Campaign Story

With a little support from friends, I was encouraged to reopen this for donations, in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, and have extended it through Veterans Day in honor of those who have served.

If you have been with us for a while, then you know that we have finished our first cycle of IVF, but unfortunately, it will not allow us to have a baby. We are currently working to save every penny we can to do another round before giving up. I understand that money is tight, so if you are not in a great financial position, please don’t put yourself or your family at risk to try to help us build ours. However, we would greatly appreciate anything you can provide if you can support us.

For those of you who are new, here is the story: I first joined the Army in April of 2011. I wanted to get myself financially stable to have children. First, I was in Japan, where my father and Paternal Grandmother passed away, then I went to El Paso, Texas. While there, I met my Husband Joe. We deployed together both as Active Duty to the Middle East. While on tour there, we were both exposed to Ionizing Radiation and Open burn pits. After a year of deployment, we came back to Texas and then eventually transitioned to Germany. During this time, both he and I were exposed to asbestos. We were in Germany for a few years and realized it wouldn’t be the best location to start a family. He and I were always separated due to various mission sets and were often abroad. We decided that being dual military was not conducive to having a family and being there to enjoy one. Joe decided to get out while I stayed in. Our next assignment was in Melbourne, Florida, which may have been a great position for us to start the family journey, except that the first year of this two-year assignment, we were separated. Joe was still overseas in Germany, and I was in College trying to improve myself for my military career. We had a year left there together, but I started to gain weight without any identifiable cause, and pregnancy just never happened. We were then sent to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2020. Not only was this during the COVID pandemic, but we were still unable to get pregnant naturally. After COVID, we were finally able to get care; however, that far North in Alaska, your options are limited. For example, at the time, there was no local facility for endocrinology. The facility we were able to go to figured out that I had Hypothyroidism and started to treat it. Eventually, I was able to get pregnant, but I didn’t know I was. I lost it while conducting a training mission with my unit. I didn’t have any identifiable signs or symptoms until the day I lost it. We had to pause treatment after this loss because I was getting sent to a military school for about seven months, which would keep Joe and me separated again. Unfortunately, he needed to keep his job in Alaska during this time so that we would have money to pay the bills. Once we were united again, it didn’t take long for me to get pregnant. Elated that I may be able to keep it this time, I tried to get all my appointments started early, for fear that I may be high risk. I lost this one at seven weeks before seeing the OB/GYN. I continued treatment with fertility and eventually had to have both of my Fallopian Tubes removed due to medical necessity. This absolved all chances of naturally getting pregnant again. This happened in November of 2024. I was devastated. I am still wrapping my head around it. My husband’s insurance was able to pay for the first round of IVF. I was nervous that we would not get any embryos from this, as I was diagnosed with Diminished Ovarian Reserve and had an Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) blood analysis of a 0.26, which is extremely low. However, we were successfully able to get 5 eggs, all of which fertilized. This was amazing. Our hopes began to go up. Then we were able to get two that made it all the way through the blast cycle. This was a shock as well. It means that 40% of my embryos were of good enough quality or at least strong enough to make it through to this point. We didn’t mean to, but we let our hopes get up. Due to my history, we got them PGT-A tested. Of the two, one was not viable (aneuploid), and the other was low mosaic on two different genes. We want to try one more time before we seek a donor egg or give up on this dream altogether. If you are interested in being a part of our journey, feel free to donate or message me on social media about other ways you can support. I appreciate you all.