Campaign Story

Hello from Louisiana. My husband and I have been together for 10 years and tackle every challenge together. We have completed two out of pocket IVF cycles and three failed transfers. Our story started in 2012 when we first met and instantly knew we wanted to be together forever. I was 31 and he was 36. My husband was very honest about his health challenges that include Crohn’s disease and Chronic Myeloid, (CML), Leukemia. Our love was strong, and we knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle together. Neither of us have siblings and have very few family members still living. My parents and extended family are no longer living while he has his father and a few other family members. We wanted to create our own family unit and be the parents we wished we had growing up. That would be delayed due to his health. During a routine checkup at M.D. Anderson in Houston back in 2013, the doctor asked if we had given any thought to “family expansion.” My husband discussed our future that did include having a family. The doctor immediately advised us not to get pregnant. At the time, my husband took chemo every day in the form of a pill,100 milligrams of Sprycal, and the doctor explained that there wasn’t enough data available to know the effects of the medication on a baby. Examples the doctor shared included physical deformities, underdeveloped organs or miscarrying or a premature birth. The doctor’s priority was to keep him alive and in good health, not to expand our family. He suggested waiting until my husband was cleared. At 31, I told both my husband and the doctor that we had time. I was clueless as to how the next ten years would play out or how fast age would impact my chances to have a baby. While we waited to be cleared by the medical team, we rescued three cats and forged ahead with life tackling health issues, financial challenges and anything that got in our way. On October 18, 2014, we said I do. I finished graduate school and was laid off from two jobs before finding a position in public service helping people recover from natural disasters. My husband continued his career in publishing and devoting time to his favorite hobby and passion as a landscape photographer traveling throughout theUnited States to capture scenic national parks and historical monuments. We love being by the water orin the sunshine. Together, we have sailed the Caribbean seas, driven through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee, and soaked up the sun while relaxing on several beaches in Florida. On a normal day off from work, my husband is either scouting out places to photograph or playing golf while I am doing yoga or reading. (Hobbies we hope to share with a child one day as a family.) After five years of consistently taking Sprycel every day, several great checkups and positive results with quarterly blood tests, his doctors felt it was time to see how his body would react without the medication. This was August of 2017. Before trying to conceive, the doctors advised us to wait six months to make sure the medication was out of my husband’s system. We didn’t make it to six months. On December27, 2017, my husband stood in our kitchen holding the phone to his ear with one hand while the other hand cupped his mouth in horror. The Leukemia had returned, and he had to start taking the medicine that night. We would spend the next two years in and out of the hospital and trying different medications to relieve stomach and abdominal pain from the Crohn’s disease that would eventually lead to my husband having a third surgery to remove a portion of his intestines while taking Sprycel. The medical team finally gave us permission to try for a baby in the summer of 2019. I immediately scheduled appointments with my doctors to get checked out to start the process. Sadly, we haven’t had any luck on our own or with medication. We long to start a family and experience our happy ending with a healthy bundle of joy. The hardest part of the process for us is seeing everyone around us celebrate milestones, holidays and birthdays while staying positive that one day we will have that too. At the beginning of 2022, we celebrated wonderful news when we found out the CML was undetected. My husband will always have to continue his routine, but the doctors are confident they can lower the daily dose some day. For now, we call Louisiana home but someday hope to relocate to the beautiful mountains inAsheville, NC with Reno, Vegas, Boston, (our rescue buddies,) and a baby. We hope you will consider a small donation to assist with the costs associated with IVF as we need your help to afford the cost of procedures, medications, and testing.