“It was now or never” – Natalie & Armando’s fertility journey

Natalie and Armando had been trying to conceive for over half their marriage when they finally decided to seek diagnostic testing for infertility. Though they suspected the reason for their difficulty, they ultimately decided the answer was worth knowing.

As it turns out, they got to CARE Fertility in the nick of time. The couple was diagnosed with both a low egg reserve and a low sperm count. In fact, Natalie’s AMH was quite low, at 0.45! Fortunately, they overcame these challenges through IVF.

Here’s Natalie’s story, in her own words:

My husband and I had been married for 7 years when we finally decided to seek out answers to our infertility. I was 36 and he was 40. He already had a son, who was 17 at the time.

We’d been trying for a long time, but nothing was happening. 

I hadn’t been on birth control in about 4 years, but we still hadn’t gotten pregnant. We both had a feeling about the reason it just hadn’t happened for us, but we didn’t know for sure.

What changed? I think we owe the lockdown of life due to COVID for our starting point. After a lot more one-on-one time, we decided it would be worth it to find out why we hadn’t been able to get pregnant. And I felt like it was now or never.

I had good vibes about CARE Fertility from reading about the clinic. I really liked the convenience of telehealth and meeting with the doctor over Zoom first. It seemed easier and more comfortable. 

When we met with Dr. Kathy Doody, we could tell she was very matter-of-fact, and I personally loved that. I am a firm believer in “just tell it like it is!”

We were good candidates, so we got a calendar with the timeline of our treatment, and we started the process. Looking back on it, I feel like we sat down to play poker without knowing the rules exactly – but we were all in! 

Just listen to these odds, though: we were only able to retrieve 4 eggs, and we were working with low sperm count and 40% less-than-competitive swimmers. 

In the end, we were only working with a single embryo! 

But one was all it took. After 6 days of incubation plus a little bit of time ‘frozen on ice,’ we transferred the embryo – and voila, the pregnancy was positive! We were really in disbelief, a mix of both shock and excitement.

Though the odds were against us, we got our beautiful baby in the end. It was absolutely worth every stick and prick and drive and roller coaster of feelings! We love our little embryo!