Jessica and Travis
My husband and I were high school sweethearts. We met in 1999 when I was 15 and he was 16. We were together all the time, and after dating three years, right before my senior prom on our anniversary, he proposed. We were already sure we were getting married…I guess we were mature for our age or we just knew what we wanted, but he’d been saving up money working summers so that we could get married young, have a home, and start a family. It sounds crazy that a couple of kids wanted that, but we did. In July of 2004 we were (FINALLY!) married.
In the year leading up to our marriage, we built a home. Lots of neighbors, family, and friends joked that it was big enough for six kids. Maybe not SIX, but we had four bedrooms…three upstairs for kids, and were hoping to fill them sooner rather than later. In September of 2004 we ditched the birth control. My mom and dad had difficulties getting pregnant-they’d tried 11 years and battled endometriosis and I am an only child-so I wanted to get the ball rolling. I was already afraid, but still, hopeful. We wanted kids, we’d been together a long time, we had the house, we had our own business, what else was there to wait on?
After a year nothing happened. We were young. I had a family history of infertility, and I worried. I went to my OBGYN and was given clomid and told that we’d be pregnant in no time even without it. After all, WE WERE YOUNG. We WERE young, and that was what was worrying me. Shouldn’t a couple of 20-year-olds get knocked up just by looking at each other?
After the clomid my OBGYN was hesitant to send me to a specialist, saying we weren’t being patient enough…we were so young!! But I wouldn’t hear it. I did some research and called on my own. We had been ready a long time ago and it was getting ridiculous. All we wanted was a family. So in November of 2005 we met for the first time with our endocrinologist. We loved him. He took us seriously. He wanted to help. He thought it could work. He believed we would get pregnant.
We ditched the clomid and tried IUI as we ran the normal battery of tests. Everything was perfect…he was fine, I was fine, we were still so young. But nothing happened. We moved on to medicated IUI’s and on the second one, I was pregnant! It was March of 2006, and I was finally pregnant! However, though the first beta was good, the second was not. It was rising inappropriately and soon started dropping. We’d lost our first child.
After the miscarriage, we were more determined than ever. We’d gotten pregnant…it could work! We discussed options and moved on….to IVF. Our first fresh cycle was in July of 2006 and we transferred two beautiful embryos. But.Nothing.Happened. The subsequent FET with three wonderful embryos also failed.
I remember going on our annual vacation to Hilton Head that year and being on the verge of tears the whole time. We had to have a blood draw while we were there so I could stop the prometrium. Nothing seemed simple anymore. We were tired. We were ready to move on. Adoption had been on our minds for a while, and there by the ocean in one of our favorite places, we decided that it was time.
When we got home, we worked on choosing an agency. Our preliminary application was approved in August of 2006 and by October our home study was complete and our training was done soon after. By November we were being shown to birth families. In the meantime we had done 3 more medicated IUI’s with no luck and in December we decided it was time to stop treatments. It just wasn’t working. It wasn’t worth it.
Our agency showed us around and we were excited with each call. We interviewed birth parents twice, and had showing after showing, but no one bit. A lot of them wanted people who already had kids. We became a little discouraged…how were we supposed to have kids if no one would give us a chance in the first place?