Laurie Haines
Five sentences about me…
I am a FIGHTER! I beat infertility odds and at 43 became a mom of twin girls after 3 years of trying. I'm currently battling my second round of breast cancer only 6 months after finishing chemo. I'm an artist, musician, poet and I DON'T GIVE UP.
Five sentences about what I've endured in the fertility realm...
A crapload of drugs, injections and heartache, not knowing if my relationship was strong enough. The anxiety of wondering if I have enough follicles, if the embryos created will survive and if implantation will work are all incredibly stressful. I had frozen 12 of my eggs when I was 36 as a safety net and at 40 thawed them out - lost half during the thaw and the others didn't fertilize normally. I went through 14 rounds of retrievals, 4 transfers, 1 miscarriage, and got pregnant with healthy twins from transferring five frozen (day 3) embryos.
One thing I wish I knew going into my fertility journey...
To live my life more and not consume every thought around when I was ovulating.
One thing about me that is forever changed because of my fertility journey...
Extreme compassion for those going through infertility. That it's incredibly unfair that only those who can afford fertility treatments get to try for their dream family. It should be covered by insurance and made accessible to all income levels.
One funny moment or anecdote from my fertility journey...
Shooting up drugs in the car at the gas station.
One product, practice, or ritual I adopted during my fertility journey, which I have/have not kept a part of my life...
I wore a necklace that had my initial from when I was a kid, along with a pendant necklace from my husband and a necklace gift from my fertility office every day until it broke, which was after birth. I also was given a fertility goddess I kept by my bedside and kept until my babies were 5 months old. But the one thing I've never stopped doing was taking our doggie on a walk pretty much every day. I walked before I was pregnant, until the day I went into labor and continued to push strollers up and down hills until they were too big.