HAMASIKA

Fertility Success Stories

Zannyha's Story

Zannyha Martell
Home: Birmingham, Alabama
Child: 12 months

by Connie Matthissen

The first time Zannyha Martell became pregnant, it was a complete surprise. "We weren't even trying," she recalls. "I was 25, and I didn't feel ready to have a child. I thought, 'Wait, I'm too young to have a baby!'"

Zannyha, who moved to the United States from Mexico when she was a teenager, had what she calls a "perfect pregnancy" and an easy delivery — until the last minute, when her baby went into fetal distress and was born dead. "They couldn't find anything wrong," says Zannyha. "They think she may have choked on some phlegm."

After losing their baby, Zannyha and her husband, Miguel, decided to wait before trying again. Three years later, when they decided they were ready, Zannyha couldn't seem to get pregnant.

"It put such stress on our marriage. Sex was no longer fun — my husband was like a machine to me. It was like, 'come on, it's time, get over here!'"

The fertility specialists they consulted couldn't find anything wrong with either of them. One doctor suggested that Zannyha's weight might be impeding conception, so she dropped the extra pounds but still didn't get pregnant. Over the next five years, they sold their house and cashed in their retirement plans so they could afford fertility treatments. After two IVF procedures, she still wasn't pregnant.

"It was a terrible time," Zannyha says today. "It put such a stress on our marriage. Sex was no longer fun -- my husband was like a machine in my eyes. It was like, 'Come on, it's time, get over here!'"

Finally, the fertility specialist told the couple that, even though she could find no physical reason they could not bear a child, there was nothing more she could do. "I just don't think it's going to happen," she said.

"We were very sad," says Zannyha. "But by then, we'd pretty much given up hope."

Six or seven months after they stopped fertility treatments, Zannyha went to the doctor for a checkup. She was concerned because she was tired all the time and kept bursting into tears for no apparent reason. After running several tests, her doctor told her to sit down -- and informed her that she was eight weeks pregnant.

When Zannyha's husband, Miguel, walked in the door from work, she showed him the sonogram. Miguel had come up with the idea that Zannhya had a tumor -- that was what was preventing her from getting pregnant and making her tired -- so when he saw the sonogram, he assumed it was a picture of the tumor.

"When are they going to take it out?" he asked. When she told him it was a baby in the sonogram, not a tumor, he still didn't believe it.

Zannyha now thinks that her infertility was caused at least in part by the trauma of losing her first child. "I was so afraid of going through it all again, even though it was what I wanted more than anything," she says. "The first time, it was such an easy pregnancy, and everything went perfect. But if everything was perfect, how could my baby die? And could it happen all over again?"

Perhaps because she'd tried so hard and for so long, when she finally got pregnant, Zannyha was able to enjoy the experience completely. "I just felt joy and happiness the whole time," she says. "It was considered a high-risk pregnancy because I was 35 and what had happened before. But everything went fine." Gabriella was born in February 2007.

"I've loved every minute of being a mother," says Zannyha. "You hear people complaining about their kids, about getting up in the night, about flus and vomiting. But if you have trouble having a baby, you cherish every minute."

Source: http://www.babycenter.com