IVF in Calgary
Options, Cost & Real People
An act of selflessness gave one women, three children.
The Keys to Family
For most people, having children is seen as a normal part of life.
“I always just assumed that was the case, society, normal, that it would happen.” Bob Keys recalls what imagining what his future would be like. “Maybe it is the male equivalent of planning your wedding when your six, you just always assume your going to grow up and be a dad.”
Keys could barely put it words, how he felt when he learned that he would never be able to father children, saying that it was “unbelievably disappointing.”
Keys and his wife, Marie were married and had a solid relationship when they decided that they would have children. They tried for about a year and a half and Marie says that the couple “just felt like something wasn’t working”.
The couple were living in Fort McMurray, Alta and working as engineers. They went to their local doctors and were told they would need to seek specialized treatment and received a referral to the fertility clinic at Foothills Hospital in Calgary.
Over the next year Bob and Marie went through subsequent tests and found out that they would never ever be able to have kids through the regular means.
“We knew that he couldn’t father children and then we were left with, what path are we going to take”, Marie says the decision on solving their issues with infertility was very difficult, “ we could finally decide that we could do adoption or be childless. Obviously there was many choices like other people have had to make” she says.
The decision of whether or not the couple would have children had many different factors at play. Marie says that that it about creating history and establishing a legacy but ultimately Marie says it all came down to one thing.
Listen to the Keys
Marie and Bob's daughter
Photo Courtesy of Marie Keys
After 2 cycles of IVF the Lufts gave birth to twins in 2001
Photos Courtesy of Marie Keys
Road to Fertility
What Bob did next, Marie says was one of the most unselfish decisions he ever made, by giving her the opportunity to carry a pregnancy - just not with his sperm. Through Intrauterine insemination the couple used donor sperm in hopes of Marie getting pregnant.
Now that the decision was made and a course of action was in place the couple’s journey was just beginning.
Currently, there are only two fertility clinics in Alberta and only 26 in all of Canada. Living in Northern Alberta, the closest clinics for The Keys were Edmonton at a distance of 435.5 kilometers away and Calgary at 743.4 kilometers.
It would take The Keys a four to eight hour drive down highway 63, a route notoriously known as the widow maker as it is home to hundreds of vehicle accidents a year. The highway is untwined for the majority of the road, and often hosts tired shift workers on its burden asphalt.
At that time the Edmonton clinic was only opening during the weekdays, Monday through Friday, where as the Calgary clinic remained open during weekends as well as statutory.
The Calgary clinic ended up being the best option for the couple, “You can’t predict when your ovulating and we were so desperate to get on with this process now that we were in it, emotionally to have to skip a month because it fell on a weekend was just not really in the cards for us.” Mari says adding in that in the end Calgary would be more affordable as they had family that could accommodate them when they made the trip.
For a year and a half, using up most of their vacation time, the two engineers would jump in their car every month at the spur of a moment when Marie was ovulating, hit the road, and drive across the province.
Going through fertility treatments is already an extremely emotional and stressful situation and on top of that the Keys had to battle the highway. Marie tried her best to achieve a successful pregnancy and remain calm despite having to make the frequent road trips and experiencing the heartbreaking of failed cycles of IUI.
The Keys had planned on having children before they were 30. With all the testing, waiting and a year and a half of driving to and from Calgary, that plan was abolished.
Three years later, Marie was 33 and on the very last cycle of IUI. She finally became pregnant and in 1998 gave birth to their daughter.
Rerouting
Now that the couple were successfully able to have a child, they had hope and wanted to try again. Despite all the risks couples take when they go through fertility treatments Bob says that it was worth it, “If we didn’t make the attempt to at least try, we would have never have know if it would be possible.”
Without any initial success of a pregnancy, doctors told The Keys that perhaps there could now be an issue with Marie that was undiagnosable and that they should go on a waitlist for in vitro fertilization.
Marie considers herself a mathematician so she crunched some numbers to explore the idea of going through with IVF.
Although IUI is a much less invasive process, The Keys were raising their 2-year-old daughter and could not justify dragging her down the highway. Combining that with the ability to better plan their necessary road trips and the ability to save their vacation time made IVF a plausible route to head down.
In 2000, Marie was 35 and began IVF. The first cycle took about a month and half but was unsuccessful.
After a three-month break, giving a chance for Marie’s ovaries to recover, she went through a second cycle of IVF and became pregnant at 37.
In 2001 Marie delivered twin boys, giving her daughter, two little brothers and Bob two precious sons.
Family is Key
It took the Keys a total of five years before they were able to complete their family. The Keys daughter is now 16 and their sons are 14.
Bob and Marie went through the process together but experienced very different things. Their opinions on IVF’s role in the Alberta Health Care System may differentiate but they are both grateful of the outcome, in love with their children and being parents.
Key Notes
advice from marie
advice from bob