No longer afraid of Tet, no longer avoiding class reunions and parties every spring. The spring of At Ty year 2025 is the sweetest, happiest and most confident spring for the couple Vu Thanh Hoan (1990) and Nguyen Quoc Hung (1989) in Hanoi, since they became husband and wife.
Dreaming of holding a pregnancy test with 2 lines to show off to parents
Married in 2014, worried because she had waited for good news, Ms. Hoan decided to go for a reproductive health check-up. "The world seemed to darken before her eyes" when the doctor informed her that she had fluid retention and blockage in both fallopian tubes, and would need surgery to clear the blockage or IVF.
“We didn’t have enough money for IVF, so we chose the surgical method with a small hope of getting pregnant naturally… The surgery was successful, the fallopian tubes were clear, but after 3 months there was still no change. We were so anxious to have a baby that we decided to try the IUI method, but we still couldn’t get pregnant,” Ms. Hoan recalled.
After two unsuccessful IUIs, Ms. Hoan went for another x-ray of her uterus and fallopian tubes and discovered that both fallopian tubes were blocked. With no other choice, the couple had to borrow money to have enough money to do IVF.
“During the entire process of stimulating my eggs, monitoring the lining, and transferring the embryos, every day I dreamed of holding a two-line pregnancy test and showing it to my parents and relatives. But then I woke up and realized it was just a dream,” said Ms. Hoan.
During that IVF, the couple created only one embryo. As much as they hoped, they were disappointed. The test stick showed a clear line on the 12th day after the embryo transfer, and Hoan returned to reality with her loneliness every time Tet came around.
Faced with difficulties and many times experiencing sadness when looking at the single line on the pregnancy test, the couple regained their spirits and continued to look for a child with traditional medicine everywhere.
“During our journey to have a child, my husband and I only took a year off due to COVID-19, but every year we went for treatment, from Eastern medicine to Western medicine… My mother-in-law took us there, my neighbor took us there. There were even overnight trips, in total, nearly a dozen provinces and cities across the country where my husband and I went to get tobacco and drink, but all to no avail,” Ms. Hoan recalls of the time when we had to “scrap every penny” to seek treatment in vain to find a child.
Waiting for a “miracle” from the medicine but it did not come true, in 2020, the couple went to the hospital to do IVF 2 more times. After that, there were consecutive egg retrievals and embryo transfers but still the only result was “no pregnancy”. And then the tears continued to fall from the dream until they woke up - their beloved child still refused to come home.
“Dreams come true” through perseverance
After going to many large and small hospitals and taking hundreds of traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicines, but "the time for a child has not come", in 2022, Hoan and her husband decided to try to have a child again at the Hanoi Infertility Hospital of Andrology.
"Luckily, my husband and I went for a check-up during Golden Week 2022, so we enjoyed many incentives and felt more confident," said Ms. Hoan.
In mid-2023, Ms. Hoan and Mr. Hung entered the process of egg retrieval to create embryos for the 5th time. After nearly 10 years of waiting for their baby, all their hopes were placed in this IVF. After egg retrieval to create embryos, the couple was lucky to have 6 embryos.
In November 2023, during the 6th embryo transfer in the IVF journey, the couple burst into happiness when they saw the 2-line pregnancy test. The first time seeing the image of two lines clearly, Ms. Hoan knew for sure that her baby was about to come to their family.
“On the 6th embryo transfer, I thought if it worked, it would work, if it didn’t, I would have to accept it. My husband often dreamed of holding hands with two children and walking along the street in the neighborhood. It wasn’t until we were sure of the beta results that we told both sets of parents,” Hoan happily recounted.
On July 15, 2024, two healthy babies Bo and Sua were born in the overwhelming happiness of the big family. The two "sweet fruits" Bo and Sua are also proof of the love, perseverance and unyielding efforts of the couple after a decade of waiting for their beloved child.
The Lunar New Year of the Snake 2025 is also the first Tet in the family filled with the sounds of children babbling, laughter, and loving wishes of "eating well, growing up quickly, being healthy and smart".
"This year my husband and I are confident to go to visit relatives to wish them a happy new year. It will be a very different New Year because wherever we go, we will bring our children along to fulfill our wish of the past 10 years" - Ms. Hoan was moved to tears.
