My husband, CJ and I are both Gustie grads and have our time at Gustavus to thank for being blessed with our now 1 month old son, Jack.
10 years ago I had the opportunity to shadow a Reproductive Endocrinologist, Dr. Randle Corfman at Midwest Center for Reproductive Health in Maple Grove as part of my J-term. I had originally met him at a guest lecture he was doing at Gustavus. I was able to witness the strength and agony that couples going through IVF went through trying to have a baby, and as I stood in the exam room during an embryo transfer, even before I was married, something in my gut told me I would be there myself one day.
Low and behold, fast forward 10 years and finding out that ICSI was our only option to have a biological child of our own, I knew exactly where we were going for care. I scheduled our appointment knowing we would be in excellent hands with Dr. Corfman and never looked back.
We put all our eggs in one basket so to speak. We had to make significant changes and sacrifice to move forward in growing our family. We put our dreams of home-ownership and paying down student loans on hold to spend tens of thousands on surgeries, diagnostic tests, medications, and the IVF procedure itself. I traded my Caribou Coffee run for daily 22g (yup, that’s a blood draw needle) 1.5inch oil injections into my bum. And would we do it all over again, absolutely!
If there is one thing our Son will know is how much he was wished for and loved.
Assisted reproductive technologies are not covered by most insurance plans. Unfortunately, this was true in our case. Both working for small businesses, we have private insurance plans with high deductibles and high premiums and minimal maternity/paternity leave. But such is life, it’s just part of our story, as it is for many others.
We will teach our son that happiness is more important than money will ever be. We feel incredibly lucky that our infertility journey lead us to where we are now, with the birth of a happy, healthy baby boy and know that for many their journey endures bumps, bruises and dead-ends.
We are blessed to have such wonderful friends and family that have supported us through our journey, and I feel incredibly lucky to have serendipitously sat in on that Gustavus guest lecture 10 years ago.
CJ and I are the 1 in 8 couples affected by infertility and love and science made our baby, Jack, possible.
Written by Carly (Johnson) Erickson, Class of 2009