You're listening to the fertility docs, uncensored podcast, featuring insight on all things, fertility from some of the top rated doctors around America, whether you're struggling to conceive or just planning for your future family, we're here to guide you every step of the way.
Speaker 2Welcome to a fertility docs. Uncensored. I am Dr. Carrie obedient from the fertility center of Las Vegas. And I have with me, Dr. Abby , Evelyn from Nashville fertility center and Dr. Susan Hudson from the Texas fertility center. And we are delighted to have two of my patients here with us today. We have Courtney and Danielle and you guys have been together for quite some time now, or have known each other, I should say, how long, how long ago did you meet believe?
Speaker 3Or we knew each other 20 years ago.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's been 20 years. Oh, wow. Together . 13 years married for Ford . No , there you
Speaker 2Go. So how did you two meet?
Speaker 3Um, I'm actually originally from Southern California, but Courtney is born and raised in Las Vegas. And so we met in college , um , through sports and it was, we'd been really good friends for a long time , um, dating other people, but then finally realized, Hey, this is , we actually really like being around each other a lot. So, and then we've been inseparable since.
Speaker 2So how long have you been dating men before you guys got married?
Speaker 4Yeah, so nine years we got married actually on our nine year anniversary.
Speaker 2That's sweet. And I love how you both look at each other doing that day checkup . Am I going to say the same thing she's saying, am I going to get noticed?
Speaker 3I want to talk over her either. So yeah .
Speaker 2How did you guys decide to get married when you did
Speaker 3Well? You tell him the part about how we decided and then ,
Speaker 4So it kind of just kept getting, I'll say postpones, we were waiting for the right time. You'll call it. And I'm not sure if there's ever a right time. And so with , uh , different job changes and things like that, it, you know, coming to school
Speaker 3And we moved in between there.
Speaker 4Yeah. Both of us went back to school and so life was kind of just getting in the way. And so just got , I'll say extended. Um, but I think from day one, for both of us, it felt like we were married. And so we were content with that. And
Speaker 3The best part is we both have sisters who have , um, had been married through either S dating or , um, you know, before that. And they all had these really big elaborate weddings. So the more years that passed, I would tease her and say, oh, well, I'm doing the more that this passes. I get to plan what I really want . Like , um, at some point I wanted to be at the, at the beach and then at some point I wanted to be around my family in California and I wanted it to be around Christmas. So I just kept saying that Courtney at one point said, at some point, you're going to ask me to have Santa Claus , literally rolling on off the dolphin with your ring. And I was like, yes , that sounds perfect. That'd be the greatest proposal ever . How did it actually happen? Yeah. So , um, I had no idea it was coming, first of all. Cause we had talked about, we had just moved and um , we just got into a house. And so we, there was a lot of, oh, in a few years, we'll plan on this when we can. And neither one of us were too interested in the big wedding anymore because living through that , several of
Speaker 2Them enough .
Speaker 3Yeah . And it's a lot of planning. And anyway, so we were good with it being something smaller. But , um, she had told me that we were going to go for president's day weekend actually, which also had Valentine's day wrapped into it. Like this weekend, we were going to go wine tasting in California with her sister. So we were in my mind, I always let my parents know like we're , we're going to go just in case anything ever came up. So I had told my parents that we were flying into Northern California. Cause I thought we were doing wine tasting up there. Um, but I was so out of touch with what she had actually been planning this whole time because I had a job that made me travel a lot. I was only home, maybe two or three days out of the entire month. And so she said she was going to plan this and I knew I just needed to be home from a work trip and have another suitcase packed, ready to go. So I told my parents were going wine tasting in Northern California. Well, long story short, we got all the way through security at the airport and to the gate before I realized that the place that we were going to was Southern California was in orange county, not Northern. And I was like, oh my God, I didn't even notice. I told the security guy at TSA, cause he's going like, oh, we're going to go to San Francisco as these stamping, my ticket that says clearly orange county and I'm not paying any attention. This wasn't a
Speaker 2Secret. This was on your ticket. And
Speaker 3You just missed the detail. I've traveled so much for my job when I was going to travel for pleasure. I wasn't going to pay attention to it . She'd had it under control. But anyways, I panicked call my parents on the airplane and say, Hey, I'm so sorry. I thought we were going to Northern California. I missed it. But I'm sitting, I'm sitting on the airplane because I had before Courtney cause they had rewards. Right . And so I got to board an airplane for, so anyway, I called them like secretively, I think and say , um , I don't let Courtney know. She would be so disappointed if I wasn't paying that close attention to this wonderful trip. And I'm sitting over here clean , we're going to orange county. I'll let you know where we end up. And I should have known something was up at that point because my mom, she was so too cool about it. Like just enjoy. And that is not my mom's personality.
Speaker 2Ah , so more than just Courtney was in on it , come by your planning honestly then .
Speaker 3Yeah. So anyways, if this really could be the longest story ever, but the highlights, I , we finally get to Southern California. We're staying in a hotel for one night and then we're supposed to meet her sister the next day. And um, I got up and you know , did my hair makeup, all the normal things. Cause I think we're going wine tasting. And she kept telling me, oh my sister calls , she's not ready yet. It's postponing. And I didn't know where they were coming from. And all I thought was, you know, she's late and we're never going to get to the actual place that I want to go first. Right. So the whole day passes and Courtney start saying things to me like, well, why don't we go get our hair done at the blow dry bar? And why don't we go get our makeup done? Which is the polar opposite of anything. If you knew her, well, that's not anything she's ever interested in, but she knows I'm really interested in it. And instead of just going with it, I literally said, why I've already done my hair and makeup. It's fine. Like how late is she going to be? Well, you know, there's some won in the story cause I think you really wanted some . Yeah . So anyways , fast forward
Speaker 4To the proposal, heard banks are in there . My parents came into town and your sister .
Speaker 3Yeah . She had like a 45 minute video of every picture we'd ever taken together for all those years.
Speaker 4Yeah. And they all help to kind of get that all planned out or set up, I guess, in the room. So
Speaker 3The next morning she even had more of my family come and meet us for breakfast. My aunt, my cousins got to be there and still gets me choked up . And there was a little Christmas tree in the , you know , um, and the ring was in a box under the Christmas tree. So she really did literally [inaudible] weekend. And yet there was a Christmas tree there with the ring under the Christmas tree. Yeah . She really went all out. It was awesome. And she had cameras set up all over the room. So we have it all video recorded too. So that's even more special. Yeah.
Speaker 2This makes so much sense. Knowing both of you when you both came to my office, I mean , uh , Courtney you're in law , Danielle, you're a special educator and in a very high powered position within that , um, that arena. And when you both came in to talk to me for the first time you were sitting there and I remember your notebook and you took notes and I felt like I'm important. Somebody's actually listening to me. And, and just every visit we had, the notebook popped out and the questions were very clearly written down and you both were just so methodical about everything. This fits perfectly. I mean, your story just matches. So did you do a lot of research before coming in? Cause you guys, many of our patients, when they come in, they don't anticipate having to be in our office one day, but you guys kind of knew, all right, we're gonna , we're gonna need some help somewhere along the line . So had you tried anything at home before coming to see me or did you just come straight to the fertility office to say, okay, what are we doing ? How do we do it?
Speaker 4So we researched what we could on the internet, but we also know don't trust, you know, everything, you know ? So that's kind of where we tried to develop our questions from. And uh, but then everything else was off the first meeting.
Speaker 3Yeah. And we had friends that had gone through this process as well for the same reasons that we are, we went through the process and um, they, some of them had actually been to your fertility clinic. First. We did have some friends that had gone someplace else, but all of the clinics offered some sort of like a come get to know us or, you know, learn about what we offer. So we did both of those that your clinic and at the other place. And it was an no brainer once they start to talk about the staff, cause everything else like the procedures and stuff all sounded pretty same , the same differences in money really weren't there. Um, you know, something, some, one part of it would seem cheaper at one place, but the other place had the step two was cheaper. So in the end you're , you're probably spending about the same. It really came down to , um , people, right? Like do who've treated our friends the best and where would they like to go? Do we feel comfortable? Yeah . So that's how we ended up at your office. So what did you guys decide to do initially?
Speaker 4Uh , we started off with IUI. Um, I guess in our mind it seemed the, I'll say least invasive and we obviously knew why we weren't getting pregnant together. And so we wanted to give ourselves a chance , um , to see if it worked. And
Speaker 3None of nobody in our family had any fertility issues either. So we really thought maybe it would just be a matter of trying to bring in the male factor and that would allow us to get pregnant. But we also knew that we were older than any of our other family members who had gotten pregnant too. So we knew not to totally guarantee that that was going to work. But
Speaker 2From the beginning that Danielle, you were the one who wanted to carry. And so, cause I remember just gently broaching the subject at the, from the very beginning. And Courtney was like, no, thank you. She'll be great. And so we did quite a few IUI with the first one and um, and had, you know, the normal up and down fertility road. You know, I remember there was a positive in there at one point and unfortunately it didn't stay a positive test. Um, and so that's a bit of a bumpy ride as well, but how, how did you guys go through that IUI process and what was the evolution as you were thinking, this is going to work and then, well maybe, maybe there are other things at play here cause you can get pregnant, but it wasn't sticky.
Speaker 3Want me to? Sure . So , um, we really were hoping that the just initial IUI would work and we knew that it was going to be, you know, medicine and we knew that it would be an emotional rollercoaster to too cause our friends, we have some really great people who are willing to share everything with us. So we, they didn't sugar coat , any of it. But even knowing all of that, when you're experiencing it, even when it's around really wonderful people who are kind and great, it's still really. So , um, yeah , we, we , we took some breaks in between. I think we had five rounds of IUI and I think we took a break in between three and four
Speaker 2Cruise ship with your grandma was in the middle of cause there was a lot of planning around that. How do we get grandma to Alaska?
Speaker 3Yeah. And we, you know, we had these aspirations of , um , not telling anybody in our family that we were pregnant, just like normal , um , people who get pregnant do and then surprising them with, Hey, we got pregnant. So after it didn't IUI number two didn't happen. And we were having like this emotional tug and it was so hard to say anything to our parents. We're pretty close to both fifth of our parents. And um, by the time we got to number three, we were like, okay, this is somebody, somebody else besides just the two of us on this planet and everybody at the clinic of course need to know to try to help us to get through it. But , um, so we did end up telling our parents, but like Rama didn't know the whole planning around kind of the cruise with her.
Speaker 5So do you think that was a good decision to bring your family into it?
Speaker 4I think , yeah. I think it was very helpful at that time. Um, Danielle was very supportive and um , I think we make a pretty good team, but it was nice to have that additional support , um, at that point because you know, you go in hoping the best and of course hoping your number one works and , and then the process kind of plays out as it does. And so it was helpful at that point in time to bring them in. And they, they knew that we were going to start trying , um , we just, we were looking for that exciting moment of, you know, you're going to be grandparents again. Um, and it just wasn't in the plans that way for her .
Speaker 5I think a lot of times the expectations too , when you came in, when you're using dinners from you think, gosh, I'm healthy. I should be able to get pregnant right away. And you know, in reality, exposure to sperm takes awhile , you know, several months for most couples to be able to conceive. And I think sometimes with couples we're using dental from , they just don't understand that, you know, even if you didn't get pregnant after the second trial, it's , you're human like everybody else. And I think that's kind of a hard thing to deal with. Did you guys talk to a counselor at any point during the process?
Speaker 3No, we , we didn't, but that bringing in our moms, I mean our dads are super supportive too, but honestly speaking to our moms, it was like therapeutic for us. Cause we, when I tell you that we're close to them, we, we talked to both of our moms that a few times a day, at least. Um, so it , it was harder for us not to say to them, like , um , we have an appointment at 10 o'clock to go to the clinic. Right. That was difficult to they'd be like, oh, you're in the car. Where are you heading to? And then any other occasion, we'd be honest and say, oh, I'm just coming from school or doing whatever. So , um, I don't , we didn't, we would have gone to a counselor if we need, if that came, you know , was necessary. And actually during the initial , um, like intro to your clinic, that was an offering. That was something that, and we, we had taken that pamphlet and said, yeah, we , we're not opposed to it. If, if it gets to that point, we might want to, because we didn't want to get ever get too discouraged that we just stopped altogether.
Speaker 2And that's actually probably one of the biggest risks that anybody takes with fertility treatment is the frustration factor. And , and especially with IUI is where you've gotten inherently lower success rate. And when, when it works, it's phenomenal, but, but you guys also went through it where, where it didn't work and it didn't stick. And , and that's, that's hard not to take personally, but when you were moving forward in it, I mean, we , we had also been having conversations all along about we're going to do shared maternity and the plan was always to get Danielle pregnant first using her own eggs and then to move on to Courtney, because the nice thing is that you both have all the equipment necessary, which is phenomenal. And one of the more fun things when we're working with our female couples is you, you really do have more options. So how were those discussions at home of who wants to do what, when and how
Speaker 3For how long for us that was part of .
Speaker 4Yeah. And then we, since we originally planned , um, you know, starting out with Danielle with IUI , um , we did move on to IVF. Um, we just kind of thought we're going to stick with the original plan of we'll start with her egg first. Uh , and that, and so we just, I guess, stuck to that , um, the, and there was a lot of back and forth of, are we both going to go through retrievals? I think one of us pushed a little bit more than the other . She got her way and, and I'm happy that we did it today just at the time when you're going through it. It seems like a lot. And , um, but we've said multiple times over the last few months that we're glad that we did it and we have a plan in place when we're ready to go for number two.
Speaker 6So what was it like when you're choosing your day ?
Speaker 3That was out of all of the things that was really not my favorite like that . I felt like I was picking a toy out of a toys R us and again, the research. So we've been to school for a lot of years between the two of us. So we really like to read, and then we believe in what we read. So it's difficult when you go onto fabulous websites. I think they did an amazing job of trying to capture as much information about the donors as they can, but all that spiraling in the back of our brain is how much of this is true and how do they know what his best interest is and all of that stuff. But , um, what would,
Speaker 6What would you change about that part of the process, if you could change it to make it better for other couples in your situation?
Speaker 4I think just going with an open mind , um, you kind of, when we first started, we had maybe , um, characteristics or, you know, a plan we were looking for. Um, and as with probably the whole process is , uh, we quickly realized that it , anything we planned it, wasn't probably going to happen that way. So just be prepared and flexible. Yeah .
Speaker 3You can't look at every single detail, right? Sometimes more information is not as helpful as you think it is so overwhelming . They give you , um, like the donors health history that they've hand scored for themselves. Right. And everything looks great. And then all of a sudden there'll be some random cousin that they listed having some very random thing that I never even heard of, but then you Google it and you think, oh man, what if that then transfers to the baby ?
Speaker 4We then met with genetic counselor . He said ,
Speaker 2The Google black hole is a very deep black holes , strong gravitational.
Speaker 4Yes. And I think we got cut off . We always laugh and say, you know, analysis paralysis, like we need to put an end to this madness and like start making progress.
Speaker 3So my response about what we'll be tell other people is to start earlier than when we did right. We didn't even start looking at donors. We knew we wanted a family for forever, but we didn't start looking for donors until we had made the commitment to like start the actual process and go to the fertility clinic. And then I felt like we could have used more time, like, as it was, we still did like a full year. We were pressuring
Speaker 2Ourselves the age clock, I think
Speaker 3At that point. And you're looking at the computer after our long days at work. And you're , you know, one night you select [inaudible] . Yeah. But we did, we were really, as it turns out for the donor that we ended up picking because we both were able to get on computers at different times to look through the same , um, the same companies that had them. It turned out that this one person was the favorite for both of us on the night . So on one night together when it was like a new person. So we were like, oh, it was meant to be, we're just stopping, like , don't second guess anymore. Just you got to kill it.
Speaker 6I've had a number of couples that they've independently gone and tried to pick out donors. And they're always so excited when both people end up picking that thing . It's really neat how that happens . Yeah.
Speaker 2And so many women, when they come into us, they're really worried about how is this going to impact me emotionally? Am I going to be a Royal pain in the neck? Am I going to be crying all the time? And you didn't do that just for one of you, you did it for both of you in relatively short order. And so how was home during that? You're both still here and smiling . Yeah . So we know it worked out okay. In the end, but how was it in the middle of that?
Speaker 3Uh , I think it was the best idea that we had to do the, my retrieval first and then hers. And it could have been vice versa, hers and then mine. But when you're , um, we were really , um, sensitive to this idea that medication was going to make us a little wonky. So it , we had this heightened sense of , um , oh, I'm a little tired or I'm extra frustrated. And I, like, we were say to each other, Hey, I know I just walked in the door and you've not even said anything to me, but I'm like , I'm like frustrated for no good reason . So I'm just letting you know in case. And then we'd have a good laugh over it. Cause we'd be like, okay, I'm going to go upstairs. But I just , just in case, in case today's the day you actually explode, but we never thankfully had those explosions. It was more emotional. But at the FA I don't know if that was really medication or if it's really, it's an emotional thing. Anyway. So
Speaker 6The stressful thing to go through, I went through IVF myself and I remember getting off the phone with the nurse and crying over nothing. And, you know , after my retrieval , um, everything was, you know, it was just tears would come and it's just so many hopes and dreams are hanging on that.
Speaker 3Yeah. So for, to keep it all together so that you're just already in that state of be extra sensitive to the person that you're with for that whole time was really helpful because then it was,
Speaker 4We used a lot of jokes that were thrown around, but at the same time, this maybe probably went a little too far. So then we had the real , real bad .
Speaker 3Yes. You can take that one. Let's go back there . Yeah . But it , and it was , um, nice to have the same experience between the two of us too. Cause you know, you at the whole like , uh, getting bloated while you're taking the medication in preparation for retrieval or you describe it, but then somebody else, when they're going through it, it was so great too , when she'd be like, oh my gosh, my pants really don't fit. Like I know . Right.
Speaker 4So are the shots . So I was the second retrievable . So I think Danielle enjoyed giving me the shots or watching me get myself a little bit more. So
Speaker 2Yeah . How did you both fit all of that? Because you both have super busy just daily schedules. And how do you weave that into the course of, of the fertility treatments as you're doing it ?
Speaker 4There's just a lot of planning and your office was fantastic. There was a lot of early appointments, which was really helpful for us because we could come in before work and then , um, you know, our work or schedules stayed on track for us and , um, the shots for the majority or the medications we were doing at night. Um ,
Speaker 3Yeah, we did have to, we called a couple of times to say, Hey, they told us that we should do it at like a 6:00 PM. What's hell like how bad will it be if we do it at a seven or 8:00 PM? And they were really honest, some of them were like, no, you have to do it on this time. And we made it work. But , um, it was nice to know that if we gave it at 7 0 5, instead of at seven, that you know ,
Speaker 4Probably good stories or locations where we were , um , giving shots and what's the craziest place
Speaker 2I gave a shot, not like in the backside, but general location, Ironman environment,
Speaker 4Probably one of the concerts we were going, we were in a bathroom at one of the hotels. And I'm like, we're going to get questioned, you know, for doing this,
Speaker 3Bringing in a needle through the security for it.
Speaker 2Well, you know, you both look like your [inaudible] here . I mean ,
Speaker 3Yeah, totally. And we , um, you know, we have the T like teenage girls giggling cause we , uh , after we gave the shot in the bathroom of some of, one of the hotels where the concert is , um, we didn't want to dispose of the needle on the garbage can , even though, you know, who knows somebody else would have been just fine, but because we had the caps and everything, but I was like, Nope, we will go over to the security guard and kindly tell him we'd like to surrender so that they could put, and they really did have like the bucket back there, but then you get the look of why are they having ,
Speaker 4I had no idea where the sharps container was. Cause they'd never been asked that before
Speaker 3Anyway , so yeah, clearly we weren't doing drugs, although that's in our brains think for doing [inaudible]
Speaker 4Drugs
Speaker 3For different. Yeah .
Speaker 2Um , so how did, how labor and delivery and the whole pregnancy process go ? I mean, did you encounter anything different going to the OB GYN office or anything unusual or was it pretty smooth sailing?
Speaker 4Danielle literally vomited every day of pregnancy and we were expecting it, you know, initially morning sickness and all of that. And then it kind of got to a point where I was thinking, well, maybe this isn't quite so normal. Um, but we of course asked the doctor and it was, it was still okay. But ,
Speaker 3Uh , a little bit of weight . I didn't my , um, my mom and sister both gained 50 plus pounds in pregnancy. So I was fully prepared to be this diet whale. And then I couldn't keep food down for the life of me. And it was, that was a struggle. But I was, I always tell everybody I was the happiest cooking person ever. I mean, I just, I had toothbrushes and mouthwash and , and a trash can in my car and I figured out how to brush my teeth. And just as every day it just became so normal. It was pretty awful. But
Speaker 4From other friends who have been pregnant, I don't, I didn't take that as a normal story, not to scare anyone out there.
Speaker 3The thing is every pregnancy is different. Yes. Yeah . There's hope for number two, just because that happened with number one.
Speaker 4Yeah. I told her she was getting all the, all of that part out of the way. And number two is going to be smooth sailing . So
Speaker 3There was a period where I was having cravings and we'd never really eat a ton of fast food, but there was a period that we would , um, I would say, I feel like a random McGriddle sandwich from McDonald's that I had never had, but I saw on TV go to these places and, and get the food and then I'd have every intention of eating it. And as soon as I'd walk in the house, I'd get to six. So Courtney has come home from work and there was like, McDonald's one day in Baskin-Robbins and Wendy's all sitting on the counter. Cause I couldn't eat it. And she's like, oh great. One of the two of us is getting bigger and it's not you, so that's okay. But yeah. And then , uh , labor and delivery was, it was just so he was so great. It was hard. I went into labor on a it's like 5 45 on a Sunday. And he came out Tuesday at nine 30. So it was long, my water broke. And so in our mind we thought, oh, we read everything that says, if your water breaks 24 hours later, they'll make sure you have that baby. And that did not happen. Um,
Speaker 2Yeah, there isn't how babies run the show one way or the other, whether it's oh yeah. Well we'll have the water break. Well , we want to actually contract for a
Speaker 3Little while or dilate.
Speaker 4Yeah, we were actually PA so that was a week before her due date and we were actually packing the hospital bag and I kind of joked because it took us a few hours, which
Speaker 3Everything off the bed first the checklist. Right?
Speaker 4Yeah . And I said, well, good thing. We took care of that. Cause it was much later than we probably planned. I said, cause it's not like your water was going to break. And we were just going to throw that all in the bag. And probably within two minutes, he said, I think my water just broke and
Speaker 2Wow .
Speaker 3Maybe someone babies , but our parents both were there at the hospital. Um, if, and even mine came from California. So he, the baby was giving enough time for my parents to travel as apparently what ,
Speaker 2Yeah . I hope he continues on that trend gets older and , uh , is meeting all the rest of his milestones. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything that you would tell other couples who are going through about this process, things you wish you had known or things that would've made it easier to get through?
Speaker 3I dunno . Um , I don't have anything that would make it easier, but I, anybody who is going through this, if they have access to find somebody who has gone through it, to be able to ask all the silly questions to in between doctor's appointments, even though we were at your clinic probably twice a week for however long, right. There's still like just the, Hey I'm sort of like I have a headache. Do you think that could have anything to do with this medication? Just the silly things that really did make a difference to be able to ask our friends who had just gone through it.
Speaker 4I just say, keep us as a mind as you can, you know, you can have all the plans in the world and may not happen that way, but in the hand, that's all totally, totally.
Speaker 3Yeah. So true. You would have been very proud of a spectral beating cause we, the book with all the plans in it that we had by the time we got to the labor part, the birth plan was literally just healthy baby healthy mom. And [inaudible] , That is the most beautiful birth plan.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yes. I am so proud of you for before going with that for your birthday.
Speaker 3Yeah . That was a solid three years in the making though that you had to deal with all of our stuff first to deal with the brunt of it.
Speaker 2No, it was good. And I am so excited for both of you and I'm excited that we're going to do a shared maternity cycle somewhere along the line here. Whenever you guys decide you're ready for number two. Um, like you mentioned before, so thank you so much for coming to talk with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having
Speaker 3Yeah. Thanks for everything you've done for us to make the family couldn't do without
Speaker 2Nothing. It makes me happier for sure. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm here with Dr. Abby , Evelyn from the Nashville fertility center, Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas fertility center. And I'm Dr. Carrie BDN from the fertility center of Las Vegas. Come see us. If you need us, we're always here and we will be back soon. Take care.
Speaker 3Bye
Speaker 7[inaudible] .