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The Road to Here

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My name is Tabitha. My wonderful husband, Dane, and I became friends as teenagers; life happened, and time passed, but amazingly 15 years later we were reunited. It seemed like our fairytale was just falling into place so when it came to starting our family we thought it would happen just as naturally. Unfortunately, we’re 2 years into our journey to complete our family with no success. We’ve done all of the ovulation tests and monitors, daily temperature checks, and tracked so many cycles. There have been 8 rounds of Clomid, multiple blood tests, an HSG, and all of the analyses. And the only explanation is there is no explanation. We’re simply 1 in 8. Our fertility doctor told us outright that our best chance of bringing home a baby is through IVF and even with insurance the cost of IVF is astronomical (and that cost is required upfront prior to even beginning the process.) Plus, insurance won’t even touch the medications that are needed. It’s a lot to take in when you get that first ...
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IVF: Round 3

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A JOURNEY IN PICTURES
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💕 Our IVF Journey: From Heartbreak to Twin Miracles

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The Beginning of Our Journey Our fertility journey began in March 2020 , filled with hope, determination, and endless prayers. Over the next few years, we endured eight medicated cycles , each one ending in heartbreak. Every loss was devastating, and we often questioned whether we could continue, both emotionally and financially. The First Egg Retrievals In 2023 , we took a significant step forward with our first egg retrieval , which gave us two 5-day embryos. We transferred one in May and another in August — and both attempts ended in loss. We were exhausted, heartbroken, and ready to give up. “We were emotionally and financially drained, but a small door of hope appeared when we least expected it.” A Final Attempt Then, unexpectedly, my insurance had reached its out-of-pocket max, and we decided to try one final egg retrieval — quietly, sharing the news with only a few people. That cycle produced two more embryos, but my body wasn’t ready for transfer, so we froze them for a year...
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Step 1: Forgiving The Lies I Told Myself

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I'm about to be so very vulnerable, be kind please. ❤ A lot of people know this about me because I wrote about it in my old blog once, but a lot of people don't. 14 years ago, I was engaged to get married. We had just bought a house and a few months later I lost my job right at Thanksgiving. My marginally expensive birth control ran out (because I didn't have health insurance,) and I couldn't afford it at the moment. Surprise, a few weeks after Christmas I had a missed cycle and 3 very positive pregnancy tests. Never once in my life had I ever considered abortion. Never once did I think we can't have this baby but my soon to be husband looked me in my face and told me we couldn't keep it. This was my future husband and he was coming from a place of concern and logic at least that's what I told myself. I made the appointment in Raleigh for my next day off. He drove me there and gave me the money and I went in by myself. It looked like any other doctor's o...
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Speechless.

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...I have to confess, I peeked. I did an at-home test 3 days before my blood test and every day until. Mostly because I was blindsided at my first failed transfer but I had my amazing husband beside me. On the day of our blood test this time, we both had to work and in order to not be blindsided two counties apart with the expectation of working at work, we decided to test early while we were together. The tests were clearly negative, not even a faint line to be seen. I still had hope that just maybe it worked this time but my soul was already defeated. I cried and I cried hard, but I tried to keep my mask up because nothing was certain but that also meant faking it for all the world to see while I worked through all these feelings. Feelings that we have tried for 3 and a half years and after all those rounds of Clomid and losing 60 lbs for my egg retrieval we only had two embryos because one $20,000 loan was all we could manage.  I went into my appointment Thursday morning with a ...
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IVF: Round 2

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After we found out that our first embryo didn't take, we decided to immediately start the process for our second and last embryo. We had our follow-up from our failed cycle on June 22. From there we scheduled our Frozen Embryo Transfer class (FET) and obviously we choose the first available which was June 29. The nurse was super encouraging and informative and gave us all the appointments for our transfer right then and there... or you know best case scenario because if I've learned anything about this process as calculated as it is, it is ever changing. She said we can get your baseline ultrasound on Monday, July 3rd--aka the day before my birthday, second ultrasound on July 11th, third ultrasound on July 18th and transfer on July 25th. It sounded great and everything was falling into place. I already had the next 6 days off because birthday weekends call for such. However, that whole national holiday in the summertime says otherwise. On Friday I got a call from Greenville OBG...
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IVF: Round 1

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As of our final conversation with our fertility clinic a year ago, I needed to lose 50ish pounds to be at a BMI acceptable for them to put me to sleep for an egg retrieval. I finally reached that BMI goal January and we started preparing for the next steps. I requested an updated quote because a lot could change in a year and inflation was no exception.  Our new quote was for 15k and the biggest step would be coming up with a very large part of that money. We needed over 6k to even begin the process. We had received some donations to our IVF fund and we had saved a bit but we still needed thousands more. We started applying for IVF loans and were denied multiple times. We kept pushing forward and checking our options. We received an approval for a very high interest personal loan that we imagined was our last resort so we had to figure out how to make those payments. On a whim, I reapplied to the first loan option, Future Family, and we were approved. We like this option because th...
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The Proposal: A prequal

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It was our one year anniversary. The COVID was still in our midst so date night wasn't exactly an option. Instead, he recreated our first date, at home. Coincidentally on our first date, we both ordered the exact same thing at Cheddar's--meatloaf. (It was delicious, BTW.) He's a really good cook so he handled the main course and I tackled the sides. Teamwork in the kitchen while cooking dinner is one of my favorite things about us. We sat down to watch the show we're currently bingeing, NASHVILLE. Dinner was AH-mazing. Then it was time for gifts. Nevermind that I had already spoiled half my gift to him the night before so he got it early. I gave him part two of his gift and then he hands me mine. It was the sweetest little photo album. My favorite color and he had printed pictures of our last year's adventures. Next to each picture he had hand-written little captions. It was the most romantic gift I have ever received in my life. Gifts are my love language and he kn...
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