A&K’s IVF Journey 💕

On this super special episode Ashton goes seriously deep with her wife Kayla as they tell us all about their IVF journey. This one is very near and dear to our hearts. We don’t know what we would do without our babies. If you ever need support to anybody going through this, Ashton is your girl.
We hope you enjoy! 

Congrats to our first special guest Kayla!! 🫶🏼
You did great sweetie! 🙃

TikTok @ Nolimits_witha&b

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hi guys, and welcome to No Limits. This is like a super special episode. Um, I'm all by myself. Bestie isn't here with me. It's just me and my precious angel white Kayla. Hey, babe. Hey guys. Are you nervous? A little bit. Literally, you just or what you're gonna do is you're just gonna pretend like me and you are hanging out and just talking about everything we went through to have these kids. Because that's what we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

With a microphone in my face.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

I know that, but well, I already see y'all, she's sweating, I can tell. Just don't even think about the fact that there's people that are gonna possibly watch this. Like No, I'm just gonna act like nobody's going to. Yeah, you just look at me and you just talk to me. Gaze into your beautiful eyes. Yes. Can you see me over here? Yeah, girl. Okay. So we're gonna talk about um our IVF journey and our IUI journey. Those are two different things. For those of you who don't know that, um, but how basically we bought, we brought, not bought, but we did buy them too. How we brought both of our beautiful boys into this world. Um, the reason Kayla's with me and I can't do this by myself is because she has dementia, so she she forgets. They know this already. Bree says this all the time. Like, no, I number one, I just wanted you to be here with me. I think this is gonna be cute. We haven't talked about this part of our life in a minute. We, you know, we really didn't even talk about it much when we were going through it. So this is gonna be kind of cool to see our perspectives. But also, and if you are about to go through I VF, IUI, anything involving fertility, um, this is kind of gonna be hard for some of you. It was not hard for me, but my best advice that I can ever give anybody is do not Google, do not research. If you're the one that's going through it, do not research. Have your partner, your husband, your wife, whoever, whoever is in your life, even if you're doing this by yourself, make your best friend research. Because if I would have researched all the things that I had going on in my body, and I mean, I think I probably would have been a bigger basket case than what I was.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, she left all of that to Brie and I to figure out.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, I feel like it helped me be in the best mental state I could be in.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yes, because all the medicine in general had you kind of out there anyway, so just trying to stay away from all.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I also chose to not take my anxiety medicine during that time.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Correct. That was a lot of hormones and and different medications that that's a whole nother.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

I mean, I did that the correct way. Just so you know, I don't advise that. That was my personal choice. You do not have to do that, but that was my personal choice. Okay, so let's get into this. I got my handy daddy notebook. Basically, where this all started, we got married. We always knew we wanted to have kids though, since we got together. Kayla, well, let me rephrase that. I wanted to have kids, and Kayla was perfectly content with our two perfect nephews, but then she fell in love with me, and she's like, I have to have kids because this woman wants kids. So, but then, you know, when you fall in love, things change. So we wanted kids, we went knew we wanted to have kids. We got married in um 2017 in December. Are you sure?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah, it's tattooed on my finger.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah, 2016. Davis was born in June of 2018. Um that was correct.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

She's not very good with dates, just in case anybody's wondering.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Your birthday and my kids' birthdays.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

I'm perfect. I'm good with your birthday. You are. So the first step, I did get advice from an acquaintance about kind of their situation. So she pointed me in the direction of like what fertility clinic to go to. And we chose upstate fertility of the Carolinas. Um, I think they've kind of changed their name a little bit since then, but it's still the same concept. It's in Greenville. And we chose a doctor there. Um, he was our primary doctor. Basically, he did our um plan.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, we like sat down with him. He wanted to know what exactly we we wanted, and out of the experience, and he just walked us through how to basically get there. Um, because at the time we had already purchased, we had already decided on the donor we wanted to go with and and everything of that nature. So he just basically walked us through the two different options of IUI or IVF. Um, so with Davis, we obviously did IUI. With Collins, we had to do IVF. So Ashton can probably explain that the difference more.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Um, coincidentally, though, our doctor did not do any of our actual inseminations. They're more like a team kind of situation. Um, now I'm sure you can probably maybe request, but I loved, adored both doctors who ended up doing my procedures. They were very precious and good to me. Um, but you know, our doctor, he did do like some of my ultrasounds, like he was present for my doctor's visits, that kind of thing. So we picked out our our clinic, like I said, and we picked out our doctor. But before we did all that, we did pick out our donor first and paid for our sperm and had our sperm sitting in a little freezer in California somewhere. Um and we'll talk. Do you want to go and talk about that now? Like the process of picking out our sperm, or do you want to talk about it later? Oh, that's totally up to you. We can do it now. So for us, the most important thing when it comes came down to that was medical. Um obviously Kayla's genetics are not playing a part in this, but she has some family history of a lot of heart issues that have ended up in death. So we definitely wanted a donor who didn't have a history of heart issues just because of her own family, whatever. Um, as for my family, Lord honey, they have the diabetes, heart issues, a good bit of things. But we definitely wanted to make sure we focused on like no family history and diabetes, no family history of any heart issues. So once we did that, then we started going into kind of looks, and we wanted his looks to kind of mimic Kayla and her brother and nephews. Weird as that sounds, but I mean it's her genetic.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Not as weird as what my sister-in-law thought.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Oh, we're not even gonna talk about that. We cannot talk about that. That's for another time. Um, but we just kind of wanted her genetic traits to be in there as well. So um we wanted somebody with nice, pretty olive skin. We wanted on the darker side of hair. Now, even though her family doesn't have curly hair, we did want a little curl.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Well, my my oldest brother had kinky curly hair and my daddy had curly hair. That's true. Just John and I didn't get very very good hair. No, y'all got horrible hair, is what y'all got. Chris Chris stole all of our hair, good hair out of his family, and height, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yeah, that too. Um, so that like it's so cool. Like, you basically are shopping for sperm. It's the craziest thing. Like, you click these little buttons and like filter it out, and then it just shows you what you have after that. Um, with our donor, we coincidentally found a coupon code that you gotta do what you gotta do. Well, it was cool because we got to see more than most people get to see. Like, we got to see three baby pictures. It's like a baby picture, a picture, what do you say, babe? Like they're a toddler, and then probably when he was like eight or nine. Um, it was weird because his oldest picture really did look like John. John and our nephews. Um then we're like, okay, we love him.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Like medically, well, and the reason why they don't do the pictures, so we did there's two options. You can do an open donor or you can do a closed donor. So we did close. So the reason why they don't give you an adult picture is so I guess you can't just like start looking them up on Facebook and recognizing them as an adult, basically. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

I mean, with ancestry now, I'm sure that's different, but at least as close to safe as they can be. Right. Um, but with our coupon code, we also got tons of cool things. We got to hear an interview of his voice. Um, we got they did this section, I can't even remember what they called it, but our first donor we fell in love with, he wrote a song. Ugh, ripped my heart out. But this donor, he took a picture of the beach in California.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

And oh babe, what did he say? Me and you both started crying. Uh basically that um he just wanted to take a picture of a peaceful area or something that he went to, but also that he's his family did a lot of vacations together. So he wanted to give other people the option to have families that possibly couldn't have it the natural way.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

And I think he said something about like it was the last time all of his family members were still alive and together. It was just so sweet. We were like, okay, this this is the one. But I also I wasn't really planning on saying this, but I wanted an African-American donor. Yes. And that was very devastating for me because there were not that many at all. And the ones that were on there, um they did have part issues in their family, but a lot of them, all of their sperm was used up. Like we knew that we wanted to have at least two kids, so we needed more samples than just one. So it was kind of one of those things, but it was really disheartening because we basically, when we chose that route, we had like five people to choose from at that time. Um, so we picked out our sperm, paid for it. Um, we only got enough to do one round with Davis. Yeah, we got two IUI vials is what we ended up buying. Um we wanted to do more because you can buy the more you buy, the cheaper you get it. Like you can literally buy up the 20 vials, or I don't even remember how many you can buy. But at that time, we were like, okay. How many he's uh we're on a budget. Yeah. At this point, we thought going into this, we were gonna have to pay for every single thing out of pocket.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

But yeah, because you hear you hear all the horror stories of currents not covering and well, and people having to basically have fundraisers to be able to do this, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

But as we all know, my prayers reached and God showed up for us, and we went to our first visit, and after we got done with our first visit, then you go to billing and they kind of give you a play-by-play of what you need to expect. And I will never forget the lady that was over billing said, Y'all are like a unicorn. This rarely happens, and when it does, it makes us feel so good for the family. But your insurance covers infertility, and we were shocked. Basically, we were so lucky and blessed. We paid out of pocket for sperm, we paid out of pocket for storage, we're still paying out of pocket for storage. We paid out of pocket for trigger shot. Y'all learn about what that is in just a little bit, but we didn't have to pay for anything else.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Yeah, um, when when you did IDF with Collins, uh some of those shots weren't covered. Um, but the majority was the trigger shot. Uh, but even then we got it at what Costco for like a hundred dollars, hundred and something dollars when a normal pharmacy was closer to two hundred dollars. So we ended up being very lucky when it came to this whole process, to be honest. Because we've heard the horror stories of everyone else, and thank goodness we didn't have to go through all that.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

No. So we chose or we decided to do IUI with Davis. We did two rounds of that. Basically, what that is, it's a huge bone catheter. You lay on a bed, they put the washed sperm. It's a turkey baster, girl. It is not, it's a catheter. They put the catheter straight into your cervix, and you know, you lay there for 15 minutes. Swear to God, with your legs elevated. What? We only had to do that twice, though, with Davis. I got pregnant on the second time. Um, we were very successful with that. He had we had the best pregnancy with him. Um he was a twin, believe it or not, and we did lose the other twin. We didn't even know I was pregnant with twins. We lost the other twin very early on. But thankfully he was fine and he was perfect, and my pregnancy was perfect, and he was born and he still was perfect, but then we decided we wanted to have another. Now, mind you, at this point, we still hadn't bought any more of our donor sperm. We just put it out there to God if it's donor prayer. Yeah. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. And if we're gonna have full-blooded siblings for our kids, there will be some sitting there. So we decide we're gonna do this again. We go online. The only kind of sperm that our donor had left was unwashed sperm, which means IVF sperm. Now, you can use that for IEY, but the chances of you getting pregnant that way are a lot lower. So we went ahead and bought it anyway, did all that. So Kayla is gonna talk is like I said, my life's a blur at this point. All I was was a human body carrying a baby or trying to carry a baby. But we did IUI with IVF sperm, that is possible. We did it two times.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, so typically you would in order to get the sperm count to add up in an IVF vial versus a IUI, you would have to double or triple the IVF vial when you inseminate. Um, but we obviously weren't gonna just buy tons of vials. So we bought, I wanna say two. Um and or no, we actually bought four. Four vials. Remember. And we only did the one, or no, we did two vials to begin. No, no, no, no. One vial the first time and it obviously didn't take. The second time we used two and it didn't take. Um, and then finally, our doctor typically they want you to try it five times before they actually go through with the IVF. And so he was like, We're just obviously not gonna do that. So our doctor actually was like, you know, we're gonna bypass the, I'll talk to the board. He's gonna talk about the board and basically present our case and say, these guys aren't going to do five rounds of this. Like, we already know that the the vials are IVF vials, they're not wash sperm. So basically, he went to the board, they agreed, so then that's where we took off with the IVF, true IVF journey.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I will say it's crazy to think that there's a board that makes those decisions, but I mean, we signed our lives away.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

I mean, we had a stack, probably about a foot full of paperwork we had to sign. We did, we definitely did.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

So, yeah, we had two unsuccessful rounds of IUI, start doing the IVF process. I remember him calling us on the phone and telling us that. And he said, I'm gonna go ahead and put in your prescription for your birth control. Now, mind you, I know that I am a lesbian, but I have never really you don't say. I've never been on birth control. Uh I just that's a choice I even made before whenever I was in different when you was dabbling activities.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

She dabbled a little bit, guys. Sometimes you got to.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

You gotta test them, you know? Uh, but I just didn't want most hormones in my body. So I never was on birth control. So I had to take how long did I do that? Two months, you said?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

No, you did birth control, you did one round of birth control.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

So for a month? Yeah. Just that made me feel like a psycho.

unknown 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

I was like, oh great, we're in for a long haul.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Um try being on the other side. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

I'm so sorry. But okay, so remind me. When did all my other things kind of start?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

So basically, you were on the birth control to make sure that you weren't going to start shedding your basically, it was getting you ready to be a, as I like to joke, she was a sitting hen because basically they give you the birth control, and then you start taking all your shots and different hormones to start getting the eggs to start producing in your um ovaries. And basically, what all these shots and and hormones do is it holds your eggs from ovulating. So basically, Ashton had so many eggs in her. A lot of people struggle to produce the eggs, but she had so many eggs in her, like her stomach literally was protruding. It was almost as if she was already pregnant. But um, they pulled 38 eggs from her when we did the extraction, which they were like so crazy. They were they were like, We only we pulled 38 and you still had a ton still in there. So she kept complaining about like hurting and stuff like that. I'm like, literally fell out. She's never complained with a period or anything. So I was just like, What the world? And then when he came out and told us about all the eggs that had been sitting in there, I was just like, Well, no wonder you were hurting. I mean, you're literally a sitting hen at that point.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

My stomach was like a solid, like it sounded like a drum. Yeah, like it was so uncomfortable. But I do remember all my medicine came to our door, but they basically ordered it.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yes, we basically they um God, that was a very, very stressful looking box. Yes, it was. That was a lot of I've never experienced that many shots in my life. So, what did I do?

SPEAKER_02 18:40

I remember I took oral pills, I also took a vitamin supplement regimen. Oh gosh. I'm gonna mess this up. CoQ10. There was an iron and calcium in there too. Um vitamin D. Vitamin C. Vitamin C. A prenatal, of course. But I took seven or eight vitamins twice a day, even with IUI.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Only certain ones you took twice. There were some that you took one. So it was just the different regimens, right? What it was.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Um but I took all those, and then what else did I take orally?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

I you took actually two you took um a progesterone pill orally, but also vaginally. That don't even get me started. When I tell you that was Oh but you also took that little green pill orally and one vaginally.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Bless my heart.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

I don't remember two of them being there. Yep. Now, did I take all those oral and vaginal pills the entire time I was trying to get pregnant?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Uh you took them. You actually took those after the um egg retrieval? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.

unknown 19:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Now and then even for the first month of when they transferred. Okay. So basically when we got to the point where they did the ultrasound to say, yes, there's a sack that has attached, um, basically to say, yes, you're pregnant, it's it's been a success. That's when they told you to stop taking all the medications.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Now, I I don't know if I'm right about this timeline, uh, but didn't I start my birth control in all the pills about November of the year before? Potentially. Um and my egg retrieval happened no, no, no, no, no. No, it was earlier than that. Much earlier than that.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Well, September is when we originally started everything again for IBF. Um so I would say you probably started taking the birth control and all that in September. Because when we had a failed um the first one failed, you didn't have to do all that again. You just basically went into the next realm without the birth control. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Because I don't remember how long I did all these things before I even had my egg retrievable. Yeah. Honestly. Right. Uh you don't either, I guess.

unknown 21:17

No.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

That's okay. So when I was looking at your march, my chart though, just trying to get ready for this podcast, there was a November appointment. So, I mean, it makes sense. The timeline makes sense. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

So now, did I do shots the entire time before my egg retrieval too?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

No.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Shots are between egg retrieval and insemination, correct? Correct. Okay. Okay. So I did all this oral vaginal stuff. Um I went and did blood work a lot. Yes. They basically watched my HCG levels, just all my levels, but the main focus is your HCG. But I do remember there was a Couple of other ones that they kind of watch with IVF, but I don't remember what those were. Um, but I did blood work very often during that time.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

We honestly had to go to Greenville, I want to say like once a week or two.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Because I went by myself majority of the time for just blood work. Yes, for blood work, you went by yourself. You went for all the important things. Because if y'all know me, I also don't like to drive. I'm a passenger princess. Yes, she is. So I will call her and I'd be like, I'm sick and tired of going up this dang road. I know it's gonna be so worth it, but I'm so tired of driving to exit 42. That is, but um so my best friend Brie and Kayla. Kayla, did you watch a video before my egg retrieval? Uh no, that was Brie. Okay, yeah. She decided she should YouTube and watch a procedure. So apparently she had a crash-out moment and was like, my poor friend. So, and it's interesting because I've listened to somebody on a recent podcast talk about their IBF. And they were actually sedated for their egg retrieval. Yeah, girl, you only got some um They were sedated, babe. Like they were literally sedated. I got an out of van. Yeah, you got an out of van, that was it.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

The morning of. Yeah, because you were still awake when they let me come back after you got in your gown and stuff, uh, and when they were wheeling you to the room. I watched the whole thing happen.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I took an out of van, I don't remember how many hours before we were supposed to go to Greenville that day.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Oh, I just lied to you. I w the only thing that I watched was the uh transfer. I didn't get to watch the um the um retrieval. No, you didn't.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

You sat in my little waiting room. Yep. So Brie found out that basically when they do an egg retrieval, it's literally like a scraping process. Um didn't you say you felt like pinching? Oh yeah, I felt, I mean, would y'all say I had 38 eggs? Yeah. I feel like I felt 38 pinches. I mean, it was constant. I was so sore. Oh my gosh, I was so sore. And I had never really had an Atavan, so that was kind of like fun and weird. We don't want to talk about my Adavan experience. Oh god. Don't even get me started. Um but egg retrieval was really, really, really hard. I will say, after I like rested that day, did I go to work? I can't even remember if I went to work the next day. But after I rested, I did feel much better. Like I wasn't as swollen and I wasn't as sore from my eggs being inside of me, but it was a whole nother kind of sore. So that was really successful. And then after they retrieve all your eggs, that's when your eggs go somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I don't even remember where in the world my eggs went. So they went and got tested. So they have to test them to make sure that they're viable eggs. So there's a whole process of they retrieve your eggs, then they go to the lab and basically come back with um how many are actually they have to reach a certain level of what whatever uh it's like a rating scale. Yeah, rating scale with your eggs to make sure that they're even viable to be able to transfer.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

They also genetically test them.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yes. So we they knew what what eggs were boys and what eggs were girls. We didn't pay for that. It would because we didn't even ask to know. So when when they when it all got said and done, um we had 12 eggs because we still have um embryos. Embryos because we or excuse me, that was oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a whole different thing. So basically it was 14 viable. No, actually 20. It was 20 that were could be used to be inseminated. Right. Once they were inseminated, then we only had 12 eggs that were and I did get ahead of myself.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

That's when they do the genetic testing. That's when they figure out embryos. That's when they figure out what embryos are boys, what embryos are girls. And even though I was very uncomfortable with this, because I this isn't something that I would have cared about, um, they genetically test them for like chromosomal issues like Down syndrome, um all kinds of diseases like diseases and then other possible outcomes. Right. So basically they want to give you the highest chance of success for a quote unquote healthy baby.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Right. Yep. Um, so we had 12 of them. Um, and we basically told our doctor Oh gosh, that was so stressful. He was like, So which one do you guys want to choose? But come again, right. And so we were like, just give us the most healthy embryo that you have. Um me, I wanted to say, give me a boy.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Kayla didn't really, you didn't care. No. Our families did.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah. I feel like they wanted a girl. Absolutely, because there's no girl on my side of the family. I will say. And your mom and dad have kept everything your entire life. So let's be for real, they definitely wanted a girl at some point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

I will say I truly did at that point think I was pregnant with a girl. But I think I was just going through a lot of issues just from my still having to use medicine and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

I swore it was a girl. I I would have I bet almost anything on it because the pregnancy was so different than Davis's. Yeah. So he actually wrote down on the thing on a piece of paper. He said, Do y'all want to know what it is? And we were like, No. So he chose the healthiest embryo and he we told him to write it for our gender reveal. Um, we told him to write it down on a piece of paper. Um, and he literally wrote it on like a sticky note and put it in an envelope. And that's when um I think he put another boy, potentially.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

But we I did the actual gender reveal. I did not want to be surprised because we did a baseball. I just don't do surprises. Not that I would I would I will say, and you know, a lot of people are open about this. I truly would not have been disappointed if it was a girl. I at this point just needed another healthy baby. Right. So we got ahead of ourselves a little bit again, but that's okay. Um, me and Brie do this all the time. At least we've actually stayed on topic. We're reliving.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

We are reliving. So I told you I'm a real type aper. I need an outline, stay on topic. No, we don't do that. Just give me an LSW and I'm good.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

We don't we don't do that around here because then it's not funny and it's not us. So they create our embryos and at they sit in a in a little chicken heater like thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

It really looks like a chicken eater.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Well, you know, that don't they call like whenever they're making chicken eggs embryos? That's neither here nor there.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Okay. You went from not being pregnant to like six weeks pregnant all in like a day. Yet we're still getting ahead of ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Okay. Now, after I did my egg retrieval, what did I start doing during that time to get ready for implantation? That's when I started all my shots in my stomach.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Uh I had four a day, three a day. Three. Two in the morning, one at night.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I'll never forget one shot. The two two of them were easy because they were in a like what were they called? Sub something. Yeah, like there's multiple, there's like a you don't use the whole syringe, so it's like a very small needle. Yes, the one that you kept freaking out about was the ones that literally you use the needle one time and you throw it away. And it's obviously a needle that you can it's exposed. So the ones that the needle was so long, um, I had to put it in your bottom. It wasn't in your stomach, it was in your bottom. Remember, we had to rotate your on each side of your hip.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

I do remember one night, me and Kayla went on a date night. Now, during this time, I also like got to, you know, partaking a little beverage every now and again. Um, so we had gone on a date night, and I don't remember why you had to call Whitney. Whitney is uh Kayla's best friend. Um, but we caught her on the way home and we were talking to her and Sims on speakerphone while you were giving me your shit my shots. And Sims was like, oh my god, you're doing it right now. Oh my gosh, you're doing it right now. That was so funny.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

But I was scared I was gonna hit like a nerve or a vein or something, and you bleed out on me.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Yeah, you did, and you did great. Um, but yeah, the ones in my stomach were fine. I even did those a couple of times for you.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Well, it's because those are just you literally just put it right under the skin.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

But something, it's like something sub muscle or some whatever it is. But the ones in my hip had to go basically in the muscle. They call it bottom, but it's basically about your hips. Yeah. Oh, y'all. I do remember like Kayla would do it in one area one night on the other side the next night. Oh, when I got you in the same spot one time and you about come off the bed. I have an extremely, extremely, extremely high pain tolerance. Like it's on another level, it's kind of scary sometimes. Like I walk around, I walked around as a child for a week with a completely shattered hand. That's how high my pain tolerance is. But that night I do remember that was not a good situation. Um, but I had massive knots like blue. You had to like massage them in. Yeah. And that, if you ever go through this, have your partner massage those knots. Because I will say that was a great tip, I think that our doctor gave us. But that was really helpful because she would basically just kind of massage the medicine and also like my bent up muscles just it that really helped me a lot. That really did. Um, but I remember I did all that. Now I was still taking my oral stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

And the vaginal stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Yeah, you were taking the vaginal and the oral the whole time until they were like, oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

And then I did the shots. So during this time, you actually, I feel like I got even more blood work than normal. It was like a two.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Yeah, it was like they still it was like they were still testing you to make sure you were staying. To make sure you were staying, I guess that it was truly sticking. I think I went more during that time. You were going multiple times a week.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Um, and when it gets down to the time where they like, okay, we're gonna inseminate you, but same thing with IUI, we did a trigger shot. That's what makes you ovulate right then in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

No, you didn't do a trigger shot with IVF because they're just dang it boy, I didn't. No, you did the trigger shot with IUI because IUI is where you have to have the egg and the I thought that there was something that I had to do the night before we went in the next day that was different than every other night. It was just uh a shot and a pill. It was some kind of pill.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

And some kind of shot that was different than the rest of my stuff. Yeah. Okay. So we go in. Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. I don't I well, at that point in my life, I don't think I'd ever prayed so hard for something than I did that night and then that next morning. We went in, our precious, our one of our favorite doctors, he's the one that did my insemination. That was really cool. That was uncomfortable. It just feels like you're getting a pap smear.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, that's what I was watching the whole time. I could see him actually the the ultrasound actually shows him inseminating the uh or not inseminating, but um taking the embryo, taking the embryo and putting it on the wall. Like he showed me exactly where it was he was impl uh implanting it or whatever, and he stuck it into the wall, and then you saw him like almost like a syringe, and it just boop, there it was. And then like you see this little bitty flicker.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Yep. And that was like the coolest freaking thing. Like that almost makes me emotional just thinking about it. Because that was our little collins. Um our little feral child. So that was a very easy process. Like, I do remember afterward I was like kind of sore, but that's just more kind of like you have a really intense pap smear. Right. Like it's it's not like the echo-treeple whatsoever. Right. And then you wait. Now it's cool with IV IVF and IUI guys, like you can test much earlier than you can with normal pregnancy. Yeah. Because technically, as wild as this sounds, you are like a week early pregnant. So, like a normal person would be like, okay, well, I had sex last night and I took a test, so they figure out from that point on. But like basically, when I took my test, I was an extra week already pregnant. Correct?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah, basically you go from not being pregnant to like four weeks, four to six weeks. I think it's four weeks pregnant. Yeah, it was wild.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, it was it was just a weird concept and a weird feeling. But with Collins, I mean, he was already an embryo, so he had already gone through all those weeks of stages like before. So it was even more. And I don't remember this, but at what point did I start bleeding? I would say you were probably a good month in. Yeah. Um now, mind you, during the rest of this time, I'm still taking the hip, the shot that goes in my hip. Yes. And I'm still taking, I think it was it one or two pills and all the vitamins. Yep. The one vaginal. Yep. The only thing that kind of got dropped off was the stomach shots, yeah, and one of my oral pills, and one of my vaginal pills. Look at me.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Look at you.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

The only reason I even remember this is because um I went to the beach with my parents in Davis, and Kayla didn't get to go because of work, and then she got COVID. But I had to do my shots of my own, and my poor daddy was standing at the bathroom door, like, you need me to do it. And I'm like, I got this, I got this. If I've come this far, I can do this. And I did. But um, yeah, so we were it was the week before we went on vacation to Destin with your family. And I remember we were leaving that Saturday, and uh I started bleeding at the beginning of that week. Yes. Bad. Yes. We went into the office and did uh an anatomy, an ultrasound basically. Like a like we went to the same woman that you would go to your normal anatomy scan for, and she did like an intense ultrasound. Yeah. And I remember her like crying her eyes out because she said that she had actually the lady that went in before me had had a miscarriage, and she was so scared that that was gonna be my situation, but that he was fine, everything was okay. We left feeling so good and so. The whole office state. So No no no no. Remember we had two visits that week. Remember, Friday is when we went because it got real bad. Oh yeah. How do I I'm so proud of me again. I remember something you don't remember, but I think you were a lot more stressed out during the time.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

I was so stressed than I was. I was about to say, I was so much, I was scared. I mean, I literally had to dig through.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

I remember that was the beginning of the week. Thursday rolls around. Thursday night. It was a Friday, yeah. It was either Thursday night or Friday morning. I went to the bathroom. It was Thursday night, and then we called the I passed. This is very I I'm gonna try to say this in the most tactful way possible. A lot of plots in mucus like everything. Yeah, um to the extent where I got Kella to get out of the toilet and basically dig through because uh I was like, this is my baby. Like, there's no way, there's no way this amount of blood and things can come out of me and it not be my baby. Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Um I don't even remember, did we call Michelle? I think we called no, we didn't, because we at this point hadn't told anyone that we were pregnant yet. So Yeah, we did. Everybody knew. Yes, babe. Who's everybody? Half the people didn't even know we had a child until he was born.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Everybody knew, like, my parents knew, your mama and Clint knew, John and Michelle knew. Because remember, we literally went to the beach. But I just I can't I can't remember if Michelle had an opinion.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

I told Michelle because we were going to the beach that next week.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Okay, that's I can't I can't remember if Michelle had an opinion, but I do remember she's like, you gotta go to the doctor. Yeah. So we called our amazing doctor, and I know he will never listen to this, but if somebody that knows that man listens to this, tell Dr. Hearn that you heard he got a shout out. Because when I tell you, I know for a fact my babies are here alive and healthy, and I'm not butchered from a C-section, and the main reason is number one, because of God. Number two, because of Henry Hearn. We love that man so much. Um, but we called the office, and I remember I worked that day a little bit, and then we went, he basically made it happen. He's like, You just come in, very last appointment, nobody will be here. I remember they had to let us in the door. Yeah, the whole office ended up staying because they wanted to make sure that everything was okay. I went back there, he did an ultrasound, and he's like, he's fine, he's fine. And all the little sweet ladies, Deborah, wasn't that her name? Deborah loved so much. Deborah was in, they were all crying, they were clapping. That little one woman I love so much said she was gonna go home and drink me a glass of wine. But basically, he had no, we had no idea why. He just he felt like it was all the hormone, he said that it was no research, but he felt like that. Basically, my body went to shock mode because okay, let me let you know this all those shots and all that medicine we just told you about, one day you just stop it all. Yeah, there's no gradual nothing.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, but you just come off of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

One night, that day, you have however many shots going in your body, the vaginal ones, the oral ones, and the next day you wake up and you just take you a prenatal.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

And he's like, I believe that basically your body was in shock and your body was just shedding cold blood, but you're good, and he's good, and everything's fine. Well, when I tell you that sweet baby, he's three now, he has given us a run for our money since the day I went to that doctor's appointment, and I said, we gotta do IVF.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yes. I don't think I've ever spent more time in a doctor's office than with that child.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

But I said earlier going into my insemination, that's the I when I that Friday, I remember I prayed some of the hardest prayers and the longest prayers I've ever prayed in my life. Like, I truly did think, oh well, we've done all this. And I hate to be like this, but we've done all this for nothing. Right. And I know that like God's plan's so much bigger than ours could ever be. But I just in that moment, once I found out that he was okay, I was just like, wow, this happens to people all the time.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Well, and um don't just think it was that one time. We we had to go into the doctor three other times because we thought we lost him too.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

So well, yeah, but that was like the the the big thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Well, I mean, I know, I know, but um he's had us scared the entire time. We live on a prayer the entire time. Yeah, he's wild. Even when you went into labor, he had us scared when he would get you'd get Pitocin and his heart rate. He did not like Pitocin. No. Um, his heart rate would completely just drop. So he's he's given us a scare the entire time, which is what led, and Ashton can talk more about this, but that's what led to us um not telling anyone and hiding the pregnancy, not hiding it, but just not broadcasting it. It's private, right? Um broadcasting it on social media um was because we didn't know. The last thing we wanted to do was, and and I know people do this, but it's we didn't want to relive the sadness of if we lost him, that people constantly just bringing up that reminder of, I'm so sorry. So we chose to keep it private and not put it on social media. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Like I know somebody, well, we don't know them personally, but like even going back to what I was just saying, like there are people who do what I did that long thing, four and five and six. Oh, yeah. Like I couldn't imagine. I couldn't, I truly couldn't. Like the want and the desire to have a baby is so strong and has always been so strong in me. But those poor people, like, I can't imagine having to go through that emotional roller coaster.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

And that was a very strenuous process. I don't see people have to be, I mean, very, very strong to go through that multiple times. Like you said, we know people that have done it four and five times. It's just it's crazy the the amount of stress and strenuous that that process is.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Oh, it was horrible. It was all worth it in the end, but it was not a cakewalk. Um, and I do my best advice to anybody that ever thinks that they're gonna do this. Number one, you need to have a good support system. And I'm not talking about just a a friend or family. I'm talking Talking about you and your wife or your husband or your partner have got to be on the exact same page with everything. You have to have somebody to lean on, and they have to be able to lean on to you. Because if it is not a 50-50 streak where you're both given half, you know, actually 100-100 street, you have to give all of yourself to them, they have to give all their self to you. You have to meet in the middle always on how you feel and how they feel. If you are not in that position with whoever you're with, then you got to get it on that page. Because when I tell you this is gonna bring up very hard days, very long days, even as simple as our journey was for us, that most people don't have to go through, it still was exhausting and emotionally draining. Yes, absolutely. And we didn't even have to worry about the financial hardship of it all. Correct. So go ahead and think about that. And if your insurance doesn't cover this, the financial hardship of going through this process.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Um and guys, I know I know that people say all the time, you know, we're waiting until we have the money. You're you're never truly financially ready for children. I feel like like you're never gonna be, oh, I've saved this amount of money. Like it it's one of those things where it doesn't matter if you've saved $20,000, something's gonna happen. So it's it's one of those things where you know, you you bite the bullet, you're on the same page with, like Ashton said, with your spouse or your partner or or whatnot. But I mean, if you fight about finances before doing this process, I highly recommend getting a mediator because agreed. If if not, you're gonna be truly stressed out because you're gonna be fighting even more because the financial, not just only that, if you're if you're not um your insurance doesn't cover it and you're already fighting about financials, I'd highly recommend talking with someone because there's a lot of stress with that and yeah, I mean all the emotions of it's stuff you don't even think about, right? Like I never in a million years would have thought the medicine was as much as it was, right? Um, and that's even with insurance.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

So yeah, like I remember one of my shots that I had to have. Anderson didn't have it, and you had to drive all the way to the other side of Greenville to get it and pay out of pocket, I think, for that one. Yeah, it was $111. Just randomly for one shot, like a random day. Yep. That we had to have it on that day.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

That was a trick, that was your trigger shot.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Oh, that with with Vapus. Yeah, because Costco was out. Yep. That's another little tidbit of information. So when you get a trigger, you I really suggest, even if you do IUI, do a trigger shot. Those ovulation kits, they ain't right, girl. No, but um, if you go to Costco, even if you don't have a membership, their trigger shots are much cheaper than a normal pharmacy. Yep, you can still go to their pharmacy.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

You just that was free, by the way. You don't have to pay me for that. Yeah, you just go straight in and go to the pharmacy, and they will watch you like you're a hawk, just so you're aware.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Yeah, we couldn't even't ramble and swirl. Wanted to get no one in that Costco, but I couldn't. I had to stay on task. Yeah, just head to the pharmacy, head to the pharmacy. Um so yeah, that's how both of them got here. But let's talk about another couple of things that I think need to be said when it comes to IBF. Um, we like Kayla said, uh, we chose to keep Davis public. Davis's was very public. Collins very private to the extent that uh nobody on social media knew until Collins was a week old.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Yeah, until we posted him. Because that was during COVID, so um you couldn't like the hospital wasn't open. Uh Brie was the only one allowed in because she was there during the pregnancy or during the delivery. And once you have one person there, like they can't swap. It's got to be that same person every time. So it was literally Ashton, Brie, and myself um through that whole time. Uh, shout out to Brie for taking her um what is it? Your placenta to get fro uh dried out and in pills and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

I'll I'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

And trying to, she really wanted to feed you those ice chips too.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

No, she did feed my ice chips. She really not don't you forget, she really wanted to give me a rag. Yeah, she wanted to give you a rag.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

She did give you the ice chips, my bad.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

She wanted to put a washcloth on my forehead, and I was like, uh-uh, I look bad enough.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

I was just very that whole, like I said, Collins had us stressed out the entire time we even thought about that child, and that's why and he's crazy now. He's a crazy three-year-old boy that we joke and call him feral all the time, but I was so stressed out during that whole delivery because it lasted for what seems like 20 days. But um, the the song Tim McGraw, Don't Take the Girl, kept playing in my head. It was just not a very good delivery. And finally, because Ashton's worst fear is to have a C-section, and everyone in the room knew that. So both of our boys were both delivered via um forceps. Um, and Dr. Hearn is one of the only doctors still left that does it, um, that knows how to use them. So hit her her last option was forceps with Collins. Um, and this may be a little graphic, but she was so swollen because she had been in labor for so long that he couldn't even push for four hours straight. He couldn't even tell if his if he was around him quite right or whatever. So he got on the phone. So when Dr. Hearn he plays around with you majority of your delivery, but when he gets serious, he gets serious. And when he got serious and he called in and he said, I need her to take all of her um jewelry off and um go ahead and get the OR ready. Um and shout out to Kristen Orr for uh being such an amazing nurse there and all that. Oh, she was like Julicia and Julicia, yes, and that's a dear friend of mine from all the way from high school, but um took take all her jewelry off, and then they actually had an intern in there that was off the clock for like two hours with AU. Yeah, she went to AU and she was in there. Um she stayed two hours after her shift was over, and finally when he came out, the whole room busted out in tears because they knew that she didn't want to have a c-section. He fine, and that was the last chance because Dr. Hearn wasn't about to um let it go any further. So every once his head popped out, everybody just like busted out in tears. Yeah, I think I was in shock. Yeah, and then of course, and he looked small to me, but everybody's like, oh, he's such a chunker. He was eight pounds, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

He's a big boy. I had two big boys, yeah. I had two long boys, yeah, and my hips. I had my own horrible birth story with my mama. I could Dr. Hearn also had to use force hips on me to get me out, but I also got stuck and like my hips didn't come out evenly, so I have really bad hips now. So you wore those force gump braces. Now, Kayla, I had something called a hip click, okay? And it didn't last that long. I wasn't like Forrest, and even if I was, I'd have been perfect. Run, girl, run. But uh, yeah, my hips didn't do what they needed to do. So he gave us a long wild ride, and it was a lot. So yeah, I'm thankful, I'm so thankful we chose to keep him quiet because I had peace. Um not that I didn't want my clients asking me every day how I felt, but you know, there's just sometimes I just want to talk about y'all and I want to talk about other stuff. And the wild ride that I went on to get pregnant with Collins, and then the wild ride of pregnancy with Collins, even though I felt fine after I stopped bleeding. Um, I mean, I had when you have IVF, you have to go for a lot of extra doctor appointments. Oh, a lot. For the end, you have two separate stress tests, and then you have three or four extra 3D ultrasounds. Um, because uh they watched the heart of IVF babies very closely. I don't remember the scientific reason for that, but that was just I remember that they watched his heart constantly. Um so I had tons of appointments to go to. So I was just thankful that we kept it in our little bubble and kept it private and kept it close to home because it made him getting here healthier even more special to me because then everybody else got to join in on that. Right. Um, and another thing I want to talk about is for the love of God, if you people don't stop calling donors dads, I'm gonna lose it one day on somebody. You know, I d if you know me, you know that I don't get offended over rarely anything. Um but I can't stand it when somebody says, so Davis and Collins' dad. No, he doesn't, they don't have a dad. They have a mama and a mommy and a donor who my sister-in-law named Jeff.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Shout out Jeff, whoever he is in California somewhere. Um dad is someone who is active in a child's life.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

Well, are they?

SPEAKER_01 53:42

I know a couple of dads who aren't.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

Well, and I don't call them dads, I call them moments. Yes, girl, yes. But um, please don't do that. I know that sometimes it's just from lack of education in that, but please just don't do that because number two, what if a baby that was conceived through insemination or IVF, what if they heard you call their donor a dad? And then the parents have to have that whole conversation. Like, I don't like that. Um, now obviously in an opposite sex marriage where they still have to do IVF and the actual donor is the father, that's a different ballgame. Right. But in this situation, do not call my donor Jeff for 8325, whatever his number is, Daddy, because he's not.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Well, and I highly suggest not to call him a test two baby either, because that's Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:42

And to the lovely human that her husband called my kid a test two baby, F you. I hope you're really enjoying Texas. Um, but uh I think that people need to realize that God brings babies into this world in all different forms and fashions. Unfortunately, sometimes babies are brought into bad situations, and babies are brought into same-sex marriages through IVF or IUI. Babies are brought into same-sex marriages through adoption or surrogacy, babies are brought into heterosexual marriages, heterosexual hookups. They're brought into this world in all different forms and fashions, but at the end of the day, the main person who brings that person into this world is our Heavenly Father. And treat people with grace, no matter how their kids are brought into this world. Correct. Um, because nobody deserves to feel some type of way because of that. And well, and the kids shouldn't have to feel that either.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

You shouldn't treat the children any differently.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Right. Thankfully, we have a lot of good people around us who have always been very supportive. Our family is so supportive and so happy. We still have 11 embryos, but as happy as our family is, the only person that wants us to have any more children is our sister-in-law. She would she would want us to have all of them. We have 11. Like we could be on a TV show. But my mama and my mother-in-law, Kayla's mama, who takes care of our baby so they don't have to go to daycare, uh, they told us no.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

They didn't even let us get a like get out of our mouth very and before they were both like no.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

You know.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

Absolutely not. Mic drop.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

Yeah, absolutely not. Which is devastating. But you know what? After talking about this again out loud, I really have had two somewhat wild rides. Davis was so perfect, so easy, but his pregnancy was just as hard as Collins, but not I mean, I had him naturally, like, went to labor naturally, got an epidural, everything was fine. I pushed for what, an hour and 45 minutes.

unknown 56:52

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Heard came in, he was like, Yeah, he's not coming out. Let's go ahead and try him this way. Floricips got him out in no time. He was perfect. Collins, no, no. Collins was trying to take you out, girl. He still tries to take me out every day. But uh, I, you know, I think I'm good with my two little angels. My little brown-haired boy and my little blonde-haired boy.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

It's crazy because everybody says we literally have two children that one looks like Ashton and one looks like me. Which is so weird.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Because Davis does favor you in so many ways that it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Um well, everybody thinks my brother is his dad, so there's that. Everyone, just as an FYI, Anderson County, my brother is not our donor. Leave John out of this. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

He is not the donkle. He is not a dunkle. He's just an uncle. Yep. He's just John John. He's not daddy.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Yeah, there's a lot of people that think, there's a lot of people that think that he was the donor. He is, let's go ahead and debunk that. He is not the donor of our children.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

I'm sure he's gonna be glad to have that burden off of him. Absolutely. That's pretty sure relief. My favorite thing is Michelle says, I don't care what they think. Let him be it. He could have been. Stupid. But in wrapping all this up, can you think we've given him some good tips and pointers and all that stuff? But from my wife and your perspective, like, what advice can you give to somebody that's about to go through this process or thinks they want to go through the process? You've already said, like, you know, just really harp in on your relationship and your finances, but can you think of anything that you can do or they could do for support or anything like that as the spouse?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Uh the biggest thing is patience because you gotta think of I was joking earlier when I said that you took all the shots and and literally was a sitting hen, all the hormones and medications that you're inputting into your body, literally you're going your body's just going crazy with hormones and stuff. So it's it's the patience of if they start yelling at you, just take a deep breath and walk out of the room. But no, seriously, the patience part, I feel like, because you gotta think that they're going through something that you don't know nothing about, and there's a lot of chemicals and hormones that are going into their body to make this all happen, and they're the ones sacrificing their bodies for this. So being patient and being supportive of all that, I feel like is the number one thing.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

That's really good advice because you really didn't know what to do when I cried as much as I cried because you're not used to it.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yeah, because you're not a crying person, so it kind of threw me off a little bit. I didn't know what to do with the fact that I was crying all the time. I'm the more emotional one when it comes to our relationship, so it kind of threw me off that so she's in there crying, I'm in there crying, and I'm like, why are you crying? Nah, seriously though, but she was a lot more emotional. Um, and that's the total opposite of the person she is from that type of stuff. Now, don't get me wrong, obviously she's emotional about certain things, but when it comes to just everyday life and being sick and things of that nature, typically when she's sick, she's still busting through it and and living everyday life. She don't hunker down and go sleep for 20 hours a day and everything else. She's actually still working and going at it and helping with the kids. So to see that side of her, the vulnerability and stuff like that was kind of took I took a step back to be like, oh crap, this is this is a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

Yeah. You were, I will say this. I know I like I did tell you this a million times, but thank you for how good you were to me. Because I could not have done that with anybody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Without you, I wouldn't have my two voice.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Um and I know I've given a lot of advice during this entire episode about random things, but I think the best advice I can give um if you're a heterosexual couple who this is your last option, or if you're a same-sex couple who this is your only option, or if you're a single woman who this is your only option. If honest obviously, if you if you truly cannot, it's not doable to afford, that's completely understandable. But if that's not an issue for you, and it can you can make that happen, just go to the appointment and do it. It's so worth every shot I took, every pill, all the heartache in the beginning, the worrying, the stress. When I look at my two babies now, every single speck of what we went through, it's completely worth it. And there's never gonna be the right time emotionally to do it, really, because you're always gonna be scared. I mean, God, anybody that's a parent knows you're gonna be scared for the rest of your life. But during that process, you're gonna be scared, you're gonna be very nervous and overwhelmed. Just ground yourself in whatever you can ground yourself with. For me, it was my faith and my family. Uh and um ground yourself however you can ground yourself and just stay as calm as you can and do not research. Yeah, stay away from Web MD. Yeah. Um, but I hope that y'all really enjoyed this. I did. I'm already thinking about something else you can come talk to me with about, girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

I feel like we've like been on a date without the food and the wine. Uh next time I might need some bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Well, um, but I really appreciate you doing this with me. And I hope that this actually does help somebody.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Like And if you have questions, just reach out. We're very open with our journey.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Um I think a lot of the questions. I'll tell you anything over a glass of bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

I think a lot of the questions we did have was more of the financial part of it all. But like I said, we can't really I mean we didn't even really get statements to know how much this costs for normal people. I'm so sorry. But we do know how much it I want to say it's upward to like $15,000 to $20,000 probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Paying out a pocket. We do know that every month now we pay how much money for our storage?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Uh it's it's every other month, I think, and it's $125. So we still pay $125 for frozen 11 embryos. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Um, our sperm was uh the first set of vials were $800. That was the IUI vials, so they were a lot cheaper. For the IVF, it was upwards to almost it was eighteen hundred, I want to say, right at $1,800, $2,000.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

The IVF was you just got that switched. Wash sperm was more expensive than unwashed.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Oh, that's true. Yep, yep, yep. I'm sorry. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

Dang yeah, I'm so proud of me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Yeah, um, but as far as past that, I have no clue what the part of it was. The reason why this wash sperm is so expensive is because um there's more sperm count. So it's that was how we got pregnant with Davis. So it was you don't have to do the invasive process of IVF, so the sperm count is higher in those vials, so you have a more probability of getting pregnant, quote unquote, naturally, um, versus having to go through the IVF journey. So that's why the IVF journey is basically a man just boop into a cup and they put it in a vial. So uh there's not a lot of sperm count in it. So that's why you really can't, it's almost impossible. Not gonna say it's impossible, just almost impossible, to get pregnant via with uh IUI via IBF files.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

Right. But if you have any other questions past the financial part of it, you're more than welcome to reach out. Like I said, but that's the majority of the questions we did get was more of the money part of it. But I hope that you enjoyed this. I know I did, and I know this after talking about this journey that I have tried to take out of my mind a little bit, it makes me want to go hook my babies even more. Yeah, and just thank God for them and thank God that they're here. But I hope whoever is going through this journey right now or thinks they're about to go through this journey, I just wish you all the happiness and joy and all the success. And just remember once they put that baby on your chest, uh everything that you just went through, it's not even gonna matter. Um but that's our little story. And thank you for joining us. And thank you, babe, for being here with me. You're welcome. I love you. I love you, and don't forget, we'll have another episode soon. It probably will be a little bit more a lot harder. This was a little deep, but um, we enjoyed this so much, and so thank y'all. And as I always say, over here, the limit doesn't exist. Because being with the classics was like being famous, people looked at you all the time, and everybody just knew stuff about it.