Member-only story
One Couple’s Journey on the Bumpy Road of Infertility
By: Christine Kahan and Aaron Kahan
Did you ever think you’d end up being a human pin cushion science experiment? No? Well, neither did I until it seemed like it would be the only way I’d ever be a mom. So like the other 7.3 million American women and every 1 in 8 couples, my husband and I embarked on the IVF destination on our already bumpy infertility road.
As a sequential person, the IVF process seemed easy enough. Five steps: stimulation of ovaries through multiple medications, egg retrieval of ovaries, fertilization of eggs, embryo maturation, and the transfer of the embryo to the uterus.
Even after reviewing the timeline of the steps that would come to be my guide, I wasn’t intimidated. The process seemed like a welcomed progression of knowing what was next after our ordeal through the broken foster care system where we had attempted to adopt.
A mountain of infertility medications
A mountain of medications arrived. Then my days began to consist of being poked with a needle for blood work, prodded with a speculum for an ultrasound and injected with three different medicines each night.
Each night, after rereading the directions for each medication and making sure he had the right needle, my husband…