Why an Illinois woman goes to a Mississippi fertility doctor

MADISON, Miss. (AP) - Trisha and Brett Gibson, who have lived in several cities across the United States, tried for years to have a baby.

A Madison, Mississippi-based fertility doctor helped them get pregnant, and the Gibsons are now proud parents of a 2-year-old boy. They're ready for baby No. 2, and miles of roadways won't keep them away from their beloved Dr. Preston Parry.

Married in 2006, the Gibsons have called several cities "home," as Brett Gibson's military career keeps them on the move. Trisha would go off birth control for "years at a time" but the couple never got pregnant. Diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder causing enlarged ovaries with small cysts on the outer edges, Trisha knew the couple might need medical help to conceive. After they moved to Mississippi, they "got serious about trying to have a baby."

Now 32, Trisha said at the time she thought, "I'm getting older, I need to get on this. And that's when we found Dr. Parry."

'THE PARRYSCOPE'

Parry invented "The Parryscope," a less invasive, less painful way of detecting fertility.

One in eight couples in the U.S. will deal with infertility, according to the National Infertility Association. Infertility is defined as being unable to get pregnant after one year of unprotected sex.

The Gibsons were referred to another physician in the same practice with Parry but, due to an unforeseen injury, the appointment for the referred doctor was pushed back three months.

Too anxious to wait, Trisha said, "I cannot wait that long. I've already been waiting 10 years."

So, the couple met Parry and Trisha Gibson said "it was the best thing that ever happened."

"Dr. Parry is not only very intelligent, he's very smart, I feel like he's very up to date," Trisha said. "He is very, very kind, very patient. I think if it took two hours for him to answer all my questions in a room, he would do that."

When Parry gave the couple his cellphone number, Trisha said she knew she had found the right physician.

"It feels better knowing I can get in touch with somebody," she said. "There's a lot of things going on. You're giving yourself a million shots, and I'm a nurse and it's kind of a lot. You're mixing medications and you're talking about medications that are thousands of dollars so you don't want to mess it up...I feel like he cares about the turnout of my situation."

Via intrauterine insemination, or IUI, Trisha and Brett welcomed a baby boy in October 2016. The child's name? Preston.

"We liked that name to begin with," Trisha said, "but then we realized that's the name (Dr. Parry) goes by and thought 'that's kind of fitting.' My husband was like, 'Yeah, that would be cool." So, that's how we decided that. If his name had been Harold or something, we wouldn't have done that."

FROM IUI TO IVF

The couple moved from Mississippi to San Antonio, Texas, the following January. Trisha underwent three IUIs at the Army Medical Center in San Antonio "to hopefully get pregnant with a second child but "that was not a very good experience," she said.

None of the IUIs were successful.

The couple then relocated outside of Chicago, once again for Brett's job. There, the couple decided to skip IUI and go ahead with in vitro fertilization.

Trisha said her thoughts were, "I'm kind of tired of doing this all the time. I feel like I am ready to be on the other side, stop trying to be pregnant all the time and just live my life."

She called multiple facilities in the area - all of which had been highly recommended - but could never get a call back. Unhappy with the options close to home, she began thinking of returning to Mississippi - and to Parry.

"I want to go somewhere where I feel like I have a problem, I'm going to be able to reach a person and talk to them," she said. "I actually had to talk to Dr. Parry yesterday, on a Sunday. It's just very different."

While she and her husband discussed logistics of using a fertility doctor hundreds of miles from home, Trisha began watching Parry's weekly Facebook Live where he discusses fertility. One day, Trisha commented on the video and, shortly after, one of the office nurses gave her a call.

That was in October. In November, Trisha flew to Mississippi for testing. After a break for the holidays, she came back to Mississippi in January. By February, she was implanted with an embryo.

"I think it says a lot about Dr. Parry that I live 50 miles from the third largest city in the United States and 50 miles from Milwaukee and I would rather come to Mississippi and do this with him," Trisha said Monday.

While in Mississippi, Trisha has been staying with her friend in Meridian, Stephanie Richardson.

"She had to come back to the South to have it done right," Richardson joked.

Trisha had 26 eggs removed from her uterus and fertilized with Brett's sperm. Of the 26, one was a 5AA rating, the highest rating an embryo can attain. Monday afternoon, that embryo was implanted. She'll find out if she's pregnant in the next 10 days but, hopeful, Gibson said she's believing she's "pregnant until proven otherwise."

"I feel pretty good, I think," she said. "He said it's a 50-50 chance. Flip a coin you're pregnant, flip a coin you're not so, hopefully, because it's a good embryo, I feel pretty good."

If she's not pregnant, Parry will do two more embryo transfers, at no additional cost, she said. Either way, Trisha sees her family growing.

"Right now, in my mind, I feel like I want to have three more babies. But maybe because I only have one, I don't know, or maybe it's because I waited so long. I'm like, 'Well, I'll just show all you people and have a whole bunch of babies."

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Information from: The Clarion Ledger, http://www.clarionledger.com