Cindy and Bomeilyn’s Fertility Journey: Our Unexpected Surprise With Reciprocal IVF
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and should not be considered medical advice.
Always consult your doctor for the most appropriate treatment.
We are Cindy and Bomeilyn. Two female best friends who fell in love and thereafter faced so many challenges, religious trauma and family conflicts, got married and are now expecting TRIPLETS!
The first thing that crossed my mind when our relationship started was that I wanted a big family and many children. But in order for us to get there, we would have to hop on a long, expensive, stressful but also beautiful fertility journey. It was our first time trying to conceive, so everything was completely unknown to us.
It was our first time trying to conceive, so everything
was completely unknown to us.
We were clueless about the different treatments, so we did our research.
Later on, Cindy found a treatment that she loved, called reciprocal IVF, which means one of us would provide the eggs, and the other one would carry our baby in her womb. Cindy fell in love with the idea of carrying my genetic baby. We started our fertility journey right after we came home from our honeymoon back in August 2021.
When we began testing, we were so nervous but very confident that everything was “okay.” But after the results came back, we found out Cindy’s uterus wasn’t completely “clean.” She had a polyp that needed to be removed in order for her to carry our baby. They explained to us that Cindy needed a hysteroscopy surgery, which would cost us an extra amount of money aside from the whole IVF process.
We panicked, because we had just spent so much on our wedding that it was almost impossible for us to afford that, but we found a way and continued with the process. She had her surgery done and everything came out great. Then we started injections for me, in order to get ready for the egg retrieval. I got 9 eggs in total removed, but only 6 of them were mature.
To our surprise, when they fertilized them with the donor’s sperm, ALL 6 of them became embryos. We then proceeded to do injections for Cindy to prepare her uterus. Two embryos were transferred.
After 2 weeks, test day arrived, and we got the greatest news of our lives. WE’RE PREGNANT. We went in for our first ultrasound appointment, and there, we were told we were expecting twins. Two beautiful sacs were in there, and we got extremely happy.
Days later, we went to our second ultrasound appointment to see our baby’s heartbeats. When the nurse came in, she started talking about one baby and how that baby’s heartbeat was perfect. We freaked out and asked, “What do you mean one baby?” For an instant, we thought we had lost one of the babies. But she quickly replied, “I’m checking the first baby, and then I’ll go check the other one.” When she went to the other sac, she paused and said, “There aren’t 2 heartbeats, there are 3 heartbeats!”
One of the embryos split into two within the first week of implantation; therefore, they are identical twins in one sac, and the one in the separate sac is fraternal. We were shocked—we were so excited but, at the same time, scared.
We were shocked—we were so excited but, at the
same time, scared.
Scared of all the things that could’ve gone wrong. First trimester was tough. Cindy was diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum and was hospitalized twice due to dehydration. But now we’ve made it through. We recently made it to 24 weeks. It is not the final goal, but it definitely is a huge accomplishment.
When looking back, all I can think of is all the negative things people told us when entering this scary path, and it made us feel our experience was going to be similar to theirs. And I want to tell you now, it doesn’t have to be. Every journey is different. Never in a million years would we have thought this was going to be our story, but it is, and it is so much more than we ever asked for. So, dream and dream big. Don’t let anybody or anything steal the hope from what’s to come for you. Your blessing, your double or triple blessing. It’ll come.
