Campaign Story

As many of you may know, my name is Ashlee Beal. I’m currently 34 years old and soon to be 35 come July 28th. I have been on the struggle bus with infertility for several years now and am trying to find any way possible to fund another round of IVF. Here’s a little bit of my history on my journey to motherhood.

I was started on birth control at the age of 13 due to having a cycle for a year straight. I proceeded to stay on birth control until the age of 19. I got off of birth control at age 19 and tried to conceive with my fiance at the time. Unfortunately, I never was able to get pregnant. After him and I split up, he ended up getting a girl pregnant and now he has a healthy little girl. In 2016, I was married and found out that I have PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome). I was treated with Metformin from 2015 until about 2020 along with several other medications.

My first husband and I went through 9 months of timed intercourse with Clomid without success. Him and I also went through 3 rounds of IUI (intrauterine insemination) in 2017 without success. At that time, I’ll admit, I was at no place in my life to get pregnant. I became an alcoholic, suffered from depression and attempted to take my life on more than one occasion. My first husband and I divorced in February 2018. I realized then that it was time to work on me before proceeding with trying to become a mother.

I met my current husband in April of 2018 and was not ready to commit because I had a lot of work to do on myself. At that time, I had planned to go through the process of trying to become a mother on my own. In May of 2019, I went through the donor process and donated 16 of my own eggs to help women who are less fortunate. That also allowed me to have a little more funds toward my journey. My current husband and I reconnected in November of 2019 and it was like we had never been apart. In January of 2020, we went through another egg retrieval. They retrieved 35 eggs. Of the 35 eggs, 19 were viable and 13 made it to day 5 of fertilization. We were so blessed and fortunate to have numbers like that! The retrieval was very grueling on my body though. The doctor had concerns of hyper-stimulation (I looked 7 months pregnant) so we had to make a quick trip to the office which was 4 hours from where we lived at the time. It was so painful but worth it to have the numbers we were blessed with. We were set to tranfer our first embryo in March of 2020 through IVF (in-vitro fertilization). Due to covid, the transfer got pushed off until June 2020. Our doctor at the time didn’t feel that it was necessary to have any testing done due to my husband having 3 living, healthy children. In June of 2020, we transferred 1 untested embryo. The baby stuck and we were pregnant! I was able to carry the pregnancy to 5 weeks, 4 days until it ended in miscarriage. We lost our first embaby on July 16, 2020. For those that don’t know, when going through IVF, you start out at 2 weeks pregnant plus the age of the embryo. So, I started out at 2 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Due to my cycle and the miscarriage, I didn’t fall naturally into a cycle as I had hoped so we had to wait until October for another transfer. In October of 2020, we transferred 2 untested embryos. Of the 2 transferred, we ended up with 1 healthy baby. We were pregnant again! I was able to carry the pregnancy to 6 weeks, 4 days before it ended in miscarriage on November 16, 2020.

Due to finances, we were not able to proceed any further with IVF. Over $30,000 is what has already been put into me trying to become a mom! In July 2022, we miraculously conceived naturally. For us, given we weren’t even trying, it came as a shock because we had 2 of 3 specialists tell us that I’d never conveive naturally. That pregnancy ended early in miscarriage before even making it to the doctors to see how far along I was. I felt like I was in denial because I had never even processed the fact that I was pregnant before the pregnancy ended. Since then, we have not be able to conceive naturally despite trying even with ovulation tracking.

I have struggled with the fact that I may never get to experience being a mom the way that i wish to. I have had so many people ask me “why don’t you just adopt”? What most dont understand is the cost of adoption. If I am going to put money into having a baby then why not continue to try with my own embryos, my own DNA?

I’m blessed with a beautiful boy that calls me momma, although I’m not of blood and I wouldn’t change that for the world. I’m just determined to carry my own child. I long for the feeling of seeing an active baby on ultrasound, feeling that baby move inside of me, getting to hear that heartbeat for the very first time. All the things that you hear women complain about during pregnancy are the things I so deeply want to experience.

I’ve never been the kind of person to reach out for help. I’ve always been determined to do things on my own. However, I am at the point where I have no help financially in making my dreams come true. I know many have watched my journey from the sideline and have rooted me on to have faith. Now is the chance where that help and prayers could and would really come into play and go a long way. I have a goal set at $7,500 which will help me get the embryos remaining moved to a facility in Colorado that is far more affordable than any other location and offers payment plans if need be. It will help me fund genetic testing on the remaining 10 embryos to determine which ones are most viable and of highest grade. This will give me a better chance at a successful pregnancy. Donations will also help with the cost of the FET (frozen embryo transfer). Anything donated will go directly to my journey toward being a mom.

I want to say thank you to anyone and everyone that has taken the time to read about my journey. I appreciate each and everyone of you.