Campaign Story

The Lewis Family IVF Journey

I’m not sure how to start this, I feel like I’ve wrote this out so many times that I just don’t know where or how to start anymore. I guess lets go back to the beginning of mine and Nova’s relationship to give you some background and better understanding.
Nova and I met in 2013, as friends and worked together for years at a call center for health insurance. At the time we were both in separate relationships, I was married with 2 children and Nova was with his partner at the time. To give some context Nova is a transman, so him having his own children was limited due to this. However my ex-husband and I split at the beginning of 2018 and Nova his partner would split up within couple weeks of my ex-husband and I splitting up. Because we are going through the same kind of thing, naturally we started hanging out together.
At this point in our friendship he was still helping his ex because during the time of their relationship she ended up getting pregnant by another man and Nova being the guy he is of course step up and was there as “Dad” – even the mother of baby call Nova, dad. Well unfortunately months later all of this changed for him, she took the baby from him, his baby all because he was moving on with his life. She used that baby against him, she wanted to trap him but when she realized that it wasn’t working she just took the baby and moved away.
Sadly enough I had to watch her do this to him and seen the pain it caused him. All while this is going on with him I have been given temporary custody of my niece and nephew, her being just over a year and him being a new born who was born with addiction all the while I still have my 2 children and trying to learn to co-parent with my ex. Talk about challenging but these circumstances made us.
We were so busy doing what we could for ourselves to make sure we can function when all this happened in our lives we fell in love and didn’t even know it until Nova went to drop me off at home after dinner one night and said I love you to me, we both froze in fear of knowing what we both just went through. I didn’t say it back even though I wanted to; I just smiled and got out of the car as fast as I could.
Next thing you know we are together, happy and thriving! After several month of dating he moved in with me and we started planning a life together. April of 2019 we took our first step in growing our family, we wanted a baby but unfortunately I had my tubs removed in 2012 due to countless issues because of endometriosis. So in April of 2019 we had our first consultation with Reproductive Resource Center in Overland Park, ks for IVF. During this time we find out what would be covered and what wouldn’t be covered by my insurance.
So after this appointment we are feeling so confident in, I have a good job and so does Nova, our family is super supportive, my two kidos love Nova and are ecstatic to become a big brother and sister. Because of my job and having the insurance through them that would cover most of the IVF I still had to find a way to make sure we can cover the out of pocket expenses so I started looking for another job. Now obviously the first question after reading that would be why? You have insurance that is willing to pay for the IVF, why find another job. Well I wasn’t found a complete different job; I’m talking about working for the same company just better position and pay. So I applied to be a supervisor, one step up from my current title at the time. I was selected for an interview and ended up getting offered the position. They told me at the time nothing would change as far as my coverage was concerned and I had nothing to worry about. Well unfortunately that ended up being incorrect information and my benefits in fact did change and that my new coverage no longer covers IVF but they waited to give us that information until we had already signed and started so by then it was too late.
So you tell me that I work hard, got a better job so I can pay for my IVF out of pocket expenses and now it doesn’t cover it? Not only that but prior to my coverage changing I paid zero dollars for that plan but now I’m paying for it. So I take a better job to pay for IVF expenses just to lose the coverage that would cover it, lose my free health insurance, now have 45 minute commute when it was 5 minutes and now I have pay for insurance. So needless to say we felt a little discouraged but we didn’t let that stop us.
We started to do what we could to raise money for our journey. We had things from bake sale, garage sale, personal donations, go fund me and whatever else we get together to make this happen. We are also entering any giveaways or grants we could find and just so happened to come across this comment on one of the groups I’m in on Facebook and this girl tells me about this clinic call CNY fertility.
I start doing research on CNY Fertility and find out that they offer financing options for IVF. So I kept looking and reading to see what I could find and sure enough I scheduled a consultation with them, I had to wait a few months but we got in and found out that things were going to be obtainable and we might just be able to pull this off. Now remember how we did all this fundraising? – Well unfortunately someone came into my home, someone who knew where that money was and took all of it but the $100 in one dollar bills. This was just another setback but we push and March of 2021 we started our journey.
We had officially started our journey to our new life and didn’t know what would come from it but we did our first retrieval March of 21 and transferred a 3 day fresh embryo as that was the only embryo to make it out of the 5 retrieved. It was a little discouraging but I was reminded by wonderful women who deal with infertility that it only takes one. So we transferred “squishy” and my partner and I headed back to Kansas from Colorado where CNY is located and it was time to wait. However in April of 21 we found out that our first round failed, we did not get a positive test result back.
I felt like it was over, our journey was over because it didn’t work. But we worked through and processed feeling and came up with a new plan. We had saved enough money to pay off the first round of IVF through CNY – about $8,000. So we started from square one again.
May of 2021 we are back at CNY in hopes to bring baby Lewis home. Now this will end up being our 2nd retrieval but this time we got 10 embryos and ended up with 5 day 3 frozen. We had planned on doing another fresh transfer but life just didn’t work out that way. Hours after the retrieval I ended up in the hospital unable to breath, I had Ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS) and was experiencing severe complications from it. I had gained 10lbs in just a couple hours. I had so much fluid in the abdominal area that I couldn’t lay down or back at all or it would feel like I was drowning because so much fluid was in the abdominal it was compressing my lungs when I would lay. Super scary, the doctors didn’t know what to do, they didn’t know how to help me and of course this is during covid so Nova couldn’t stay with me once they admitted me. I stayed one night in the hospital got discharged, went to CNY to have my doctor there see what was going on and that’s when they informed I had OHSS and that because of this I was ineligible for a fresh transfer and I would have to come back my next cycle. I was heartbroken again but I knew that this just means things will work out.
So in July of 2021 Nova and I got on a plain, mind you his first time ever flying and went to be united with our soon to be baby. We get to Colorado, everything with this trip is going wonderful, smooth and I couldn’t be bothered, it was like this moment was for us and we were right where we needed to be. We have a great transfer, everything went great. Nova and I fly out the next day to go home and almost 2 weeks later we get our first positive test. I go in for bloodwork and they confirm that numbers are looking great and I had a positive result and they want me back in 2 days to do another lab and make sure my numbers a doubled. I get a call – not the call I expected, they told me that my numbers didn’t doubled and that what pregnancy I did have didn’t stay and that I must have had an egg topic pregnancy. Talk about being devastated, my heart was destroyed.
But that didn’t mean give up, we still had embryos that we could try and I wouldn’t have to do another retrieval again. So in March of 2022 I gave it another shot. Nova had just started a new job and a couple other things cased some issues making it impossible for him to come with me. So I did was any sane person would do in this situation, I called my best friend and ask “Hey do you want to go to Colorado with me and sick me in the butt with a needle every night?” We had a great laugh and of course she said yes! So there we were, just the two of us traveling to Colorado together by plane!
So we fly to Denver, rent a car, drive to Colorado Spring, check in to our air BnB at like 3am just to turn around the next day and be at the doctors by 11am transfer ready. We are in the office no longer than an hour if that, when previously both of my other transfers took a couple hours of just sitting waiting. So it was like things are falling into place like they should and you know what, this is it, this is our shot, it was almost too good to be true how well everything was going. We get back to the air bnb and I rest and sleep unit we have to absolutely get us to be back at the airport the next morning. We are out of the bnb by 4:30 am and right back to Kansas we went, happy and feeling lucky.
At this point in my journey and with this transfer I’m so confident that this is it. I’m having all the signs that my body is doing what it should to make a happy home for a baby to grow. So same drill as before I have to go in for labs about a week and a half after transfer so check levels and it was time. It didn’t work, it didn’t, it just didn’t work, how?! Why, what did I do wrong? I was filled with loss, pain, anger, confusion and to be honest feelings I didn’t know what to do with.
I’ve given myself some time to think about what I want to do and is this wroth trying again. I find myself stuck not knowing what choice is right for me. Do I try again, do I find someone to carry for me, do I adopt – like what do I do, where do I go and I keep coming back to the same though process. What if I tried again, what if I did the retrieval again – like starting from square one but maybe with better education in mind now that I know more about IVF and my body. I keep coming back to I want to try with another fertility clinic, I want to retrieve new embryos, I want to send them for testing and let them go as long as I can before freezing them for a frozen transfer. That’s what keeps going through my mind. I can’t stop the thoughts so I said what else do I have to lose? I don’t have the money to do it again through CNY but if I happen to get a free chance to do it again I’d do it in a heartbeat!
Hopefully this is a clear and compelling entrée for this giveaway as we want the opportunity to complete our little family! Thank you for taking the time to read our story and get to know us and our journey. I wish every family who enters the best of luck because any of these family I’m sure are deserving of having a baby.
Sincerely,
Lewis Family
PS: some of our IVF story is on TikTok, just look up Rayneboww_baby