AH, Age 42
I started seeing Dr. Zhang for IVF treatments when I was newly married at age 37. I had already experienced several miscarriages and work-ups done on me could not point to any particular problem.
At age 39, I was diagnosed with a small, but aggressive, form of breast cancer. We were devastated. I underwent surgery to remove the lesion, followed by debilitating chemotherapy and radiation. I also removed an ovary to try to shield it from the harmful effects of chemo (which can destroy fertility). I went through physical therapy to regain the use of my arm on the treated side of my body. During this time, we investigated surrogacy since we had several embryos frozen. We hired a surrogate who became pregnant with our child. Unfortunately, her pregnancy did not last either.
Finally, we turned to adoption, believing I would never be able to have a child myself considering I just entered menopause. After spending thousands on advertisements for adoption and lawyer fees, we finally found a couple who was serious about adoption. We adopted a beautiful little girl at birth.
Surprisingly, my ovarian function began to return, so we tried again to have a child via IVF. It did not work for several months and we almost gave up again. Then, on one cycle when my FSH was pretty high, I got pregnant! I was 41. We prepared ourselves for a possible miscarriage since that had been our previous experience, but to our surprise, the IVF treatment worked!
At 42, we’ve welcomed another little girl to be a sister to our first child thanks to New Hope Fertility Center, and we can’t thank them enough!