Campaign Story

Many of you don’t know that David and I have been struggling with infertility. As of December 2021, we have been trying to conceive for 3 years. We’ve tried 3 IUIs and they’ve all failed. We’re officially to the point where IVF is the only possible way to become biological parts. We’ve decided we’ll try one round and then move onto adoption. Both options are very expensive. I’d love David to have a biological child since I wouldn’t have him if it weren’t for adoption, we’d love to adopt a baby. We’re not only dealing with the loss of not being parents but also financial stress and emotional stress of trying to accomplish this goal that seems so easy for some people. 1 in 8 people struggle with infertility and I never thought I’d be a part of that statistic.

Our story starts when we met on Valentine’s Day in 2015, who knew a simple pizza order would change my entire life. David and I had attended the same high school but never found ourselves in the same social circle. After our chance meeting on Valentine’s Day, David decided to reach out to me. We had an instant connection and spent our first date talking for hours. After dating for 3 years, we got married in 2018. We’ve been married for 3 years. Once we got married, we started trying for kids right away. We knew that sometimes you could get pregnant the first month off birth control, but sometimes it could take a while.

I have endometriosis and interstitial cystitis (a bladder disease). Before we started trying to conceive, I had surgery to remove some endometriosis. During this surgery they discovered I not only had endometriosis but also pelvic adhesions. Some adhesions were connecting my bladder and my uterus. This is unfortunate since I have interstitial cystitis, and the adhesions were only making it worse. I met with my Dr about trying remove the adhesions and separate my uterus and bladder. My Dr strongly suggested that I have all the kids I want first, as the surgery could result in the removal of my uterus.

Once we were actively trying to conceive for 6-8 months, we made an appointment with my OB/GYN. My Dr ordered an HSG test. I went to radiology to have this test performed. I was told it would be ‘mildly uncomfortable’, but this seemed understated during my procedure. I then learned that they were unable to get the catheter into my cervix due to cervical stenosis. Getting this news was my first time really feeling defeated since we started trying. My OB/GYN decided to do a hysteroscopy to dilate my cervix and do the HSG laparoscopically while I was going to be under anyway. During the surgery one of my fallopian tubes was blocked due to adhesions with my bowl. She was able to free this tube during the surgery. My cervix was dilated, and my uterus checked, and any obstructions or polyps removed.

After the surgery I felt a new sense of hope. This was short lived. After about 6 months of trying after the surgery, we decided it was time to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. The RE put us on Letrozole to help support ovulation. After 1.5 years of trying, we got pregnant on our second cycle of Letrozole. We were so happy to finally have our Nugget. At 7 weeks I started bleeding, I went to OB Triage and was told I had a threatened miscarriage. Later that day I started to miscarry. This was so devastating after all the work we put into having this child, only for it to be taken from us so cruelly.

Once I had a cycle after my miscarriage, I was able to get back onto the Letrozole to try again. We thought that this would be easy since it had worked before. Fast forward to 6 cycles later and no pregnancy, we knew something had to change. My husband had been previously diagnosed with a stage 3 varicocele vein. We decided it was worth checking out. This enlarged vein could prevent sperm production, cause DNA fragmentation, and cause hormonal imbalances. David had surgery to get his vein repaired. After 3 months of healing and new sperm production we tried for 2 more cycles with no luck.

At this point we went to a fertility clinic to do an IUI. Our insurance covered 70% of infertility for diagnostic but did not cover anything for actively trying to get pregnant. This is the point where we started to pay everything out of pocket. Once we had our consult at the fertility clinic we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. It was decided that since we were on Letrozole for so long and it seemed ineffective we were going to be put on Gonal F injections and use the Ovidril trigger shot. Hormone injections made me break out, gain weight, tired, and irritable. David was a saint through all of it and was always there to support me. We did 3 IUIs on injectables and none of them worked. Originally, we decided we were just going to do one IUI, then two IUIs. After the second one failed, we said we’d do a third IUI, but we couldn’t consider IVF because of the cost. After the third IUI failed my mind went straight to IVF. Could we afford this? No. Were we going to give up on being parents? No. We’ve come so far in this journey, and we don’t want it to end until we have a baby in our arms.

While we’ve been trying to conceive, I’ve completed my master’s degree of Science in Food Safety and David has become a Journeyman Electrician. We haven’t let trying to conceive stop us from achieving our goals, but it has made it harder.