At just 12 weeks into her pregnancy, Loch tells PEOPLE exclusively that getting to this stage has felt “fairly easy” compared to “all of the difficulties” the pair endured while trying to conceive in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We actually did IUIs (intrauterine insemination) before doing IVF (in vitro fertilization). We did two cycles with that,” Loch, 31, says. “IVF is just so much more intrusive, so we were trying to go that route at first and then during our second cycle, we actually ended up having an ectopic pregnancy. … I ended up having to take medication to terminate the ectopic pregnancy, and then it pushed our whole thing back another two-and-a-half months.”
“You can’t try [to conceive] after that because the meds that you take to terminate are so strong. It’s basically like a cancer med that they give you to terminate all living cells. So then, we couldn’t try and go into our IVF cycle for almost three months,” she adds.
The decision to seek non-traditional methods came after the couple “spent a year of trying” and “realized that it just wasn’t working,” says Wendt, who reveals that they started IVF a week before last Christmas. Next month, in fact, marks one year since they first went to a fertility clinic.
Astrid Loch and Kevin Wendt
Will you accept this rose? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free weekly Bachelor Nation newsletterto get the latest news onThe Bachelor, The Bacheloretteand everything in between.
Wendt also points out that “because it’s such a private thing, a lot of times you don’t know the struggles that couples are actually going through trying to get pregnant.”
Through the tough times, one factor that helped the Bachelor Nation duo keep moving forward was remaining optimistic. “I’ve really realized that we’re glass half full type of people,” Loch says. “It obviously took a while [for me to get pregnant] but I think throughout every single thing, if we’d see a negative pregnancy test or something wasn’t working out right or whatever, we really were good at not trying to, like, simmer in it for too long.”
The mom-to-be continues, “We just tried to think, like, ‘Okay, well if there’s a negative test when do we try again next?’ We really try to just be so future orientated instead of letting ourselves get too down about it.”
Loch and Wendt met during season 5 ofBachelor in Paradise, which aired in late 2018. Though they ended their relationship before the season wrapped, the pair reconciled shortly after andannounced their engagementin August 2019.
Loch added, “To all the couples trying to get pregnant, my heart is with you. We know first hand how hard it can be to see these kinds of posts and feel sad & discouraged. We too struggled with fertility and conceiving naturally - it’s the toughest thing we’ve ever been through and I can’t wait to share more of how we got here. But today is finally about some good news & we hope you can enjoy it with us.”
source: people.com
