FARGO — After years of romance and married life, Jolene and Brandon Germain couldn't wait to start a family, but they would have to endure painful loss before finding success.
"It was like a roller coaster. You're excited, and you're sad, and you're upset and you're mad," Jolene said. "We had five miscarriages, and we dealt with infertility. So over three and a half years, we had five failed pregnancies."
"I felt everything from anger — feeling her anger, her frustration, (feeling) my anger, my frustration, who do we blame, where do we go to get answers — it was all over the map," Brandon added.
ADVERTISEMENT
The couple spent thousands of dollars a year on in vitro fertilization and still dealt with heartbreak.
"At some point, you have to see an end, but you don't want to. You push it as far as you can financially and emotionally and you go until you have to stop, and luckily, we didn't hit that point," Jolene said.
Now, the couple are experiencing the joy of pregnancy. On Monday, June 1, they made a trip to Sanford, to see the latest pictures of their little one.
"We have never made it past eight weeks before," Jolene said.
With the pandemic, the couple has been forced to be apart during these emotional visits to the doctor. They also wonder what they will say to their son or daughter when the subject of 2020 comes up — a birth year full of historic highs and lows.
"I think am going to tell him, (2020) was a little crazy, with the corona thing and all the other things going on in the world," Jolene said.
For now, the couple hangs on to a collection of ultrasound photos, waiting for the baby's birth in September. Family and friends of the Germains will learn the baby's gender later this week.
ADVERTISEMENT
