Our Fertility Story

Laughter Through Tears was originally designed as a safe haven for the fertility obsessed to come and fuel their addiction in a positive way. However in the course of our treatment, God reached out and changed out lives in an indescribable way. For awhile, we stopped blogging.  Now Alisa is writing under a new blog and can be followed here.  However all original content remains intact in the hopes it may meet others in their need for information and humor as they face infertility.

Meet the Winslow’s- Our Back Story

My name is Alisa Winslow and I will do most of the writing for this blog. My husband Bill and I have been married since 2005. We started trying to get pregnant soon after we married and it didn’t happen in the first 6 months. I never charted body temperature or peed on a stick and waited for a smiley face to appear. We didn’t try that hard at first. We weren’t too concerned. Well… not too concerned.

Just when I was beginning to think something might be a little off,  I was promoted to a mid level executive position with my company (a commercial bank) that required me to be away from home as many as four nights a week every week. We decided to put baby making on hold for a year or two and focus on my career. It was a great opportunity and hopefully a stepping stone to something bigger in a couple of years that would pay more and allow me to be close to home.

In 2008 things changed in the banking business. There was a little bit of a financial crisis and a restructuring gave me the opportunity to go into a job at the same grade level, slightly better pay, but with much less travel. (Admittedly the little financial crisis worked out better for me than most but since Bill is a realtor we considered it a wash).

Just like that we were back in the baby making business!

I mentioned our plans to my OB during my regular visit and casually told him of our previous attempts. Because of my age, 34 at the time, he decided to do an ultrasound just to see how the plumbing looked. He immediately referred me to a fertility specialist, suspecting my tubes were completely filled with fluid.  The specialist confirmed the diagnosis and removed the tubes to give us the best chance possible with what would be the only way we could conceive, In Vitro Fertilization. IVF. Test tube baby making (which is actually a misnomer, they use petri dishes).

We never did any of the other usual “stuff” leading up to IVF. No IUIs, no Chlomid.  We passed “Go” and went straight to IVF. So, I am pretty useless on the topic of other reproductive treatments.

As a busy working woman I remember thinking “cool, this way I can just schedule our pregnancy. Maternity leave in the summer here in Northern Michigan would be AWESOME. We will schedule it, the lab and doctor will do the hard work,  I will pick the time when they will put that fertilized egg back and whammo, I’ll be knocked up!”

Um… not that simple. NOTHING about IVF is simple.

Over the next few years, four embryo transfers and tens of thousands of dollars we finally had a little girl named Evie in January of 2012. It was middle of flu season and temperatures were sub zero for most of my maternity leave. By then I couldn’t care less.

We started trying to give her a sibling in January of 2013 and once again it was a long road. One that involved two clinics, three more embryos transfers, one heartbreaking miscarriage. and eventually TWINS! Max (boy) and Wesleigh (girl) were born January 19, 2016.

Our family in now complete and we have two genetically normal embryos for which we are seeking to donate in an open adoption to a Christian family.

Along the way we had another life changing experienced that caused our faith to grow exponentially. You can read about it here.

My Testimony- The Story Behind the Brice and Brianna Cross

Since we started sharing our story openly we have had been inspired by so many others that have experienced challenges with fertility and we feel that sharing our story may be a way for help others, particularly Christians, who are struggling with the same thing and making difficult decisions on treatment.

While we are very experienced in infertility, we are young in our newly reinvigorated discipleship of Christ and are always learning about Him. We hope you find something here that inspires you and we are always open to helping you with your own journey with infertility. Of course we would be honored to help you in your spiritual journey as well.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy!