Campaign Story

Hi Everyone! My name is Ally. I appreciate you taking time to look at our story. My husband Mitch and I were married in 2016 and have been hoping to get pregnant since roughly 2 years after. At first we were focused on the positive, it will happen when it happens, but we haven’t been fortunate enough to be able to attempt pregnancy without many hurdles.

I was diagnosed with Psoriasis at 7yo and it escalated to Psoriatic Arthritis around the age of 13yo. My disease was aggressive that without the proper medication, my body had aggressive flares where I could not walk from inflammation. Thankfully with advances in modern medicine, medication keeps it manageable but several of the drugs conflicted with pregnancy. SO! I had to remove them from my life to attempt pregnancy which I am doing safely with the guidance of my doctor.

Once the doctor gave us the thumbs up we were excited to become pregnant but over a year later, no luck naturally. As we began researching our options, along came covid (we all know how that went!) and my husband along with myself were out of work for a while, just getting by, let alone have a baby. As we began to rebuild and were ready to try again, a new obstacle entered the picture. A tumor on my optic nerve directly behind my left eye was discovered and I was not allowed to try for pregnancy as I had to undergo months of radiation treatment to save my vision and stop it from growing. As devastated as I was to be told WAIT longer I had no choice. With my husband and family supportively by my side, I kept my head held high, faith strong, and a smile on my face that I would overcome this as well!!

I was just given clearance from my oncologist this October 2022 that we were clear to make babies! Yay! However during the months leading up to and during my radiation we had reviewed all aspects of fertility (we were NOT wasting anymore time!) and it was determined that although, finally, I had something going for me and all my levels were perfect to conceive, my husband wasn’t as fortunate. My husband was born prematurely and as healthy as his life has been, it apparently caused some lack of development for his testes and he is not producing anywhere near the amount of sperm needed to likely conceive naturally.

So again, heads held high, and determined to get through this we were guided to the only option of IVF with ICSI. The only thing now is that no matter how strong our will is and our positive attitudes have been, we are struggling to find a way to come up with the full IVF amount. We have tried several clinics but our insurance covers NOTHING sadly and the center wants the full amount up front and we are still recovering from the damaging affects of the covid shut down. I will be 38 this year, and there is risk my husband could stop producing at any point so we want to act while we can so the option to wait and save for it really isn’t an option. The clock has never ticked so hard in my life.

I am never one to ask for favors, and was against doing something like this until a good friend of mine changed my mind. Any contribution would be BEYOND appreciated. I know anyone can come on here and say they would be good parents. All I can say is that if our dreams come true this baby would be loved with an appreciation beyond words for the miracle he or she would be!

Thank you!