What Triggered Me to Go to Taiwan for IVF?

I am thinking which of my 2 IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) experiences should I write about first.  Since many are requesting and asking about IVF in Taiwan, I better start with my Taiwan experience.

After my successful IVF workup in the Philippines in 2005 and giving birth to my first child, I said to myself I would not do this whole thing again!  Primarily because I prayed and asked the Lord to give me at least one baby and my wish was already granted.  If I get pregnant again (hopefully the natural way), then it is an additional blessing. When we underwent the IVF procedure, I felt like it was our last resort and a desperate move to have a child, hence we will only be doing it once be it successful or not.

The second reason is that over the years of pregnancy workups, I have had lots of pregnancy shots to allow my body to produce more eggs.  After which, follow up shots to control how big my follicles should grow and when is the right time to ovulate.  These human interventions on how our natural body is supposed to work made us worry about side effects.

Third is, with our busy work schedule, it is difficult to allot time for workups.  Everyone knows how it is waiting for your turn at the doctor’s clinic.  Lastly, of course, is the cost it entails.

However, as a parent I cannot help but think about the future.  When we are gone, who will be the closest relative my daughter can run to in case of emergencies? Who she can go to for support, for protection, for comfort?  Because of this scary thought, every year as my birthday comes near, I get reminded that if we want to give our daughter a sibling, it is now or never as my body clock is ticking. Yearly, I end up doing IUI workup near my birthday. 

On each failed IUI, I comfort myself that I have done enough throughout the years and maybe this is God’s will, for us to only have one child.

In January 2011, my sister persuaded me to try another IVF procedure in Taiwan. Since my cousin was going there for frozen embryo transfer (FET), why not go together?  I was hesitant since I just had a failed IUI 6 months ago (July 2010).  My husband and I have already decided that that was the end of our journey to be blessed with another child. I was already 40 years old and it is not exactly the perfect age anymore to be pregnant, not to mention all the reasons I indicated above.  I was not willing to do IVF again, more so to do it in a foreign country.

However, the desire to give my daughter a companion inside me never died.  My daughter, at that time, was also asking us for a baby girl.  With this, I asked for the contact person in Taiwan (Taipei) and tried to send an inquiry through email.  I have no intentions yet to pursue IVF again but anyhow will inquire.  If everything falls into place, meaning the requirements needed by the Taiwan doctor is easy to supply and if it leads me to Taiwan then maybe I will or we will go for it.

How Hard Can It Be?

I am writing this blog to inspire couples who are having difficulty in conceiving.  A friend and an infertility blogger encouraged me to write about my experiences and to share them so that people may use it as a guide in their pregnancy workup.  Or at the least, serve as an inspiration to couples not to give up on trying to have their own bundle of joy.  

My husband and I had a long journey before we become a family of 5.  We are now parents to 3 children; 2 girls and 1 boy.  How long was our journey?  14 years!  Can you imagine all those years of waiting?  It was not easy!  At one point we have already accepted that maybe it is just the way the Almighty wants us to be.  But honestly, in our hearts, we never stopped hoping and believing that God will give His blessings to us in His time.

Truly, after 8 years of waiting, God blessed us with our first child, a daughter.  Enjoying parenthood and wanting her to have a sibling companion in the future, we continued our pursuit for another baby.  Again, it was difficult for us, we could not conceive without help. 

However, since we have a child already, the pressure of having another is not as great.  Nevertheless whenever I think of my child’s future without us, I could not help but worry. Hence we tried to work up for another.  The second successful pregnancy came after 6 years. This time God blessed us with more than what we prayed for. We have twins! A boy and a girl.  God is really good! 

Our journey started 1 year after marriage.  We saw a number of OB-Gyne’s and went through countless workups.  We have been through a lot of anxieties especially during the 2-week wait periods. From ovulation to the end of the menstrual cycle, to find out the result of the month's workup, it was always the longest 2 weeks of my life!  During the wait, I feel every little change in my body such as tenderness of breast, pain in the abdomen, high body temperature, the feeling of being bloated and wondering if these are signs of pregnancy or premenstrual symptoms.  Then finally after the 2 weeks wait, the pain of knowing that the workup failed again gets me depressed.

I have seen couples in the same situation as we were.  However, one by one they get positive results. Some were successful in their workups and some just got pregnant naturally after stopping from their continued workups.  It pains me to see my period come every month even if we did not undergo any workups that cycle.  I was always hoping that this could be it, just like the others, a miracle may happen.  It went from a lot of friends sharing notes to just us left with the dilemma.

Our work ups started with taking the fertility pill, Clomid, monitoring the size of the follicles and determining when to try.  When this kind of workup failed for several cycles, we went to Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) or Artificial Insemination (AI). This is a procedure where sperms are washed and placed inside a woman’s uterus via a catheter to facilitate fertilization.  This increases the number of sperm cells that reaches the fallopian tubes and subsequently increases the chance of fertilization.

After many failed attempts, we went to an Immunologist.  An Immunologist is a doctor that studies the structure and function of our immune system, innate and acquired immunity, the bodily distinction of self from non-self.  It was explained to us that I might have antibodies that rejects the sperm hence cannot conceive.  We went through a battery of tests that the doctor requested us to do.  We even had our blood extracted and sent to the US for laboratory procedure.  It took us about 3 months to receive the results while on the side we were working up with our OB-Gyne and Urologist.  However, after receiving the complete results we never went back to find out if we needed to work on our immune system.  Primary reason was fear of the entire procedure, secondary reasons were the cost it entails and if we actually believe in it.

As a last resort, we agreed to give In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) a try. And this is where my actual story begins …