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By Alyce Collins and Lauren Tassi
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I know many people have a vision for what they want their future to hold, from the gorgeous house, happy marriage and children with pristine matching outfits. Frankly, I was never one of those women.
When I was younger, starting a family wasn’t on my radar because I didn’t think I wanted kids.
I was lucky enough to meet my now-husband, Alex, when we were around 19 years old. Two college students ready to carve out our lives together. Kids weren’t part of the picture, I was just happy being the fun aunt.
Read More on My Turn
One of the best parts about meeting your soulmate so early is that you get to grow and evolve together. We were essentially just kids when we met, but over the years, we built stable careers and lives. By the time we reached our 30s, we started to think about what we wanted for the future.
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One day, we started talking about kids. Of course, the topic had come up before, but this time was more intentional.
I knew Alex would be a fantastic dad, but it took me time to think about being a mother because I had never pictured it before.
For the first time, I realized that I wanted to start a family—but I wanted to get married before anything else.
‘You Can’t Will Your Way to Get Pregnant’
I was in my mid-30s when we started getting serious—but then life happened.
In April 2022, Alex and I got married and planned to start trying within a year. Admittedly, I never had concerns about our chances as we were two healthy 30-somethings.
Just a month later, in May, Alex noticed some swelling in his neck. It seemed really odd so I urged him to see a doctor just in case.
Weeks and months went by before we eventually got the answer. That summer, our first as a married couple, Alex was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.
With so much uncertainty surrounding Alex’s health, we knew it wasn’t a great time to start a family, but I did come off birth control in preparation.
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I actually got pregnant in the first cycle afterward, but sadly it resulted in a miscarriage. I didn’t even know, I just went to the first prenatal appointment and there was no heartbeat.
At that time, Alex was getting ready to begin chemotherapy and froze his sperm in case the treatment impacted his fertility. That was our first foray into fertility treatments (we had no idea how many more visits there would be).
Between the miscarriage and my husband’s chemotherapy, it clearly was not the right time for us. But I remained optimistic because of how seemingly easy it had been to conceive. We would just try again when we felt ready.
Alex completed six months of chemotherapy and as physically challenging as that was, one of the toughest parts was when he contracted sepsis from his chemo port. He spent a month in the hospital, and his recovery was incredibly slow.
It was a very scary time, but thankfully, he pulled through and is fine now.
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Once his treatment ended, we returned to the fertility clinic in May 2023 and tried intrauterine insemination (IUI) with his frozen sperm. The first attempt was unsuccessful, so we tried again a month later, but to the same avail.
It was so tough because my way of processing things is to move forward. I’m a very type-A person and normally, if I want something, I will make it happen. But getting pregnant doesn’t work that way.
You can’t will your way to get pregnant.
Sperm regenerates approximately every three months, so Alex got his tested post-chemo and it looked fine. So, we decided to take a break from treatment and tried to conceive naturally instead.
Several months passed and nothing happened. We were doing all the things necessary but there didn’t seem to be any glimmer of hope.
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By early 2024, we decided to try IVF instead. I felt stuck in the world of infertility, and I was so ready for some good news to come our way. We had been through cancer and a miscarriage, surely, it was our time?
In April 2024, we did an egg retrieval, and they managed to get nine eggs, which I thought was great. We ended up with five embryos, so surely one of them would be successful.
However, genetic testing revealed that all the embryos had genetic abnormalities. No matter how many we had, it wasn’t advisable to implant any. We were utterly devastated, especially because there were no warning signs and there was nothing we could have done differently. Our doctor said it was essentially bad luck.
'I Would Stop at Nothing to Boost Our Chances'
It’s so hard to keep going when all you face are hurdles.
We took another six-month break, and I threw myself into doing everything I could to improve my egg quality. That was part of the problem and it was just about all I could control.
I worked with a fertility dietitian, did acupuncture, took supplements, and immersed myself in fertility literature. It was exhausting, but I would stop at nothing to boost our chances.
We were still trying in the meantime, hoping to be one of those miracle couples who get pregnant in between IVF cycles.
In January 2025, it was time to try again. I had thrown everything at the wall to improve my egg quality, but we got the same outcome. We got five embryos and they were all genetically abnormal.
How many times could we keep trying and getting the same results?
This time, our attention turned to donor embryos.
I had been sharing my fertility journey on social media and connected with so many women in a similar situation. I became quite close with a few, and to my amazement, one woman offered to donate four genetically normal embryos for us.
We hear so much about the horrors of social media, but this was one of those truly beautiful moments.
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In the summer of 2025, we finally got the all clear to start the embryo transfer (there was a lot of paperwork to complete prior). The first one failed so we tried again, and then I had the anxious wait to find out if it worked. I desperately wanted to be pregnant, but I knew better than to get too excited.
Seven days after the transfer, I was out for a casual morning walk and in that moment, I was hit by a car. As if I hadn’t faced enough challenges already.
“I am pregnant!” I yelled while laying motionless in the street.
I injured my wrist and ankle (which I later learned were actually fractured) and was immediately transported to the hospital by ambulance. At the ER, I asked for a blood pregnancy test, and it showed that I was in the very early stages of pregnancy.
I was holding onto hope, but two days later when I tested again, there was a different result. To my dismay, it was likely a chemical pregnancy and nothing more.
Had I not been hit by a car, would it have stuck? Maybe, we’ll never know.
I was in a wheelchair for six weeks, needed surgery and physical therapy, so this definitely wasn’t the right time to conceive. Nonetheless, I started looking into additional protocols that might help once we were ready.
I took certain vitamins to help my hormones, I started a GLP-1, made sure to get at least seven hours of sleep a night, and changed my diet.
Over the next six months, I basically built my own healthy protocol and I did regular blood tests to monitor my hormones throughout. I could see how stressed I had been and how everything started to move in the right direction with all the changes.
I set a date to return to the fertility clinic and try again with a donor embryo, but to my astonishment, it wasn’t needed. That's because, in early June 2026, the last cycle before the deadline, I missed my period.
I had done countless pregnancy tests over the years, but this time, there were two lines instead of one. I was pregnant naturally at 41!
I was in complete disbelief because I had looked at so many negative tests in the past, I just couldn’t fathom what I was seeing. It was a victory to even be pregnant, but I had to temper myself because we had gone through pregnancy loss before.
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'Things Are Looking Up'
Those early weeks were incredibly nerve-wracking because there was so much that could go wrong. But I’m now in my second trimester and I feel pretty confident that things are looking up.
Knowing how hard we fought to get here, it’s amazing to feel the baby kicking and moving. There were so many times when I thought this may not be our path. Had I not got pregnant naturally, my brain was already planning ahead for the donor embryos and then potentially adoption.
It’s wild because I feel like I jumped to a different timeline. One moment I was going through infertility, then I got pregnant at 41 and our baby is due in February.
I am beyond grateful that my husband is who he is because I cannot imagine going through this with anyone else. I am so relieved that we have overcome four really hard years including cancer, infertility and injuries. Perhaps all of our trauma went into the last four years and now we can move forward with a slightly easier life (albeit with a newborn).
That said, I do not intend to make anyone else feel bad or diminish what they are going through.
If you’re trying to conceive and facing infertility, don’t give up hope. I genuinely believe there is always a way, whether it’s natural, IVF or adoption.
You will find your happy ending someday.
Lauren Tassi, 41, resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and they are expecting their first child in February 2027. She has documented her fertility journey online to connect with others and share the highs and lows of her experience.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Charlotte Nisbet and Dave Siminoff.
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