Meet Monica!

My husband and I have been together since 2009 and married since 2012. When we got married, it was a very emotional time for us because his mothers cancer had returned and she wasn’t doing too well. After our wedding, we knew we wanted to start a family but because we were flying back and forth to see his mom we weren’t being very intentional about it. It wasn’t until she passed away almost two years later that we became more intentional about conceiving. We started tracking my ovulation time, taking prenatal pills and trying every remedy recommended by family and friends but I still wasn’t getting pregnant. I remember asking my OBGYN if everything was ok and although she said it was she recommended I go see an infertility specialist, which I did. I went through several testings which all came back great but I still wasn’t getting pregnant. Then, the doctor suggested I have my husband get checked as well. I came home to and told my husband right away but it took him a few months to actually make the appointment and go. After he did his semen analysis, we received a call while we were on our way to the airport and we were asked to come in to review the results. We could tell that they didn’t have good news to share and unfortunately, we would have to wait a week to find out because we were heading to my home country, Panama, for a week. When we got back, we met with the doctor and he told us that my husbands sperm count was low and because of this we would not be able to conceive naturally. He said a lot more after that but honestly I couldn’t get past the news he just shared. It kept replaying over and over again in my head.

After my initial shock of finding out that my husband and I would have to go through IVF to conceive, I started to do more research and see what the next steps for us would be. Once we learned the cost of IVF and it not being covered by insurance, we kind of lost hope. We had no idea how we were going to make this work. For me, it was hard because I had to go at my husbands paste and ensure that he knew that we were going through this together regardless of him being diagnosed with the infertility factor. At first, he was ashamed and it wasn’t anything that he was ready to share with family or friends so it was something heartbreaking that we were coping with alone.

Finally, after a year and a half we decided that we had waited long enough and that we were going to give it 110% in order to bring a baby to our home. We knew that having a baby meant more to us than any obstacle that could stand in our way. We decided to go through counseling, both professionally and with our church, to ensure that we were mentally, spiritually and emotionally ready to endure this journey. This really brought my husband and I even closer together. We knew that financially, this would be a big hit on us so we became more frugal with our finances and also applied for the BabyQuest grant. Although we weren’t the recipients of the grant, we weren’t going to allow that to stop us either. We are determined to find a way.

We decided to share our infertility struggle with all of our family and friends because we knew that we would need their love and support. Most of them did their very best to be there but we quickly learned that we needed to educate others on the kind of support we needed. All of them had the best intentions on being there for us, I just don’t think they knew how or if we felt they could related to what we were going through. That is when we decided to go public on social media, connect with other individuals in the TTC community and share our infertility journey to educate those close to us. The amount of love and support received from social media, has really meant the world to us.

We were originally with IVF Center of Miami but didn’t feel we were treated very nicely and decided to look for another Doctor. After a lot of research, we found Dr. Hernandez with Conceptions Florida. Not only were his reviews online amazing, but his office was located on the street we were married on. We definitely took that as a sign and when we went in for our consultation, we felt at home and knew we made the right decision.

We are excited to start our first IVF cycle in February or March! To have so much love for a baby before it exists is something truly special and something only us IVF mommies can share. I can’t wait to tell our baby/ babies all that we went through to bring them home.