Malinda Morrison always knew having children of her own might require medical intervention. 

She was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a hormonal imbalance that affects the female reproductive system, while in college. 

“I got that diagnosis and the doctor just flat out looked at me and said, ‘You’re never going to get pregnant and if you do, you’re going to need a lot of help,’” said Morrison, now a nurse at University of Michigan Health. “I was so young at the time, so I wasn’t even thinking about kids, but I always knew there could be this potential problem to have children.”

She said the diagnosis weighed heavily on her mind when she started dating her now husband, David Morrison, a nurse practitioner. The couple met in the medical field.

When she decided to open up to him about the condition, he was very accepting, she says. The two later got married and decided to start having children right away.

One of the ways the American Society of Reproductive Medicine defines infertility is not getting pregnant after trying for 12 months if the person is under 35 years old. Because of Morrison’s PCOS diagnosis, she was told to try for six months and if she didn’t become pregnant in that time, she would be referred to a reproductive endocrinologist. 

Those six months had come and gone, and it was time to try medication and injections to help her become pregnant. The couple sought help at the U-M Center for Reproductive Medicine. After a year of trying, they got some news that would alter their journey.

Morrison became pregnant, but after a few weeks, the pregnancy was found to be ectopic, meaning it was developing outside of her uterus. She then underwent a procedure to check the patency of her fallopian tubes and received the result that both of her tubes were blocked, leaving in vitro fertilization, or IVF, as her only option to become pregnant. 

“My husband and I went to college, we started our careers, we met and then got married, so the next step for us was to have children and that’s what we had looked forward to for so long and now we’re at this big roadblock,” Morrison said. “We knew automatically that the next step was IVF. We had no other choice if we wanted to be parents.”

“IVF simply means fertilization outside of the body”, says Erica E. Marsh, MD, MSCI,  chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at U-M Health Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital.

“IVF is often the most effective way to conceive for couples affected by infertility,” she said.

In most menstrual cycles, Marsh explains, a woman will ovulate and release a single egg. IVF involves giving a patient medication to stimulate the ovaries to produce and mature multiple eggs.

Before the ovaries release them, the fertility treatment team retrieves them and mixes them with sperm. 

“Twenty-four hours later we see how many of the eggs are fertilized and we allow them to grow for five to six days and then transfer an embryo at that time or freeze the embryos,” Marsh said.

Hitting devastating roadblocks

For the Morrisons, the first retrieval produced six embryos and led to a pregnancy on the first transfer.

“We thought we finally made it,” Morrison said. We’ve had our ultrasound, we see that the baby is in my uterus, we’re in the clear. Then we get to that second ultrasound, and we find out that things don’t look good and that I was possibly miscarrying. Ultimately the pregnancy didn’t make it and that was devastating.” 

But they didn’t give up, deciding they’d keep trying. Then the couple was hit another roadblock: the COVID-19 pandemic. With both working in the medical field, not only had their professional lives turned upside down, but their personal lives as well.

They were preparing for another transfer when they received the news that all transfers were being canceled for the time being. 

“That was another devastating blow because I’m in the thick of all this and when you’re taking hormones and injections, it’s a lot on your body, your mental health, your relationship,” Morrison said. 

When they were able to get back into a facility that was doing transfers, they had two embryos left. Neither transfer resulted in a pregnancy.

Morrison then went back to a reproductive specialist for extensive testing before undergoing a second egg retrieval procedure. After a lengthy and emotional process, they were able to get seven embryos.

“A long time ago that would have seemed like a lot but because of our history of having six embryos and walking away with nothing, it made me super nervous,” Morrison said. “At that seventh transfer I was just at a point in my mind where I was like ‘Let’s just do it.’ When that fails, not if that fails, let’s move on to something else with our other six embryos.”

She describes the day of that transfer as the calmest she has ever been during one. She received the result on her phone while at work not too long after but just didn’t have the stomach to check it. Working in the emergency department, she needed to be in the right mindset to care for patients and decided to check after her shift, she says.

When she got home around 8 p.m. that night, she was still hesitant to check the results but had a spur of the moment change of heart and opened the portal.

The message that awaited her read “Congratulations, you’re pregnant.”

“I’m just sitting there, shocked,” Morrison said. I can’t believe what I’m reading because at this point, I hadn’t been pregnant in years, and I had really lost hope that it was ever going to happen for me. At that point, I was thinking if I did have children of my own, I didn’t think I would be the one that could carry them.”

She says the couple was “cautiously optimistic” with this pregnancy, having been down this road before. Because she didn’t feel any pregnancy symptoms early, Morrison had convinced herself there was no way she was actually pregnant. 

"He makes everything worth it.”

Then she got to her first ultrasound and saw her son in utero for the first time.

“I know the saying that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains, but mine was so much smaller than that and it’s that tiny, tiny bit that makes you put one foot in front of the other and keep going. I’m so thankful I did because I really felt like I was at that last point of walking away and had I done that I wouldn’t have my son,” Morrison said.

Although she was monitored closely, she had a typical healthy pregnancy. Once the couple knew they were having a boy, they decided immediately to name him after his father and picked the name, David George Morrison IV. 

“People who get pregnant with IVF get monitored much earlier in their pregnancy because we know the moment of conception,” Marsh said. “They tend to get monitored in the six-to-eight-week window that other pregnant patients may not get because it may take a couple of months to realize they’re pregnant.”

When it came time to give birth, Malinda Morrison had to be induced because her labor was not progressing. Later that night, she started to feel ill, complaining of chills, feeling feverish and feeling pain despite having an epidural. The explanation was a chorioamnionitis diagnosis—an infection of the amniotic fluid. In the midst of this chaos, the medical team struggled to find David’s heartbeat and when they did it was slow.

A team of doctors and nurses came rushing in and made the quick decision that they couldn’t wait any later to get the baby out and opted for an emergency Caesarean. Luckily, the infection had not spread to David and he was born at a healthy 8 pounds, 13 oz.

“I just remember looking at the doctor and I told her I have waited so long to get to my son, let’s just get him out,” Morrison said. “I cannot lose my son. It was this very heavy moment. We have the C section, and they pull him out and say, ‘Oh my gosh, he has so much hair.’ I’ll never forget that and hearing him cry for the first time. It’s just embedded in my soul. He makes everything worth it.”

And finally, she was able to hold him in her arms for the first time.

“In those moments where you feel like there’s no hope, it’s in there somewhere,” Morrison said. “You got to keep pushing if that’s what you really want and it’s so worth it. I honestly thought I would never get to that point to see that everything I did would pay off. People used to tell me that once you have your child it pushes those bad memories of what you went through to get your child away and it really does.”

Since coming home from the hospital, the baby boy has been nothing but a happy and healthy child, learning new things every day, the new parents say. The Morrisons are enjoying getting to know him, spending time watching him dance and play with their three huskies at the park.

“Infertility journeys are different for each patient, “Marsh said. “Some are quick, some take months to years.  Some require IVF and some happen with less invasive treatment options.  We work hard for our patients to have one thing in common -- that moment of joy. The moment of realizing that they will be parents. We were so happy to play a part in that journey for Malinda and David.”