From an early age, Kristin and Matt Herder both felt called to serve their country. They married in January 1997 while still in college, and upon graduating that May, they were both commissioned in the US Air Force.
Devoted to their military careers, they decided to wait until Kristin was 30 before starting a family. When Kristin turned 30, they stopped preventing and started trying. After several years of not getting pregnant, Kristin sought medical help through the military medical system.
“Unfortunately, due to military moves, deployments, and a family medical emergency, we were not able to get the medical help needed to start our family for nearly ten years,” says Kristin.
In the summer of 2011, Matt and Kristin met Dr. Kathleen O’Leary, the Wright-Patterson Clinic fertility specialist who works with Kettering Reproductive Medicine (KRM).
“Dr. O’leary did a full workup on both of us and we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility,” says Kristin.
After several unsuccessful rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI), Dr. O’Leary recommended the Herders try in vitro fertilization (IVF). Dr. O’Leary referred them to KRM where she was able to continue to be a part of the treatment process.
After meeting with the staff at KRM, Kristin was diagnosed with moderate to severe endometriosis and it was recommended that she have surgery to reduce it before attempting IVF. Following surgery and recovery, Matt and Kristin began the IVF process.
The Herders’ first round of IVF was unsuccessful, but through the treatment, the KRM team discovered information that would allow them to adjust the next round.
The Herders decided to try again in October 2013, and although the transfer immediately post-IVF was unsuccessful, two of the three remaining embryos made it to blastocyst and were frozen. Matt and Kristin did a Frozen Embryo Transfer in May 2014 and welcomed their beautiful daughter, AnnaLee Grace, in January 2015, two weeks before Kristin’s 41st birthday.
“The entire KRM team was very helpful and instrumental to growing our family,” says Kristin. “They took our stress away, had everything organized, kept us completely informed, supported us when we got bad news, and were overjoyed when we got the incredibly wonderful news. It was an amazing and extremely worthwhile experience and we wouldn’t have our AnnaLee without KRM!”
