Episode 171: Finding the Right… Everything: A Journey of Trial and Error

Sherri Sawyerr: We actually ended up with a doctor that just did not give us great experience at all. You know, you’re already nervous going into that situation. And it’s a very vulnerable state. And you don’t know anything about fertility treatment. And we were not pleased at all. I got to the consultation, and he was like, “Oh, I see that you have a blocked tube.” And I’m like, “Do I? Nobody told me that.” And then he kind of had to verify and make sure that he had the right results in front of him. I just kind of felt like he wasn’t really prepared for our conversation. You’re already feeling inadequate, and you’re already feeling vulnerable and like, you’re not good enough. And that doesn’t help at all. And I feel like as a practitioner, that it is not your job to reinforce that, you know?

During our first round of IVF, we went through five embryos, and only one made it far enough to biopsy for testing and we lost four in the process of waiting for them to grow to day five. That one came back as normal and I did not have coverage for genetic testing, even though I had insurance coverage at the time. So, we still had a good chunk of money to pay, even though we had coverage then. We did one more cycle with them. And it actually turned out worse. My eggs didn’t even get big enough to be able to get to an egg retrieval the second time around and by the time they caught it, it was too late. So that cycle got cancelled and turned into IUI, which did not work for us.

Dan Bulger: Changing doctors and clinics midway is not always very easy. And sometimes it can actually be a bit restrictive. Every new doctor will need to run their own diagnostic testing, which is time consuming and can be costly. And the original doctor can actually learn quite a bit from a failed IVF cycle and then change things accordingly. Of course, I’m speaking broadly here and anyone going through this is actually going to go through their own experience. So, Sherri is certainly right to follow her gut and her gut brought them to another clinic.

Sherri Sawyerr: I just felt like there was a lot of support with the clinic, a lot of information available. And then during the lives like you can literally ask any question. So, I would always join, you know, on Sundays or whenever they would have them. And I would ask all the questions that I would have. So, we did an egg retrieval in February, we got 12 eggs, and ended up with five embryos, we had a frozen embryo transfer on 26th of April. And that, unfortunately, did not work for us.

Dan Bulger: Sherri is a content creator with a YouTube channel called Sherri Yvette, we asked her why she started sharing such a personal experience in such a public way.

Sherri Sawyerr: A lot of the research that I did was on YouTube, you know, I watched other people’s stories, I watched you know, them go through five, six cycles, and then finally get to their baby, I watched some people go through one cycle. And I really saw that there was a gap for people sharing their stories in the African American community. I wanted to create a place for women to share and for also for people to just feel comfortable in sharing because by sharing our experiences, other people feel comfortable and that they can have access to the same things and become parents because so many people just give up.