18 ms·
But life had other plans
- menzoic 5y agoI was getting ready to read a tragedy but was pleasantly surprised by the ending.
- bioinformatics 5y agoI love how these new generations loooove to post every single details of their lives. It’s great, but I am looking for some CC numbers next time, maybe a turd pic
- danielmarkbruce 5y agoHilariously good story.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pcthrowaway 5y agoLife.. uh.. finds a way
- schultetwin1 5y agoThis is an amazing story! Classic race condition :)
- SamBam 5y agoThose race conditions are always tricky to reproduce.
- teaearlgraycold 5y agoGod DAMN it
- shrikant 5y agoI hope 'brailsafe (whose jokey (and IMHO, low-effort) comment was heavily downvoted then flagged into oblivion) takes note -- this is a good example of a funny that this community appreciates.
- spoils19 5y agoI don't understand how this is a race condition, but I might need to check my old undergrad textbooks though. Props for the quirkyness, though! :>
- KMag 5y agoA pregnancy doesn't show up on a pregnancy test (a read operation) until after implantation and enough fetal growth to significantly impact the mother's hormone levels. So, there was a write (fertilization) followed by a read (pregnancy test) without any synchronizing operation. The pre-op pregnancy test missed the pregnancy because of the race between the read and the write.
- baali 5y agoThe odds of this happening! Beautiful. I wish the best for Lucas and the family.
- gregorymichael 5y agoHoly shit that’s the most emotional story I’ve read on HN. My wife and I are in tears over here.
- hunter-gatherer 5y agoI think I read that entire post in one breath. That was an emotional train that fortunately had a good ending. May the child live a long and happy life.
- zoom6628 5y agoBeautiful and uplifting story. Wish all of you the best of times together for the rest of your lives.
- d_t_w 5y agoHell of a story Dan! Congratulations on the new arrival and best wishes.
- user_7832 5y agoThat was... one hell of a rollercoaster. All I can say is I'm glad everyone made it out alive.
- gordon_freeman 5y agoWow I am not too religious a person but after reading this I have to say...when God (or some higher force) is with you, miracles likes this can happen.
- rayiner 5y agoGod loves babies and wants us to be happy. Risked waking my 8 month old to give him a squeeze.
- pithon 5y ago(1) not all of them, apparently, and (2) it seems arrogant to claim that.
- rayiner 5y agoNot the dunk you think it is for the billions of people who believe in a personal god and life everlasting.
- floodyberry- 5y agobelieving in things that aren't true makes a lot of arguments fall flat
- koolba 5y agoAnother reason why it’s great to have many, you can round robin the one you wake up hugging in the middle of the night.
- floodyberry- 5y agoFor something that supposedly loves babies, "god" sure enjoys spontaneously aborting them https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/372193v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/372193v1
- progman32 5y agoI call that force m'lady of large numbers and survivorship bias, or simply lady luck for short :)
- lelandfe 5y agoI want to give every single person in this a huge hug. What an incredible story. I cannot imagine how excited their mother-in-law was to be there for the birth of her grandchild.
- mgiampapa 5y agoIn the US that would be medical malpractice. A pregnancy test would be standard before this type of surgery. That said, congratulations for the best outcome.
- menzoic 5y agoThe article mentioned it was too early to be detected
- closetnerd 5y agoIn the surgery. 5 months pregnant is VERY detectable edit: wait sry - it also says 2 weeks, so now I dont know how to read what its saying
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zeta0134 5y agoThe 5 month figure is after the entire summer following the surgery and recovery. The embryo was two weeks old during the surgery in May.
- WA 5y agoA standard urine-based pregnancy test turns positive ~10-12 days after conception. So the embryo must’ve been even younger. Probably 3-6 days. Conception happens in the Fallopian tube, it takes 2-3 days for the fertilized egg to reach the uterus for nidation. From a hormonal level, a pregnancy is undetectable, because literally nothing happens in the woman’s body at first. The increase in progesterone happens after every ovulation. The embryo isn’t connected to the mothers blood stream yet. And you can’t see on an ultra sonic scan whether the egg is fertilized or not. What a crazy story.
- MarcoZavala 5y ago
- maz1b 5y agoAs a recent medical school graduate and a technical founder of a medical education startup, wow. This is an "edge case" for lack of a better phrase and is the kind of stuff that becomes widespread as lore or an interesting story - at least I'd like to think so. Thanks for sharing your story and I wish you the best with what's next.
- oceanghost 5y agoIMHO the surest way to get pregnant is to be told by a doctor that you can't.
- openknot 5y agoThis is an interesting thought to entertain, but it sounds like sampling bias [0]. It's less remarkable if a doctor tells a patient that she can't get pregnant, and she doesn't. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- vmception 5y ago“ They Said I Would Never Walk Again And I Really Have To Commend Them For Their Spot-On Diagnosis” The onion headline
- ridaj 5y agoSome fertility specialists will say on first consult, the odds that you could get pregnant naturally just went down as you walked through the door to my office. All because the kind of people who visit a fertility specialist have lower fertility stats than the kind of people who don't (duh). The average practitioner doesn't really excel at distinguishing between correlation and causation.
- acid_dog 5y agoYes. I found it interesting that fertility specialists are actually quite focused on statistics. It's because in majority of infertility cases there is either no explanation at all, or no absolute blockers to pregnancy, just less chances. The entire field is in big part focused on how to improve patient's chances in this dice roll.
- phreack 5y agoThis is likely to be the best story I'll read all year. Simply amazing.
- TapWaterBandit 5y agoCongratulations to the new addition to your family!
- jo6gwb 5y agoIt's very important for people particularly women to test for BRCA. Men with the gene should alert female relatives. For those women that have the gene there are non surgical options today to prevent some of these cancers. Highly recommend this documentary from PBS on the topic as well: https://inheritance-brcafilm.com/pbs-documentary https://inheritance-brcafilm.com/pbs-documentary
- MarcoZavala 5y ago
- toiletduck 5y agoMy Dad died after a long and difficult fight with prostate cancer that advanced to untreatable Stage 4 very quickly because of an underlying BRCA2 mutation. I'm so thankful the NHS tested him for this, and then tested my brother and I (both positive), and then sponsored IVF for my brother to concieve his first child with screening for BRCA2 mutation. He now has a five month old baby girl who doesn't have the same coinflip requirement that BRCA2 brings girls of almost-guaranteed servere breast cancer and invasive life-changing surgery to reduce risk, and my brother and I both get MRIs at 40 and regular screening for when we (very likely) get prostate cancer. This article was such a surprise to see at the top of HN, and I urge everyone to share it as both a lovely good news story and awareness of how underlying genes can cause aggressive cancers.
- vincentmarle 5y ago> But the most incredible thing: when have you seen the public health service being earlier than planned? What would have changed about the pregnancy if it wasn't earlier than planned?
- exhilaration 5y agoIt's a joke - the public health services in places like Canada and the UK have a (mostly unfair) reputation for never getting anything done in a timely manner.
- boomskats 5y agoIt's almost as if there are entire lobbies that pour tons of money into PR efforts to promote those falsehoods and tarnish the reputations of those public services in order to shift public sentiment towards their privatisation!
- dash2 5y agoIt's almost as if people in those countries have experience of how they actually work!
- cellis 5y agoBreathtaking! Somehow, the one upvote I'm allowed to give didn't seem enough. I read loads of "cold reality" stories every morning ( I check WSJ, NYT and Bloomberg once in the morning ) and perhaps due to this conditioning, I was expecting something depressing. But this made my day.
- UberFly 5y ago"Given that my wife didn’t recall talking with any angel lately..." Haha. That was a well-written tale.
- flobosg 5y agoWhat a plot twist! Thanks for sharing.
- bajirao 5y agoVery uplifting. Thanks for sharing this.
- AnonC 5y ago“Life found a way out” would’ve been a nice title for this. :) Edit: seriously, this is a fascinating account of how unexpected some life events can be, and then turn out to bring happiness that was sought but wasn’t expected.
- abricot 5y agoSure, but that title would have given it away.
- l8nite 5y agoThanks for sharing this lovely story! Our whole family was captivated as I read it aloud :). Congrats on the birth of your son and best wishes to all!
- gfodor 5y agoSomething tells me Lucas is going to be a bit of a procrastinator. Congratulations :)
- maurimtl 5y agowhat an incredible hope-giving story!
- strickman 5y ago
- bendbro 5y agoThank goodness this was a happy story.
- maddynator 5y agoGot damn. I was so scared to finish the article. Glad i pushed through it
- JackFr 5y agoSimply the most lovely thing I have read all day. All week. Hell, maybe all year. Congratulations.
- jurassic 5y agoCongrats to the parents.
- adius 5y agoWhat about injuries to the baby due to medicine, pain killers, or alcohol consumption? Could this be a problem?
- NhanH 5y agoProbably no riskier than being born into a poor household or in developing countries etc. Which is to say that you try to control what you can, and learn to live with the rest.
- JetAlone 5y agoYes, I have a friend who was born months early. Doctor said he would never walk or talk, but he does both basically as well as I do. You never really know, when it comes to surrounding circumstances of one's birth.
- spieswl 5y agoThat is an incredible story! Best wishes to the family.
- verifex 5y agoWife and I had an unlikely pregnancy ourselves. We tried for possibly 8 years with no luck, finally we gave in and started the process to do in vitro with entailed lots of tests and everything. Then, the day before we were scheduled to start the process (during xmas no less) and lay down a lot of $$$ for the procedure, wife takes a pregnancy test and shockingly, it indicates positive. Kid was born healthy and happy. I hesitate to call him some kind of xmas miracle kid, but I mean.. the context and everything really drove the point home. :)
- gonzo41 5y agoI'm really happy you saved a ton of money and got what you wanted. IVF is not only mega costly, it's also a brutal roller coaster of emotions for all involved.
- hamburglar 5y agoIndeed. I went through that for second kid and it was just excruciatingly bad for my wife. 28 day cycle of absolute misery and disappointment for months. We are divorced now but I still feel bad for what she experienced emotionally.
- royjacobs 5y agoUnless you live in a country like The Netherlands, where the first three IVF procedures are, in fact, free. I won't disagree with you on the roller coaster of emotions, though.
- bleuarff 5y agoOr France, where the first 4 procedures are paid for by health services. Going to the pharmacy for the ovarian stimulation drugs for my wife and seeing the one-week treatment would have cost us hundreds of euros; I sure was glad to live in such a country!
- burrows 5y agoWhat does the word “free” mean here? I assume the clinical professionals are paid and the researchers were paid and the pharma venders are paid, so that money is coming from somewhere. Is it that someone other than you pays for it?
- 3695524818 5y ago
- dstainer 5y agoLife, finds a way…
- silisili 5y agoI appreciate and quite love the story, and congrats all around. But this idea of putting awful GIFs into a rather serious and interesting story has got to stop. It did nothing but cheapen and interfere with the story being told. Reaction GIFs are for uninteresting or ineloquent people. Just write how you feel!
- jader201 5y agoThe author shared the story in a way that resonated with themself — using reaction gifs. It’s hard to ask them to write how they feel but tell them they can’t use reaction gifs.
- silisili 5y agoTo be clear - I'm not demanding anything. Only giving my opinion as an interested reader. He or she is free to disregard, just as every comment I make here.
- vmception 5y agoAscii, emojis and GIFs more accurately portray how I feel than the written language does. A lot of other people feel that way too. Image viruses also predate our kind of written language.
- onion2k 5y agoReaction GIFs are for uninteresting or ineloquent people. https://giphy.com/gifs/robert-downey-jr-sigh-confused-116a8zosxwA0SI https://giphy.com/gifs/robert-downey-jr-sigh-confused-116a8z...
- planetsprite 5y agoLife.................................................................................................finds a way
- anonymous344 5y agowho ever soul was coming - really just wants to live so so badly. You'll give her a good childhood. Life is about joy
- 40four 5y agoIncredible story! It hits close to home for me because I am in fact a ‘miracle’ baby, although my story isn’t quite as dramatic as this one with the preventative surgery and such. My mother had many miscarriages before me (and one after). The doctors told her she would never have a child. They said it wasn’t possible. And yet here I stand!
- DeathArrow 5y agoLife finds a way to flourish even in the most difficult conditions.
- ane 5y agoSeveral years ago my wife and I agreed we'd actively start making a baby and quit contraceptives. She was on the pill (progestogen-only) and we'd been using it for the better part of three years. Worked fine, she took it religiously at the same time every day. So we agreed to quit, and the next day she comes to me, awkwardly, saying "It worked!" half-jokingly. I stared at the pregnancy test, positive and unambiguous as ever. At the second test, too. Turns out she'd been already pregnant for almost a month. That kind of contraceptive is only 99% effective. Our daughter was born eight months later. Safe to say, the missing percentage is warranted.
- tsol 5y agoWho first started the conversation? I wonder if the hormones swirling through her system made her more likely to feel ready for a child. Or perhaps the pregnancy induced change in her pheromones suddenly made you feel more nurturing of her. Probably not, but it's funny how sometimes things work out like that
- dskloet 5y agoI thought the contraceptive doesn't prevent the pregnancy but just causes the body to menstruate regardless. So she might have been pregnant many times but this time it wasn't terminated by mensuration? (I'm certainly not very confident in my understanding.)
- nl 5y agoNo, this is incorrect. > The birth control pill works by stopping sperm from joining with an egg. When sperm joins with an egg it’s called fertilization. > The hormones in the pill safely stop ovulation. No ovulation means there’s no egg for sperm to fertilize, so pregnancy can’t happen. > The pill’s hormones also thicken the mucus on the cervix. This thicker cervical mucus blocks sperm so it can’t swim to an egg — kind of like a sticky security guard. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-control-pill https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-...
- KyeRussell 5y ago
- thematrixturtle 5y agoWhen my wife and I decided to try for a baby and stopped using protection, the very first pregnancy test she ever took was positive, and we weren't sure we were reading it right because we'd never done this before. Unfortunately she miscarried pretty much immediately (fetus never developed a heartbeat). We tried again, but had no luck for several years and eventually made an appointment with a fertility clinic. Literally the very next day she tested positive, and we now have two kids.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MandieD 5y agoIn my late 30's, with the only indication that we were fertile at all having been an ectopic pregnancy many years before, we gave up. We had wanted kids, but our lives were good, with nieces and nephews we love. A few months before my 40th birthday - and the pandemic - SURPRISE! We are currently the proud but exhausted old parents of an increasingly rambunctious toddler.
- JetAlone 5y agoThat is quite a nice surprise! I hope your child has a joyful life.
- gwbas1c 5y agoYou aren't that old. I know someone who had twins in his mid 40s. My cousin also had multiple pregnancies in her 40s. I also had my last a few months before my 40th birthday. BTW: "Oopsies" are common. If you're 100% done, consider surgical birth control.
- usefulcat 5y ago> BTW: "Oopsies" are common. If you're 100% done, consider surgical birth control. Yes. Not a doctor, but according to my wife, if you previously had difficulties getting pregnant, it may be easier to get pregnant again after the first birth.
- ValtteriL 5y agoWhat a heartwarming story. Wish the author all the best with the newborn!
- landmark3 5y agoI have an urgent deadline to release some crazy python code and here I am, instead, cutting onions. Beautiful way to start a day, happy life to you and your family <3
- otikik 5y agoWow what a story. It reminds me of a joke we have in Spain about unlikely pregnancies. It ends with “If you got pregnant, we’re calling the baby McGyver”
- throwawaysie 5y agoSorry for a small hijack. We have been trying a kid for a few years, doing IVF etc. with no luck so far. An endless source of irritation to me is a complete inability of the doctors to show any kind of probability distributions for the process. So, I'd like to find data that answers questions like how many embryos are alive after n days on average and on 10th percentile etc. Does anyone know a decent data source for these kind of statistics?
- acid_dog 5y agoI don't have a great data source, but from my experience (as a woman that tried to conceive two kids), reddit has awesome communities with users that can absolutely dig out those stats for you, if they exist: r/TryingForABaby, r/infertility
- necovek 5y agoDon't get bogged down on statistics. They matter with large numbers, and in each cycle, you are dealing with at most a dozen or two fertilized eggs. Looking at all the stats only made us feel worse about our outcomes. My wife and I were supposedly "perfect" candidates (doctors were convinced we'd conceive on the first try), but it took two full cycles and a number of FETs from all of a dozen or so good quality eggs to be transferred for our two kids (with the second, we had success with our last remaining frozen embryo, so make that two cycles and 9 embryos for the first kid — basically, with first, we were extremely unlucky, but then it was two FETs and no full cycles for the second, which was a relief). Basically, for those who do get success on the first try, there have to be plenty of us that don't for the stats to average out to what they are.
- patatino 5y agoI know two cases when people gave up trying to conceive, they got pregnant naturally. One was doing IVF, the other hormone therapy. Both needed a break and both got pregnant in this break. It makes you think how much stress and mind play a role.
- Nezghul 5y ago
- nicky0 5y agoWell that's one point of view I guess.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoIf you never give the person the chance to decide, you are oppressing them even more. All those eggs you never fertilized make you tyrant of epic proportions.
- fishnchips 5y agoAnd to think of all the wasted spermatozoids?
- andi999 5y agoBecause it is an extreme fringe opinion? A lot of countries have mandatory schooling (which quite a few kids dont consent), some conscription, a lot of criminals dont consent on beeing arrested. And generally people agree that no consent is needed for at least 2 out of these 3.
- Nezghul 5y ago"Doing X without consent is irrelevant because consequences of X are full of nonconsensual things." How is that in favor of X?
- andi999 5y agoI didnt say that. You asked 'how can people not understand, that in the age of...'. I tried to explain how people cannot understand. The explanation is what people cannot understand is far out or what happens normally. (yes, i know, you might have meant this more as an rhetorical device or sarcasm, but I think it is an important question you shd really ask yourself especially since you raised it)
- blumomo 5y agoSometimes you need to let go your wishes fully go for them to become true.
- psiops 5y agoAmazing story, and I wish OP and his family all the best! I wonder what the effects of ovary removal will be on the embryonic development. I can imagine the ovaries produce hormones that affect the embryos development. Or is the embryo effectively hormonally isolated by the placenta?
- necovek 5y agoIf you read towards the end, a healthy baby was born.
- acid_dog 5y agoIt could be problematic in early pregnancy because the embryo relies on corpus luteum until placenta is developed (without corpus luteum the pregnancy would not continue). Afterwards it does not make a difference. I am not sure what happened in this case that the pregnancy was successful.
- sneak 5y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/72j71s/guy_doctor_my_girlfriend_is_pregnant_but_we/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/72j71s/guy_doctor_my...
- makach 5y agoI have no words for how deeply this article affected me. In the words of the great philosopher Ian Malcolm "Life will find a way."
- Aeolun 5y agoI was so worried this would be another one of those sad articles that I just cannot help but read to the end. But then everything took a turn for the better :D
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- olafurnielsen 5y agoReading the end of this story made me really happy. I've had a HN account since 2016 and have never commented, until now :)
- gassius 5y agoLife finds a way. My wife had generalized tonic-clonic seizure for an entire year (non previous seizure history) without any cause being detected by multiple MRIs. She was taking increasing doses of Levetiracetam that somehow controlled the scope of the seizures but not avoid them completely. After a year of this, we go for another ER visit after the latest one and she ask, somehow randomly, to have a pregnancy test, it comes negative but, finally, the root cause of the seizure does appear on imagery, at that point a low grade astrocytoma. She went into major brain surgery to try to remove it and pathology confirms the low grade astrocytoma, and after a month of recovery, the oncologist recommends to start a chemo and radio therapy treatment. As the low grade astrocytoma is treatable and with high long term survival rate, he recommends that we might extracts some ovules if we decide to have another kid in the future, as the chemo had a high chance of infertility. We had one son, and being both on our middle to late 30s, we agreed. We go to her OG for this, and as he is performing an preliminary echography... a heart beat start blasting on the speakers, over two months of his negative blood pregnancy test, after major brain surgery, after major doses of meds of all kinds, she was, indeed, pregnant. We knew exactly when she got pregnant, it was 5 days before that ER visit. She "knew" it that day in the ER, that's why she asked for the pregnancy test (that, once again, came negative). She decided to have the baby, no matter what the risk for her it was, no matter what risk for the baby it was. Chemo was out the question and radio treatment was a high risk and had to wait for at least another month. 6 months later we had a healthy baby, who is now a healthy 10 year old girl. Sadly, some months after given birth to her, my wife had a relapse, the brain tumor came back, this time as GBM, a month after the girl second birthday, she passed away. Life found a way, tho, and my wife never had any remorse of the decisions we made and she would be proud of what her sons are coming to be
- acidbaseextract 5y agoI'm so sorry. Thank you for sharing your story.
- gassius 5y agoThanks. We are all as good as we can be now, Life, aside of finding ways, continues.
- samragu44 5y ago
- yonatron 5y agoSomething to consider (or if you're dead set against this idea, don't): Sounds to me like God wacking you over the head with a 2X4 and saying "Hey! Hello?! I'm here. (Yes, for both what you humans call "good" and "bad" <smh>) So be in touch, and stop calling Me "Life"!! "
- Chris2048 5y agoAnd all the people with bad luck? What's that, the devil?
- burkaman 5y agoIncluding this couple's 15 years of infertility, 3 miscarriages, cancer diagnosis, and months of surgery-related constant pain. If I believed in a benevolent god I think I'd have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume this wasn't their plan. "It feels like a prank" is probably the nicest way you could put it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dailygrind___ 5y agoWhat a story... glad life found its way. I had a chance to meet you at IG, and that made the story more real than real, so to say. All the best Daniel!
- AndrewVos 5y agoThis is really nice to read. My wife and I went through a similar thing. Her mom found BRCA recently so my wife got tested. Luckily she didn't have the mutation, but it was a very scary time because we have a young daughter who might have also had it.
- mcv 5y agoNot remotely as extreme as this, but we had a lot of trouble conceiving of our second child, after a very complicated birth for our first. We did want a second child, though, so we went through all sorts of fertility treatments, with no results except for one miscarriage. Eventually we were tired of it and gave up. After a few months we were ready to give it another go, and we'd start with new fertility treatments after her next period. That period never came, and we got another son instead (with a much easier pregnancy and birth than the first one).
- tonyarkles 5y agoIt's all still quite recent, but we're currently in a similar boat. We don't yet have a child though, only a miscarriage a few years ago. Around Christmas/New Years, we had a bit of a chat about things and, accepting that the clock is definitely ticking, we were going to consider trying one round of fertility treatments. We want kids enough, but also are pragmatic enough to accept that things just might not work out for us on that front. February comes along and she gets COVID. I happened to be about an hour out of town when she first tested positive, and we decided I should stay out there unless I too happened to test positive. A week passes, she's still testing positive on rapid tests, and most of her original symptoms are gone, but she's feeling "funky" nonetheless. On a whim, has a long-expired pregnancy test in the back of a drawer, and tests positive. I was coming into town for a Costco run the next day and picked up some fresh tests for her. Fresh test immediately comes back very positive. At the Ultrasound they do measurements to evaluate how far along things are. 6 weeks! Later on that day I pulled out the calendar and start counting backwards... and smile because that was a really great weekend 6 weekends prior :D Edit: next big hurdle is next week where we go back for a second ultrasound and hopefully see/hear a heartbeat. Everything else looked excellent at the first ultrasound, but it was just a bit too early according to the tech.
- mcv 5y agoCongratulations with this great news in these complicated and confusing times!
- rakibtg 5y agoI am in tears, also feeling happy for you!
- graderjs 5y agoWhat a beautiful story. A special little baby. I wish her and you both the happiest of families forever! :)
- ivolimmen 5y agoWow, love to read stuff like this. My third kid also had given us a nice surprise. My wife was pregnant; we knew that. We had an appointment with the doctor for the first check-up. We came in and the doctor did not see a baby on the echo. We were not really badly shook up as we lost our first but we where not enjoying it either. Next day I am at work and I get a phone call from my wife. The hospital rang. The blood that was examined before we wend for the check-up had bad values and indicated a possible tumour (but not the bad kind). I raced home, we wend to the doctor. Before actually going into surgery he wanted to do an internal echo just to make sure where it was and how big it was. There she was. We where pregnant.
- paraiuspau 5y agoI love this story, even more so that my wife and I this very week are embarking on our 4th and final IVF cycle. Hopeful stories inspire.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- la64710 5y agoBeautiful …. It was so refreshing to read an article with such happy ending.
- ausbah 5y agoI thought this would be another grim medical tale, I'm glad I was wrong :)
- xnormal 5y agoBRCA sucks. My sister died from ovarian cancer. She was positive and refused preventive removal. I need to get checked. And if I am a carrier, my daughters will need to get checked, too.
- wbear 5y agoWhat an excellent coincidence. Congratulations!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rrr83 5y agoCongrats and good to know it all was fine at the last! In 2014 when we first decided to have our kids, we tried almost a year but nothing worked out. Then we ended up going through multiple tests, different gynac consultations, too much time/money and emotional roller-coaster where finally doc said we can't conceive naturally because my sperm count was some millions but still less :-) . One gynac said right upto my face that 99% you can't have natural pregnancy ever! So I started medicines/diet/exercise and almost gave up a hope and started exploring IUI and IVF treatments. We did 4 IUIs, all went unsuccessful, so only hope remaining was IVF. As we were already too tired going through all this for almost 2 years. Even IVF is expensive and we don't have public health care support I decided to take a break and took a project in another country to get some extra savings. After 6 months my wife resigned form her job and joined with me in a hope that we will save some money then go back and try our luck with IVF. and here Life had other plans fits in - Just after 2 months she started feeling uneasy , so we though it might be some weather or food allergy. After few days she confirmed she is pregnant! that is the most pleasant surprise life has given me ever! We went back and were blessed with beautiful girl. story continues, in 2020 we decided to take another chance, we were not optimistic as we thought we were very lucky in first place but it worked! super happy and one day my wife called me in office that she had a miscarriage, it was her 3rd month...she had to drive to her office daily.. so yes life had other plans. We gave up again as we were almost 36+ and then 2020 pandemic started, we said that's it we won't have another child ever. But soon when pandemic gave a relief , wfh started we thought let's try as being at home we could avoid travelling and might help during pregnancy. So we took a chance and it worked again! but this time we had to go through constant fear of catching the virus throughout her 9 months, even post my baby boy arrived it was so tensed moments whenever we had to go out we had this fear that what if we get infected as we didn't have vaccines available till then. Looking back we agree it was a big risk we took. finally we both are vaccinated, and my boy is about to complete a year!
- aelmeleegy 5y agoThis story seemed so heartbreaking, but the ending was totally worth it.
- dkmn 5y agoWhat a positive and uplifting story. Thank you for sharing, and BTW your writing is lucid, clever, and honest. Blessings to you all!
- JohannesH 5y agoLife, while being fragile and vulnerable, can also be extremely resilient. My cousin and his girlfriend became pregnant a few years ago but the fetus were stuck outside the uterus, so the decision was made to have an abortion followed by a surgical cleansing (a scrape) to make sure nothing was left. The procedure was successful. After the failed pregnancy my cousin's girlfriend started getting her period again but it was not as regular as it used to be. The doctors attributed it to the recent pregnancy/abortion which could cause irregularities in her hormonal balance etc. So a while after all this happened, the girlfriend one night had what she believed to be gallstone pain in her stomach. She were familiar with gallstone attacks so that was the most logical explanation. Yet, she was sent to the hospital to have a checkup just to be safe. You might have guessed it. The nurse at the hospital quickly figured out the cause of pain... She was pregnant and very much in labor. Of course this was 9 months after the abortion so it seemed impossible to her. So apparently the abortion wasn't successful after all, as they overlooked a second fetus inside the uterus and also missed it while scarping the uterus lining. So the girlfriend had to call up my cousin at work and tell him he was about to be a dad and that he had to come to hospital immediately. 4 hours later their daughter was born.