INFERTILITY & IVF W/ KELLI

Sometime in the beginning of the year, I dreamt I was standing in the corridor of the labor and delivery ward in a hospital and saw a small crowd waiting outside a room. I walked down the hallway toward a familiar face and looked on as an older woman leaned into the bassinet of a brand new baby. She was so close that seeing the tip of her nose made me imagine them sharing the same breath. The baby’s father stood by smiling and the mother laying in a hospital bed pressed against a wall was, Kelli. That morning I sent Kelli a text message impressed to tell her about my extremely random dream and her questions about the details of the dream made me relax over how ridiculous I initially thought it might be to tell her. In the same conversation she told me that she was actually trying to have a baby and who she thought the woman in my dream could have been. That day the sisterhood did what the sisterhood does and with our dreams, living and sleep in sync, we claimed it done! We was gon’ have a baby!

A few months later Kelli hit me up to meet her for lunch and shared with me something so private and personal that at one point I literally had to tune her out to acknowledge the honor I felt. Watching her take her reusable cutlery set out of her pocketbook (I was using plastic, carbon footprint expanding. smh), doing her part to protect the earth her future kids would inhabit I listened as she quickly said her plans to be a mother were moving in a new direction and broke it down just as fast. She was weeks into her first round of in vitro fertilization.

While we talked I was so impressed with her dedication to not only educate herself on the process but to learn and understand the changes to her body, seek out resources and support groups and ninja style handle insurance companies who were throwing hurdles in the way of her becoming a mom. Kelli even rolled billing codes off her tongue to let me know she was getting the most out her benefits because money doesn’t grow on trees and keeping the number to her medical advocate on speed dial. During that hour long lunch break and conversations after, I felt like I’d been taken to school. Having already talked about my passion project she matter of factly agreed with no hesitation to share her story on R&V. If you ever had to travel down this road, you’d want a gal like Kelli next to you and her remarkable honesty about the challenges she’s face leading up to her decision to start IVF can only make you, if you’re real like that, respect a woman who’ll take the time to post warning signs for other women about cracks in the road ahead. Even when I called to confirm she was OK with sharing everything before I posted her story…

Kelli said: “Yup.”

Kelli.

Kelli has a fiery determination, a free spirit and she picks up and reduces speed when she talks balancing the energy of details into a relaxed conversation. She is outrageously smart because she’s passionate and outrageously passionate because she’s smart. Sassy with a great sense of humor, she is a whole lot of woman in a small (fit!) frame who owns and is continuously searching for a deeper connection to her mind, body and spirit. She’s into all things health conscious and is committed to that shit! Trust me, I know. I’ve tried a diet and a healthy (read, kiiinda missing flavor) snack or two under her watch and like I said, she’s committed committed… What a great trait to have for a future mom!

Retracing. Steps To IVF

Kelli and I set aside some time and started our conversation from the top to talk about what led her, a young 36 year old healthy and health conscious woman to consider in vitro fertilization. In true Kelli fashion, she spared no detail and held no jabs while she talked about the initial concerns around her fertility which includes contracting chlamydia at sixteen from a boyfriend she thought was exclusive and an ectopic pregnancy late in her twenties.

As a child Kelli was a tomboy, ripping and running and scraping up her knees like tomboys do. Growing up Kelli said she always knew she wanted to be a mom,

“My mom has a big family, my dad has the biggest family and I just felt like there’s this love and unity there. And I feel like, that’s what I’m here for.”

Born in Detroit and raised with her older sister in a mixed raced home, she moved to Ohio at the age of two and in the seventh grade relocated to Maryland where her family finally laid their roots. (The details about the frequent moves include a story about her father’s stalker, a male colleague who kept moving his family to be closer to theirs... I knowww!) Kelli’s parents met in Detroit, where her father, a pathologist grew up in 8 Mile and her mother from 10 Mile worked in nursing and teaching fields, staying home to raise her children and finish a PhD in nursing education and returning to work as a director of nursing once they were teens.

Kelli has vivid memories (and pictures for proof) of a “gangsta boo phase” in high school, one where rough and tough in afro puffs she rolled through the streets of Maryland in baggy clothes and bandanas. According to Kelli: “high school was an interesting time. She had a love for track and field and her parents, especially her father were strict with her encouraging her in academics and sports. It was in high school her interest in boys developed and out of curiosity she says she got into “things” a little early. She retraced her IVF journey back to high school, where twenty years ago she contracted chlamydia from a boyfriend who she thought was exclusive. How did she find out? Over a week after they’d last had sex.

“I was at a track meet and I was having a very sharp pain and I felt like I was about to pass out and my mom was like, ‘ok we’re going to go to the doctor.’ I was about sixteen. And umm, hello, it was a very embarrassing thing. Your mother being in the room with you the first time you get a PAP smear — and all these tests... And, it came back positive. ”

That experience at sixteen made her “not trust men or someone else’s judgement” and for future partners back then, she said she’d go as far as examining them. “It made me very cautious or aware of what was out there. It scared me.” Kelli told me that she was very lucky that her body showed her signs early on.

“For women you may not have symptoms you can go years without having any issues. I was lucky enough where my body told me immediately something wasn’t right. I must have got PID, pelvic inflammatory disease and it can affect your tubes, it can scar them. I tied that later down the line to [what] prevented me from conceiving naturally and safely.“

But, that’s not all Kelli can attribute to the 5% chance she has to conceive naturally on her own.

Almost 10 years ago she went through an ectopic pregnancy at the end of what she initially called a “long term booty call” but the jury came back in our convo and what sis really meant is the relationship lasted seven years but was going nowhere — and she knew it. (Fist in the air if you’ve been there!) She’d been off the pill for only ten days when she made the U-turn, deciding to cut it from a tight budget caused by the loss of job and insurance. It also didn’t make sense to be on the pill considering the inconsistency of her “relationship”. That night the ever so present and underrated women’s intuition made her worry that she’d gotten pregnant, but weeks later she took a pregnancy test that came back negative.

Eventually Kelli started feeling extreme pains and cramps in her abdomen and said going to the bathroom to do # 2 was both painful and dreaded. She chalked it up to gas and indigestion, maybe bowel issues or food poisoning and went in to work. A female coworker said Kelli, still in extreme pain and feeling faint turned white before her eyes. So she called her out and then an ambulance and rode with Kelli to the ER. A pregnancy test in the emergency room confirmed she was pregnant and blood work returned estimating her to be about 5 weeks along.

“I was shocked. I thought, ‘I did a test, it should be negative.’ But at that point it made sense why I was having all these pains.”

A sonogram and imaging did not show a pregnancy, however it did confirm a pint and a half of blood in Kelli’s abdomen and a ruptured fallopian tube. The shame of telling her family and having them think she was irresponsible was devastating to her but she made the call met with questions of “how could this happen?'“

Kelli was rushed into an emergency laparoscopic surgery where she received a blood transfusion with her own blood and a small incisions were made around her belly button and the side of her abdomen to remove her right fallopian tube.

Then and now she said it meant everything living in a big city like New York to have the support of her coworker who stayed with her until her roommate arrived and to have her families support, specifically her big sister who dropped everything including her family to come to New York and be with her.

Oh, and the guy? When Kelli got in touch with him that night and told him what was going on he told her that she should have taken a Plan B but, he was in the Hamptons and hoped she felt better. Sooo… yeah. Of course he called (two months!) later to check on her (#sigh) and got a full blown cussin’, thanks to our former gangsta boo Kelli.

The mistakes and missteps Kelli remembers from her past have earned her a cautiousness and clarity. Some mistakes are harder to come back from but what Kelli has gone through is a part of what fuels her desire to educate herself and take care of herself — mind, body and spirit.

It’s why she says it’s so important for women, especially younger women to be conscious of their partners, to know and trust who they are with, get tested and to protect themselves and their futures by using protection.

That was in 2010.

“Having that one tube I never really discussed what that meant for my fertility. I felt like well I still have another tube, I still have a chance to get pregnant. And from the results my left tube looked fine so I didn’t think anything of it.”

Kelli told me although she always wanted to raise her children with her sister who started having her children in her mid-twenties, long term relationships didn’t work out so family planning was pushed to the side and fertility wasn’t something she seriously worried about so time went on.

And then came the future.

The Future

In May of 2015 Kelli met Jordan on what she calls the “Jewish Tinder” of dating apps. We laughed as I slapped my knee and cooed “yesss Kelli, drop them lines girl” in response to her initial coo “the day I met him” — her response to my question that I’m sure you can fill in Jeopardy style. It was Jordan’s sensitivity she said that got her and it’s what she mentions first when she talks about knowing he was the one she wanted to be with forever. Jordan she says keeps her calm, balances her energy, a romantic who write poems (girl!) and loves football more than she thought she did. And when I randomly FaceTimed Kelli one day while lounging at home and got a chance to chop it up with Mr. B I couldn’t stop telling them how cute they were! I was also impressed with how easily Jordan smiled and conversed with me like an old friend who really didn’t notice that I had my bonnet on.

In August of 2017 Kelli and Jordan were married in a beautiful ceremony in the Catskills.

“My husband and I said we’d be married for a year and then we would start the process.” Kelli told me. A friend of hers who recently got married was pregnant within a year, the timeline Kelli hoped and imagined to be achievable until another girlfriend told her she’d been trying for over two. Kelli wonder-worried if it would be hard for her too and having a great relationship with her OB-GYN went in to review her plan and her history. Kelli’s doctor encouraged her to start trying right away with her age and one fallopian tube being factors her doctor said could contribute to it taking longer than she planned.

Practice Makes (a baby)

With marching orders is hand an a type A personality on deck Kelli and Jordan set out to try and have a baby. Baby making started out with monitoring her cycle with apps, ovulation kits and trackers, then basal temperature readings and blood tests during her cycle to test for the presence of the ovulation triggering LH hormone. She also tried Pre-Seed, a “fertility-friendly” pH balanced lubricant made by First Response (the pregnancy test company) that claims to mimic a woman’s natural cervical fluids during ovulation and help the sperm slip right on through. Her husband underwent a sperm analysis which came back normal and Kelli did a saline sonogram to check her uterus for polyps and fibroids to determine if there were any underlying causes aside from those she already knew of.

Eventually and any woman who’s tried to get pregnant knows, Kelli says the roller coaster of emotions, playing double dutch with her cycle and negative pregnancy tests took the “fun” out of it and made her and Jordan decide it was time to consider fertility treatments after only five months. Normally, it would take a year of trying unsuccesfully for a woman to become eligible for serious fertility discussions but Kelli says her missing fallopian tube made her an earlier candidate and she didn’t have to wait any longer.

Fertility specialists suggested IUI, also known as artificial insemination but with the chance of pregnancy being lower with one fallopian tube for the sperm to travel through also comes an increased risk of another ectopic pregnancy. “A normal couple trying to conceive has a 25% chance, imagine what that is when you have only one tube. How are you going to control where they are going to swim”

“That’s how we got into the whole life of IVF”

Kelli and her husband decided it would be better to go another route and ultimately chose IVF because of it’s higher pregnancy rate.

““There is no force more powerful than a woman determined to rise.” ”

— W.E.B. DUBOIS

Planning

Kelli’s road to motherhood came at a time where she’d been out of work. Although she had the extra time and says she’s so thankful God worked it out that way, don’t get it twisted, she has an outstanding will to push her dream to become a mother forward. The hustle to get the most out of what you’ve been given and control your path doesn’t just come when you have “time” Initially she kept the process quiet saying “I didn’t really tell anyone what we were doing early on because I didn’t know what to expect.”

Kelli did research on Jordan’s insurance plan to find out where they stood with their coverage and requirements they’d have to follow to be covered at the highest benefit amounts possible. Then she enrolled into a special fertility program and the required IVF classes. The initial testing began in March of 2018 and Kelli began her first cycle of IVF two months later in May of the same year.

“We are so blessed that my husband’s insurance plan has a really good program. We were lucky where each of us has a $25,000 lifetime amount towards IVF.”

To keep on top of everything Kelli keeps a treatment diary and stays very organized because the sensitivity of her treatment dosages and times are exact and crucial to the success of their investment and outcome. Medications are shipped overnight in a cooler and the packages arrive in cases bigger than her. Every morning she has different medications she takes which are in pre filled syringes and though the blogs she frequents tell the stories of women who get bruises and discomfort from their shots, Kelli says she hasn’t experienced a lot of that. Soreness from shots in the same area are a matter of an ice pack she keeps on deck.

While she thought the initial process would be “one and done” her first round of in vitro returned no viable or mature follicles so another round of in vitro was put into motion which starts of course the financial and physical process over but Kelli says it’s worth it knowing she’ll have the family she’s dreamed of with someone she loves so much.

The journey towards motherhood looks different for everyone and having struggled through my pregnancy with my daughter I know the journey to parenthood is a miracle and one that takes effort at every stage regardless of where you spend the most time journeying. Kelli’s self awareness to hold her past accountable but harness the power in the present to claim her future is remarkable. She’s using her time wisely and spending little time feeling sorry for herself but taking action and that’s something I can take notes from.

Kelli has graciously laid out her research, resources and the tips she’s gathered along her journey for us in what I’ve called Kelli’s IVF Notes.

Thanks Kelli B!

I wish (and I hope you’ll join me!) Kelli the best in her journey to motherhood and pray God blesses her efforts with the family she’s dreamt of and so much more!