“WITHOUT SCIENCE, THOSE DOCTORS AND GOD, I WOULDN’T HAVE MY BABIES”
India Hollis, 43, Mobile, Alabama
Ihave endometriosis. I struggled with fertility, even in my twenties, and was told that due to my condition, I would need fertility help. But I conceived my first child naturally at 21. My daughter is now 12. Then I was put on birth control to suppress my endometriosis.
Ten years later, my doctor told me my endometriosis was not suppressed. They said, “Your insides look like a complete mess, and the only way to conceive would be through IVF.”
I started the process with [the local fertility clinic] CRM. I consider the clinic family. It was a very hard journey. I had four miscarriages. We transferred one frozen embryo each time and I lost four embryos the first four times. For the second egg retrieval, I got four more embryos. We transferred two on the fifth transfer to get one baby, and I got twin boys. The doctors say I got double for my trouble. But without science, those doctors and God, I wouldn’t have my babies.
I can’t do another transfer because the hormones for the egg retrieval overstimulate my body. When my boys turned a year old, we donated my embryos to science, so I don’t have any frozen embryos anymore. A lot of women have hormone issues with endometriosis, so it’s hard for them to get good embryos. Because I was able to get good embryos, I wanted them to be able to research that and help another mom.
In my opinion, if the people who made the [ruling] truly understood the science behind all this, they would understand that the embryos, even once implanted, still have to grow. They don’t have a heartbeat. They don’t have anything. Just because they’re frozen does not mean they can survive. Like I said, I had two implantation failures and two that did implant but didn’t make it past the first six weeks.
If I still had frozen embryos or was going through IVF, I would be devastated. It’s so hard to get to that step of freezing your embryos and hope that this is it. For that to be snatched away is heartbreaking.
You’re telling these moms who want children, who have spent a shit-ton of money, who went through all of these procedures, took all this medicine, did a lot of work mentally, emotionally and financially that they can’t have children. It’s heartbreaking. It removes all hope for them to possibly have a biological child.