When it comes to fertility, there are many factors that can impact your ability to conceive. Michelle, 32, and Matt, 35, are a couple who know this struggle first hand. Listen to their story below.

Michelle: My menstrual cycles had been regular for as long as I can remember. And I had been on birth control for a while and we knew that we wanted to have kids at some point. So I went off of birth control to try to get my body ready for the process. At that point my menstrual cycles started being really irregular, which was kind of unusual. So I went to the doctor and to a naturopath and for acupuncture to try to sort it out and get regular. I was diagnosed with PCOS. We knew that could be a challenge when trying to conceive. We tried to conceive for about eight months, at which point we went to a fertility clinic to help us with the journey.

Matt: And as Michelle said, we went to the fertility clinic after we didn’t have any success trying on our own. We knew going in that Michelle had a few issues that might be hurdles for us, but what we learned subsequent to that was that I had some of my own.We knew we would need some assistance from the fertility clinic and that ended up being the form of IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). We knew we were dealt that hand and realized it wasn’t something we could control, so we took a positive and optimistic attitude towards it, decided to be open about it with family and close friends- preferring that as opposed keeping it as some sort of dark secret, and having that support system in place, and at the end of the day we were lucky to have success on the first try, and here we are.

Michelle: So I’m pregnant, 17 weeks pregnant and we’re really excited for what’s to come.

Mary Wong: At the end of the day, just know that you can take charge of your fertility and miracles of life can happen, and I really hope that it can happen for you.