If you’re in the middle of an infertility journey right now, or you’ve ever carried the quiet grief of hoping month after month, this one is for you. This is the story of how we found our way to our son through IVF, and everything it took to get there emotionally. I’m sharing it because I wish I’d had something like this to read when I was in the thick of it.
I never imagined our IVF after tubal reversal journey would become such a big part of our story.
Especially the second time around.
I already had children. I had loved them fiercely through some of the hardest seasons of my life. And during one of those heavy seasons, I made a decision that felt right at the time. I tied my tubes. I wasn’t dreaming about more babies then. I was just trying to survive the life I was already living.
I thought that chapter was probably over.
I had already lived through heartbreak before.
I had already gone through seasons that made me stop imagining a bigger future for myself.
And then I met someone who made me want to try everything again.
When the Dream Quietly Came Back
Something shifted in me slowly, the way big things usually do — not all at once, but in small, quiet moments.
He didn’t have children of his own. And somewhere in falling in love with him, I started imagining things I hadn’t let myself imagine in years. A bigger family. A home filled with more voices and mess and laughter. Another baby, not just mine, but ours.
Growing up, I always quietly wanted a big family. My childhood often felt lonely, and somewhere inside me that little girl never fully stopped longing for something full and warm and close.
Now, standing next to this man I loved, that longing came back.
But there was a painful reality sitting between that dream and us.
A decision I had made years earlier, in a completely different season of my life, now carried a completely different emotional weight.
The guilt of that was something I carried quietly for a long time.
Guilt that my choice might have taken something from him.
Guilt that loving me might mean giving up a dream he deserved.
Guilt that maybe this struggle somehow started with me.
There were moments I genuinely wondered if staying together was even fair to him.
That part hurt in a way I didn’t always know how to say out loud.
Trying Anyway
We decided to try.
First came surgery to reverse my tubal ligation. Then came a year of fertility treatments, timed cycles, and carefully held hope every single month.
And every month, when my period came back, something quietly broke a little.
The hard part was the private grief.
The kind that happens alone in a bathroom or in the car on the way home from another appointment. The kind where you’ve already started hoping before you could stop yourself, and then you have to somehow pull yourself back together and start all over again.
Month after month of rebuilding hope just to watch it disappear again changes you in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.
Accepting That IVF Was Our Path
One of the hardest moments of this whole journey happened before a single needle was ever involved.
It was simply accepting that we probably weren’t going to get pregnant on our own.
IVF felt huge before we even started.
Emotionally.
Financially.
Physically.
I remember sitting in those first appointments feeling nervous in a way I hadn’t expected. I didn’t fully understand yet what IVF would actually ask of my body.
Then it started…
and I understood.
The medications.
The hormone injections.
The bloodwork and ultrasounds happening constantly.
The careful timing.
The retrieval.
And then the long stretch of waiting to hear how many eggs survived, how many fertilized, and how many made it to freezing.
Every update felt like holding your breath.
I even bought a little organizer box just to keep all the IVF medications and injections together because there were so many.
Looking back now, I can still picture it sitting on the counter filled with needles, alcohol wipes, medications, and all the things we needed for IVF.
Our lives slowly started revolving around appointments, medications, injections, and waiting.
The Emotional Weight of IVF
The hormones hit me hard emotionally too.
I felt exhausted all the time.
I cried without warning sometimes.
My body didn’t fully feel like my own.
And underneath all of it was this strange pressure to stay positive.
As if hoping too much might somehow jinx it…
but not hoping enough felt like giving up.
IVF has a way of making you feel like you’re living in limbo — trying to protect your heart while still letting yourself hope.
Some days my husband and I felt incredibly close through all of it.
Other days we were both quietly carrying more than we knew how to put into words.
I watched him keep holding onto hope even after disappointments that would have broken a lot of people.
And I carried guilt the entire time because some part of me kept feeling like this struggle had started with me.
Transfer Day
By the time we reached the embryo transfer, everything started feeling more real than I had let myself believe it could.
I walked into that appointment terrified.
Not because I didn’t want it…
but because I wanted it so badly that the fear of losing it had nowhere to go.
Before the procedure, they handed us a photo of our embryo.
I cried immediately.
That tiny image already felt like our baby to me. After everything we had walked through emotionally to get to that moment, something so small carrying so much hope was almost more than I could hold.
I could hear the emotion in my husband’s voice too, even as he tried to stay steady for me.
The transfer itself was quiet and gentle.
Afterward I laid there for a little while, and during the drive home we talked about how exciting it all suddenly felt while also reminding ourselves not to get our hopes too high yet.
But that’s the impossible thing about IVF.
You try to guard your heart.
And hope finds its way in anyway.
The Waiting
The days after the transfer were some of the longest of my life.
I analyzed every sensation.
Every small shift in how I felt.
Every tiny symptom.
I tested early on my husband’s birthday — probably too soon — and I swear I saw that faint second line.
My heart immediately started racing.
I cried instantly.
Part of me wanted to scream it to the whole world right then.
But my husband stayed cautious.
We had already been through a chemical pregnancy before. That heartbreak of thinking you finally made it… and then suddenly it’s gone.
He wasn’t ready to fully let hope in yet.
I understood completely.
And at the same time, somewhere deep inside me, I already felt like our baby was there.
When We Finally Heard Yes
When the fertility clinic confirmed the pregnancy, it felt like every emotion we had spent months trying to hold back finally came loose all at once.
Joy.
Relief.
Gratitude.
Fear.
Excitement.
All tangled together.
Even after finally hearing yes, the pregnancy still felt emotionally fragile for a while.
After fighting so hard to get there, my mind kept filling in worst-case scenarios.
What if something goes wrong?
What if my body can’t hold onto this?
What if we lose this baby too?
Being older and post-IVF also placed me into higher-risk monitoring throughout pregnancy, which carried its own constant worry in the back of my mind.
But underneath all of those fears was something I hadn’t let myself fully feel in a long time.
Pure, overwhelming gratitude.
Hearing the heartbeat for the first time felt surreal.
After everything it took to get there, hearing that tiny sound suddenly made everything feel real in a completely different way.
I don’t think I breathed normally through that entire appointment.
To Anyone in the Middle of This Right Now
You are not alone in this.
There are so many women carrying exactly what you’re carrying right now… the monthly grief, the guilt, the hope you keep having to rebuild, the exhaustion of trying to stay strong through something so emotionally heavy for so long.
I know what it feels like when your period comes back and you have to quietly grieve all over again.
I know the shame of wondering what’s wrong with your body.
The guilt of asking yourself what you could have done differently.
Please be gentler with yourself than I was with myself.
Go on a date night.
Do something that reminds you who you are outside of all of this.
Let yourself breathe.
Let yourself feel things without immediately trying to fix them.
This season is hard.
And it is not a reflection of your worth, your strength, or your readiness for the family you’re fighting for.
Sometimes I still look at my son and quietly think…
we really made it here.
✨ Thank you for letting me share this part of my story. I hope it helps someone feel a little less alone in whatever season they’re walking through.
With love,
Rachel (RaiRai 💛)
This post shares my personal experience with infertility and IVF. Every journey is different, and this story is not meant to replace medical advice or speak for everyone’s experience.
You may also want to read:
Leave a Reply