeed. I had no expectations of breastfeeding. I, quite honestly, I didn’t even wanna do it. My mom had always said it was disgusting and it kind, kind of stuck with me. And so this sounds terrible. I know this sounds terrible, but I was like, the whole thing kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies.
I was like but I knew it was really healthy for the baby. And so I thought, okay, I’m gonna give it my best shot, and if it works, great. If it doesn’t, I will have no issues going to formula. So put her on, she latches immediately. She’s doing fantastic. Everything is like so easy. So I’m like, okay, I guess I’ll be breastfeeding now, which is not really, I really thought it would just fail, but it didn’t. And then the next day I’m in the bathroom. I had gotten outta the shower. And I went to pee and I heard her crying and all of a sudden I was like, wet. And I’m like, what is going? I just got outta the shower. I just dried off, like, why am I wet? My milk came in and there was milk going everywhere. I mean, it wasn’t like, it just trickled in.
It was like literally spraying all over the bathroom and I was like, oh my gosh. So now I have to use like the whole breast pads. I’m like an over producer. I think I could feed a small football team. She’s getting like waterboarded the poor child, but so she’s eating, eating, eating. She starts gaining weight back in the hospital on like day two.
Jamie: Wow.
Melissa: Which I guess is like unheard of. So by the time we leave the hospital, she’s not that far from birth weight. I was in the hospital for four nights, five days.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: And then we came home and I had lined up a postpartum doula.
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Melissa: Help. Yeah. So she was able to come and meet me here when I got home.
My dog goes to a doggy daycare, so he, the, the doggy daycare has transportation. So they would pick him off in the morning and drop him off in the evening. ’cause my dad can’t drive Uhhuh and they made a special allowance for me to do that on the weekends because they don’t do transportation on the weekends.
So if you live in Boston and you need doggy daycare and you live by JP or Brookline or Dedham Tails is like the best place ever and I owe them a ridiculous amount for taking such good care of my dog while I was in the hospital. But he was at school when I got home, so she first was able to kind of come in and settle and meet the cat luster.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: The cat was obsessed with her immediately and just would like stare at her. And he wants to like struggle when she’s breastfeeding. Like it’s really crazy. My dog was a little bit more skeptical. It took him much longer to adjust. The crying, he didn’t understand the crying. And then because she has really bad colic, she cries a lot.
So he kind of taste all over my room at night when she was crying. Now he can like sleep through anything now he’s like, okay, cool. And now he’s like started to like come up and lick her and bring her a toy and you know, she’s only 15 weeks. She doesn’t know what he’s doing, but she’s starting to engage with him and watch him. So it’s like really? Mm-hmm. Sweet. Still breastfeeding, but pretty much just pumping at this point because again, I really think I waterboard her.
Jamie: Too much.
Melissa: The amount smoke I have is insane. I pump and I have to turn the pump off because I’ll overflow the containers and I’ll do that in six minutes.
Jamie: Oh my God. That is the opposite of me.
Melissa: I know. And I, I feel so bad saying it. ’cause I know so many people really struggle with it, but it’s like the opposite problem. And, and I have to always be worried about mastitis. I have to pump, even though I’m like feeding her by bottles. I have to pump in the middle of the night several times, or I’ll be so engorged I can’t.
Yeah. And I’ve done like the tried, try not pumping, like try only breastfeeding, like try to get her to regulate after a while because now she’s three months, you’re supposed to regulate after three months and there’s no regulation. So I’m really scared of what’s gonna happen when I totally stop.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Because I’m not sure how my body’s gonna figure out to stop making milk, but whatever.
Jamie: Yeah.
Melissa: We’ll cross that bridge when you get there,
Jamie: do you have a plan for that? Like, how far do you wanna go? How long?
Melissa: I mean, I didn’t even wanna do this to begin with, and it happened so well that now I’m like, I don’t know how well long I’m gonna do this if I’m bottle feed.
I always said, I’m not, I’m not doing this If my kid’s talking like I’m, I’m not doing this, but okay, I could continue to, to pump and feed by bottle. That’s easy enough for me. I’m already doing that now. So, I don’t know. I will say that when she first started with the fussiness we went to the pediatrician and they tested her stool for blood.
And while there was no blood to the naked eye, there was blood in the stool, which is indicative of milk protein allergy. So I had to eliminate dairy from my diet.
Jamie: Uhhuh.
Melissa: And then, because that didn’t solve her GI issues I’ve now had to eliminate soy from my diet as well. So for somebody who didn’t wanna breastfeed, I’m really jumping through hoops now to continue breastfeeding.
Yeah, you’re in it. Because I did, you know, once I started it, it really wasn’t interesting Bonnie experience. Yeah. Seeing her, especially in like those middle of the night feedings, and then she like just rests her little hand. It’s just, it’s very sweet and it’s something I didn’t see coming.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But that connection, I would never give up at this point.
It’s just, it’s too important. But if her GI issues don’t resolve without the dairy and the soy then the, the, the GI people are telling me to go to an amino base, amino acid based formula. Okay.
Jamie: So
Melissa: that, that might drive a stop earlier than I anticipated.
Jamie: Yeah. Okay. Well, what about your recovery? How, how has that gone?
Melissa: So for better or for worse, I didn’t really have a lot of time to recover because I’m a single mother by choice. Mm-hmm. So there was nobody here that could. Do things with her. And also I have a 70 pound golden retriever that still required walks. And a father who has some health issues that also needs some caring. So I pretty much, I mean, I walked the dog and was very active until again, the morning that I went in for my C-section and I was walking the dog week after my C-section. I just, for better or worse.
Jamie: That’s amazing.
Melissa: That’s, that’s the only option I had. And honestly, I think it was great because it, it really made me bounce back pretty quickly.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Some of my friends who’d also had c-sections from Get Crazy, how are you doing this? And I’m like, well, what is my other option? I don’t have another option.
Jamie: Yeah.
Melissa: Like, you just have to do what you have to do.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, mentally, how were you?
Melissa: I would say at first everything was very good. Once the colic really set in, it was, it was hard. It was, it still is hard. I can’t, like, I couldn’t put her down. I lost 40 pounds in one month.
Jamie: Oh my gosh.
Melissa: To put it in perspective, like I could not put her down. I was on a yoga ball, bouncing with her all day long, all night long, or rocking her or walking her feeding her.
I would have to like find somebody to hold her so I could walk the dog. My neighbor would come up, my friend would come over. Some people from church would come and hold her sometimes, so I could walk the dog. I still had him going to daycare. They were still doing the transportation for me so that he would have an opportunity to, you know, relieve himself and get some exercise because I literally could not put her down.
She is not a cried out baby. This baby will cry. Scream bloody murder for four or five hours.
Jamie: Ugh. Oh, that’s so hard.
Melissa: To the point that we have, you know, been to urgent care. We’ve been to the ER because the pediatricians are like, more than three, four hours of crying. No break or missing two feeds.
You go to the er. Well, that’s my life. Like we miss feeds a lot. If she’s upset and we can easily go five hours screaming Oh, without babies console. My postpartum doula said that in 12 years, she’s never seen a baby like this. Oh, my pediatrician walked her around the office for an hour.
Jamie: Uhhuh.
Melissa: The baby chiropractor that I tried to go to gave me my money back.
Jamie: Poor thing.
Melissa: So, yeah. So it was, it’s, it was crazy. It was crazy. Yeah. Having said that, I think we’re starting to turn a corner now. I’m getting smiles, I’m getting laughs, I’m getting happy moments. It’s not all screaming. And I wouldn’t take a single second of it back because I think that, you know, my, one of the biggest fears I had going into this was that I was gonna have a baby that cries a lot and I’m gonna panic and I’m not gonna know what to do.
And I, I’m gonna like, be like, here, take the baby to somebody and like, detach myself because I wouldn’t be able to handle it. And this is like a real fear of mine. Like, I, like talked to a lot of people about this before I had her, and then I have her and she’s actually one of these babies that have such bad colic that nobody can console her and while I had some panicking moments, more like concern for her health, it, I would’ve rocked that baby 24 hours a day. I went with no sleep, no showers, no bathroom breaks, wholeheartedly happy to do it. No issues. What I told all the doctors is the only thing I can’t stand is seeing her in what looks like a lot of distress.
I can deal with the no showers, the, the no, no bio breaks, the not eating. I can handle all of that. I just want her to be okay. Yeah. And so I think it just, it really showed me what I’m capable of in mm-hmm. In a way that I never thought possible. Yeah. And because she was not an easy baby, the bond that the two of us have, I feel like it’s like mother child on steroids.
Like. It, it’s, she’s like my shadow. Like, I mean, I’m never without this child. So yeah. It’s been, it’s been a whirlwind.
Jamie: That’s awesome.
Melissa: But one that I will never regret. Yeah. Even having had, you know, a lot of health issues at the jump.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, is there anything else you wanna share about your birth or pregnancy or anything?
Melissa: The only thing I would go back to is if something doesn’t feel right to you in the IVF process, push, ask. I really wish I would’ve pushed more in the beginning about the whole, why isn’t this working thing?
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: I’m glad I had lines that I didn’t wanna cross because I didn’t wanna do this for, you know, 15 years and waste all of my savings and, and things like that. But I, I wish I would’ve pushed a lot harder in the beginning to figure out why things weren’t working.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Melissa: Because that would’ve saved a lot of heartache and a lot of time.
Jamie: Yeah. So how many more embryos do you have left?
Melissa: I have two more embryos because again, I only needed one at the new clinic, everybody tells me to wait till Charlie’s a year old before I make a decision on whether I’m gonna have another one or not. I really would love to. I’m also concerned that if I had another very colicky baby I don’t know. I don’t know that I could take care of her on my own. And another baby who was like her mm-hmm. And be able to keep them both. Okay. Sure. So, but my, my MFM doctor jokingly told me that I’ve never heard of anybody getting too colicky babies. So she’s like, I think you got yours out of the way to begin with, and don’t think that your next one is gonna be as colicky. So we’ll see. I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’ll, I’ll do it. The other limiting factor is finances. Right? Like, it’s really expensive to have a baby. Daycare is really crazy expensive. Sure. So we’ll see where we are in here.
Jamie: Yeah. What has been your biggest challenge being pregnant over 40?
Melissa: I don’t really feel like being pregnant was cha challenging for me over 40. I mean, aside from the SCH, that could, could have happened. In my twenties. Yeah. My doctor said you were like made to be pregnant. You’ve had like the easiest pregnancy we’ve seen, so go figure, like, I so hard to get there. But once I actually got pregnant, it was not a, not a not a hard thing. I mean, I guess the, the carpal tunnel was really annoying.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: Okay. Just ’cause nobody wants to wake up with numb hands all night long. Yeah. It’s just very frustrating and, and not sleeping is just annoying, but I guess the not sleeping with that prepared me for the, not sleeping with her.
Jamie: Okay. Is there anything you’d recommend that would help prepare someone for pregnancy and birth over 40?
Melissa: I would say just be around as many babies as you can. The more challenging the baby the better, like, expose yourself to, colicky babies and babies that are not just smiley and sleeping, because you have to be prepared for that. Mm-hmm. But I don’t think there’s really anything that could prepare you until you’re doing it.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think like once you’re doing it something just changes, something turns on and you just do what you need to do, and it becomes like a joy to do it. Mm-hmm. Like, I remember telling my friend in the driveway she had come to drop something off because I couldn’t leave the house because, I couldn’t, my baby’s crying like and I remember telling her like, I wouldn’t give any second of this back.
Even though it’s so hard, it’s so worth it and it just feels like the most authentic and, and meaningful thing I could have ever done with my life being her there for her in those moments.
Jamie: What advice would you give those women who are trying to conceive and they are over 40 and struggling?
Melissa: Stay hopeful. Mm-hmm. I’m a woman of faith. I prayed a lot. I really kind of left this in God’s hands and said, you know, you’re, well not mine. I, I hope you allow me the privilege of being a mother. And I prayed very, very hard for that for a long time. And I said that, you know, when I get the red lights that were my line in the sand, then I’ll stop.
So if insurance doesn’t cover anymore, or if I can’t make healthy embryos. Those will be the red lights from him that he’ll give me and I’ll stop. But as long as I’m sort of making healthy embryos, like I’m getting too tested, one comes back healthy, or I’m getting ’em healthy, the doctors are telling me that I still have hope.
That’s, you know, yellow light, green light for me. I’ll keep going. And that’s what I did. I listened to a lot of things like this podcast. I listened to a lot of single Mother by Choice podcasts. So I would say all of that was very helpful.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: But you just, I think that having gone through all of that and how hard it was to get pregnant prepared me for post pregnancy.
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Melissa: It prepared me for that postpartum time where I didn’t have an option. I had to do walking the dog, even post C-section or I have to be up 24 hours with the, the crying baby. I think that the harder it, the harder that journey was really helped kind of beef up the grit that I needed for now.
Jamie: Mm-hmm. That’s perfect.
Melissa: If that makes sense.
Jamie: Yeah, definitely. Where can our listeners find you on the internet?
Melissa: So I don’t really do too much on the internet between work and now. Baby, I haven’t gone back to work yet, but normally I’m working a lot and then now with her, I’m like never really on. But I do have, mommy loves Marvin on Instagram. Okay. That’s my dog. You’ll see him in the pictures. He’s very cute. If somebody reaches out to me there, I will see it.
Jamie: Awesome. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your story.
Melissa: Thank you very much for having me.