Campaign Story

My name is Ashley. I am 36 years old whom is looking for a second chance of parenthood. I had 2 other children with men who were abusive to me years ago. Because of this, I got my tubes tied. Now 15 years later, I am married to my high school sweetheart whom gives me the whole world he can give, except I cannot give him a child. We decided that we would pursue surgery to reverse my tubal ligation. A problem arose when the doctors told me that the pelvic infection I got after my c-section with my second child created too much scar tissue to reverse my tubes and recommended IVF to us for a better chance of success. So we started the process of getting testing done for IVF, to see if we were good candidates for the procedure and found out that my husband has a very low sperm count with low motility, quite possibly due to him having a small amount of Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects a man’s fertility. It would require intracytoplasmic sperm injection in order for his sperm to even fertilize an egg. This whole thing devastated us, especially me as I feel I robbed my husband of a family he deserves to have with me. I regret the decision I made to get my tubes tied and was only 22 years old, was not properly or fully informed but pressured to get the procedure to prevent further harm to myself and my children. I desire so much for a second chance to have a baby with my loving and faithful husband who is everything to me. We’ve known each other since high school and are beginning to live out our childhood dream to get married. Now that we are married, we have one more dream, to have children. We just want one chance, just one cycle, one opportunity to see if we can make our dream to have a family come true. Your support will go directly towards the cost of the IVF fresh transfer retrieval procedure at the University of Michigan Center for Reproductive Medicine. We appreciate you taking the time to read our story. Thank you so much for your support.