Adam and Danielle Busby have shared their lives with fans on OutDaughtered. The couple have six girls, one singleton and a set of all-girl quintuplets.
Their journey to get pregnant was a long one. Adam Busby was dealing with low sperm count and other issues and Danielle Busby was not ovulating regularly.
They were ready for children and after trying on their own for nine months, they decided to get help from a fertility specialist.
Was it in vitro?
There have been a lot of assumptions based on Danielle Busby having quintuplets. Of course, chances of multiples are much higher when fertility treatments are used, but five babies at once is a lot.
On their blog, the Busbys revealed that they used IUI to conceive all of their children, which is not the same as in vitro fertilization.
IUI stands for inter-uterine insemination. The process happens when the woman ovulates her mature eggs (usually a few, given she would have been taking a fertility drug to prepare) and the man provides a sample of sperm which is then inserted into the uterus for the fertilization to occur.
In vitro fertilization is done when the eggs from the woman are harvested and then inseminated with the sample of sperm outside of the body. During this process, it is known whether or not the fertilization worked before the egg is put back into the woman’s uterus.
Several fans have asked this over the course of the Busby’s reality television journey. Adam and Danielle Busby have been very open about their struggles, much of which has been documented on their blog.
One thing is for sure — they are very happy to be raising their little girls, despite the struggle they went through to get pregnant.
OutDaughtered airs Tuesday nights at 9/8c on TLC.