Campaign Story

My Husband and I had been trying to get pregnant naturally for a little over a year. This past April, I slowly noticed I just was not feeling well. I have a very stressful job, I’m a charge nurse at an assisted living facility. In the beginning I just played it off to the stress or not getting enough sleep. I continued to get worsening symptoms- nausea, vomiting at times, migraines, pain, increased fatigue, and a heaviness in my lower abdomen. During this time I was frequently taking pregnancy tests, since we had been trying, all coming out negative. I really didn’t give to much thought to my symptoms at this point and I had just seen my GYN NP for my yearly visit in the beginning of the month with no issues. We thought maybe I was finally pregnant, it was just too early to test positive. I had previously made a appointment with the DR at my GYN office to speak with her about our fertility issues. I dealt with the symptoms until my appointment with her the 1st week a June. She listened to my concerns and ordered some labwork and an internal/external ultrasound to check on things. I had the ultrasound about 2 weeks later. They found what they thought was a “very large cyst” on my left ovary. They were very concerned about it rupturing or cutting off blood flow to my ovary. Either situation could be life-threatening. Over the next few weeks we went through tons of labwork, testing, and and an MRI with contrast. Some of my labwork came back concerning, the ovarian cancer antigen was elevated. They reassured me that this can be elevated for other reasons, not necessarily a direct test for ovarian cancer. Over the next few weeks my symptoms worsened. I was in so much pain I was in the ER. I couldn’t function, getting out of bed was a huge task and i was in so much pain. I had surgery the first week of July and they confirmed that the 8cm mass that was wrapped in and around my left ovary was cancerous. They had to remove my left ovary and fallopian tube completely, if they attempted to cut into or save it, they would have spread the cancer. In doing that I lost half my eggs , an ovary, and fallopian tube-effecting my fertility. Upon top of my PCOS and Esosaplingosis diagnosis. My right fallopian tube is obstructed so our only option is IVF. Unfortunately it is so expensive and we are trying to figure out how to afford it. It’s possible if I didn’t have the cancer, we could possibly have gotten pregnant naturally or cheaper treatments than IVF. Hopefully we can soon make our dreams come true. We will continue to pray and have faith. Thank you for listening to my story and good luck to everyone else who is on this journey!

I love children and always have! I have wanted to be a mom as long as i can remember. I use to always have at least 1, if not more baby dolls in toe whereever I went. My husband has 1 biological daughter from a previous relationship who is 3. She is so excited to be able to have a sibling and frequently asks about it. My husband is a great support and we want to be able to have a child together. Again thank you for any support and for getting us one step closer to our dream!