Haley Ferguson and Oula Palve have navigated fertility struggles throughout their first year of marriage.
“The last time I had talked to you guys, I had a hysteroscopy to remove a polyp [in my uterus] and since then I have been in the process of starting IUI,” the Bachelor alum, 30, said in a Thursday, June 15, TikTok video while doing her makeup. “IUI is kind of like the first step they offer you before doing IVF, it’s kind of a way to help trigger ovulation and get the timing right for everything.”
Ferguson — who wed the pro hockey player, 31, in June 2022 — revealed that she has already undergone her first round of intrauterine insemination (IUI), for which she was proscribed letrozole and progesterone. “Sadly, it did not work out,” she noted. “But I am going to go for another round … and hopefully it will be round two for us that will be successful.”
The Bachelor in Paradise alum — who became a first-time aunt in May after twin Emily Ferguson gave birth to son Beckham — further explained that she tries to remain positive about her fertility journey, but it has been “extremely, extremely emotionally draining” and has taken a toll on her.
“The last year trying to conceive has been really, really difficult,” Haley said on Thursday. “Seeing negative pregnancy tests just feels like you’ll never see a positive one. I’m almost to the point where negative pregnancy tests don’t even faze me anymore, like, ‘Oh, well I saw that one coming. Knew that was going to happen.’”
She added: “It gets very draining and it’s just disappointing, but I’m really, really trying to stay super positive for the second round of IUI because your chances, like the success rate, go up a little bit higher on your second or third try.”
Haley — who has a blocked fallopian tube, which impacts her ovulation — explained that it has been difficult dealing with her IUI medication, which made her feel bloated and gain weight.
“I really just don’t feel like myself,” she confessed in her social media upload. “I’m not feeling confident in myself but I know it’s all normal … and it’s hard as a woman to accept, like, well you want to get pregnant and it’s the one thing you as a woman should be able to do and should have the right to do, but it’s not happening for you. It can make you feel very insecure.”
Despite her insecurities about her infertility, Haley noted in her TikTok caption that she knows her “time is coming” to expand her family.
Haley and Palve — who moved to former Pittsburgh Penguins player’s native Finland ahead of their first wedding anniversary this month — previously told Us Weekly that they ideally wanted to have two or three children.
“We kind of just want to enjoy being married,” the Twins: Happily Ever After alum exclusively told Us in June 2022 of their timeline for having kids. “We won’t be actively trying right after [our wedding] but if it happens, it happens. We will be happy either way.”
