It never crossed my mind that I would ever be thinking of being a mother at 51 years old. Coming out of a divorce after 10 years of marriage, being the mother of three wonderful, grown children, and having had a tubal ligation 18 years ago after my last child, it never occurred to me that I would want to have a baby again.
I met my fiancé, Manuel, nearly 10 years ago. He was a wonderful, caring person and I saw myself falling in love with him – all I wanted was to have a family with him. At the time I wasn’t sure we were on the same page, I was a single mother of three, he was single with no kids, but everything was great between us. Three years into our relationship, my children and I moved into his home, however having children together was never a conversation we had. Two years later we ended up buying our new home together and a year after that, we got engaged. Our children grew up, and our oldest had a baby – I was a grandmother! Our grandbaby brought that feeling into our hearts to have a child of our own together, so we decided that we were going to give it a try.
Manuel did not have any children of his own and had been told all his life that he couldn’t, so he never worried about it. I asked him if he wanted to have a baby because I was willing, healthy, and felt so strong. He told me if I found a doctor, we could go through with this journey together! I began searching and calling places. I found it harder than I anticipated because I was being turned down every time since I was 50 years old. I started to feel hopeless until I found the website for VCRM. After reading about it in depth, I told Manuel that I found the place for us and we went ahead and made an appointment.
I have never been so glad to meet such wonderful people – from Doctor Sharara to the whole staff, everyone is so wonderful. I loved that office so much that I was always looking forward to going to my appointments. I was so excited to find a doctor that I didn’t think of the challenges and all of the things that needed to be done for this journey, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I told myself I want to try and do whatever was possible for my fiancé so that he could go through the beautiful experience of being a father. There’s nothing bigger than that – being a mother and experiencing that unconditional love has been everything to me.
We started our journey at the very beginning of the year and I couldn’t believe how much hard work went into doing IVF. Doctor Sharara never put any doubt in my mind that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do this – he was so positive and quite honestly, that really motivated me. All the testing, the lab work, medications, surgeries, time and effort, everything seemed to be so much! We began the IVF process and I made sure that I was doing everything as I was instructed to – taking my medicine and the injections every day until the implantation day. We trusted Dr. Sharara with everything and we did whatever was asked of us to make the process smoother. Unfortunately, our first IVF failed… I felt horrible after getting the first sonogram and hearing the doctor say that there was no baby. I felt for Manuel because I knew how much he wanted this. I was disappointed at myself and feeling down about the whole thing. What made us feel better was that Doctor Sharara was concerned about my health and he just advised me to take a break.
Almost two months later we decided to give it another try, this time we did frozen embryos instead. The second time around seemed to be much easier for me and I felt more confident that my body was now ready for this. I was determined to follow all the instructions and do everything that was asked of me for this IVF round to be successful. I started to tell myself that the first IVF was not a loss or a failure, but that it was Doctor Sharara’s work preparing my body for this second time around.
We made the appointment for the first sonogram after finding out it was positive but I couldn’t wait because I was so excited, so I took a pregnancy test before my blood test – it was positive but I didn’t tell Manuel about it because I wanted to wait for the blood test results. Nurse Jo called me from Doctor Sharara’s office and said it was a positive pregnancy! We were so excited about the news that Manuel couldn’t believe it! I had to proceed with so much caution because I didn’t want the same thing to happen like the first IVF. When we finally got the wonderful news that there was a baby, we all cried! It was amazing news, I could see in Doctor Sharara’s face the feeling of happiness and success – it was an amazing feeling to know that I was having a baby.
My sadness came when Doctor Sharara said that now that I was pregnant, he was going to release me to my OBGYN! I cried! I wanted him to keep taking care of me through the whole process – I was just scared that something would happen if I wasn’t under his care, but unfortunately I had to move on!
I am now four months into my pregnancy and we couldn’t be happier to know that we are having a boy. Doctor Sharara has given us, especially my fiancé, the gift of life – and that is priceless! We are forever grateful to him and his team, we can’t wait to have our picture taken in his office with our future son.
I want to tell everyone about Doctor Sharara – he is so professional, so well prepared, knows what he is doing, and he truly has a passion for what he does. I want everyone to know that in order for someone to go through the process of doing IVF, you need to have a very positive mindset, attitude, and remember that everything you put your mind to is possible (I learned that from Doctor Sharara). I also wanted to give a special recognition to Doctor Sharara’s staff. From the first day that we walked into his office until the day that we were told we were pregnant, every one of them, had been there for us. I want them to know that they were my support while I was going through this process. I love that some of them let me cry in their arms and gave me so much hope to keep going, they called to check up on me after hours, on weekends, and while some of them were on vacation. That is something truly amazing. I have so much love for all of the ladies they are all amazing!
Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful story – we cannot wait to meet your beautiful baby boy in a few months!!!