04-18-2023

THANK YOU

We can not believe the out pouring of love and support in the last 24 hours!! It was scary for us to share this as it is such an intimate topic but we also feel strongly that infertility NEEDS to be discussed. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has morally and monetarily supported us thus far. I plan to write a little bit more about our journey up to this point and give updates as we continue-just need to set aside the time. Thank you all, again! Much love-The Prices.

04-21-2023

Join us from the start

I would like to preface that I am aware that everyone has a story and everyone’s story is different but can have similarities so please remember that while reading ours. Whatever your experience is or has been I am not trying to diminish it, I know there is always someone who has it worse than me. Expressing our journey in this way has been somewhat therapeutic but brings a sense of extreme vulnerability. My hope is to bring awareness and support to others going through the struggle of infertility, cause man it’s rough. I am going to lay out our story for all who care to share it with us, after all I am asking for help so it only seems fair. With that being said there is no way to sum this up or make it pretty so hang in there; we did and it is worth it.

Where else to start but the beginning: By March 2018 Paul and I had been engaged for two years after dating for four years. He was working full time in a machine shop and I was working morning hours at a daycare and full time at a pediatric clinic. We had decided to stop any preventative measures as we were getting married later in the year. Seems simple enough. Teenagers get pregnant without knowing any better, women get pregnant by “accident”. Stop birth control/protection=get pregnant.

August 2018 we got married and began tracking my cycles-that’s what the medical field considered ”actively” trying to get pregnant. We had it all planned out and by we I mean me. I like to plan, be organized, and be in control. According to my plan we were supposed to have a baby in May/June 2019. From there we would move into a bigger home, have another baby, it was all planned out. God had other plans, life laughed at us and the universe wasn’t on our side.

Later, in November, I would quit the daycare because it was becoming hard to be surrounded by children for 12 hours a day when all I wanted was our own baby. Between the daycare and the clinic I have been exposed to many situations, not all are happy, which added salt to the wound. We had become so hyper focused on becoming parents with every month that passed and yet another negative test more tears and more heartbreak followed. But it was okay because it was sure to happen the next month: I’d eat better, drink more water, and absolutely no alcohol, take prenatals, all the stuff. It would happen, it had too. And then it wouldn’t and literally and figuratively the cycle would continue.

Now it’s April 2019 and I went to my OB with concern of no pregnancy as it had been 9 months of trying and over a year off birth control. She blew me off and told me to come back in 6 months. Hindsight we should have been better advocates for ourselves. I didn’t like being told to give it another 6 months but she was the Dr. so I was compliant. The next NINE months we tried everything just short of medical intervention. By this point it had been 15 months of tracking intercourse, 15 months of negative pregnancy tests, and as the months went on the depression and hopelessness was real. I can’t describe the waves of emotions I felt every month, the excitement, the pins and needles and then the big hopeless drop of it all. The betrayal of my body not doing what it’s whole purpose as a woman is. It was gut wrenching. Every. Single. Month.

At the same time we had been married for over a year and we couldn’t escape the “when are you having a baby?” comments. Innocent right? We had done all the steps a couple does up until that point. Having babies was the next thing for people to ask us about. We tried to play it down as though we weren’t ready yet. Little did anyone know it was killing us. I’ll take this moment to note that while we were wallowing in our own pity, we were able to be happy for our friends and family as they were growing their families. We will always be happy for growth.

November 2019 I finally went in to see a new OB whom I had befriended through work. She had insight into our struggles prior to me becoming her patient just from seeing each other on a monthly basis. Going to her was life changing. Paul and I both went to see her, she ordered tests for both of us, laid out a written plan (I love plans), and said she would be in touch with the results. November 25th, 2019 we got the call that answered our questions. Hallelujah.

We were candidates for IVF, basically “the last line of defense” in infertility treatments. We were not eligible for IUI which was unfortunate (much cheaper and less invasive) but we weren’t sterile so there was hope. My OB was able to set up a meeting with a highly recommended Illinois fertility specialist in December 2019. We were determined to become parents so we wanted to learn all we could about In Vitro Fertilization. Never before in our vocabulary until it was our whole life. At that meeting it became very apparent that this was going to be a challenging and expensive road but I asked her if we could be pregnant within the next three months and she said yes. There was HOPE. That was more than what we had going into the appointment.

Here is where I want to apologize for distancing from friends and family the whole year of 2019. We didn’t know how to talk about such an intimate topic. We were consumed with trying to have a baby while also trying to act like we didn’t care. We were exhausted in every way. We didn’t want to bring anyone else down so it was easiest to not see people, do it on our own. Again, hindsight we surround ourselves with great people so I wish we would have handled it differently but we had no clue what we were doing. The end of the year though, that was the roughest. The holidays were a blurr, we had to cope with information we were given about infertility all while being asked when we were going to have a baby. You’d think having answers would have been a good thing but we spiraled. However, the new year came with a new attitude. 2020 was going to be our year. We pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps and went to the bank early January to start the process.

Ah, the process. Can’t forget to explain that. Simply put: the Dr. would retrieve my eggs (as many as they could get), Paul’s sperm would be collected, then a laboratory would combine them to create embryos. Initially we went down to Illinois for a hysteroscopy and tubal flush. This was to make sure my tubes were open and my uterus did not have endometriosis or polyps that would affect the future placement of an embryo. The flush was painful, not recommended. Everything was clear and we headed back home to start the process for egg retrieval. To collect the eggs I had to take oral medication and give myself shots in the belly. The medication and shots came from a pharmacy in Texas, all out of pocket expenses.These medications and shots were to help my ovaries swell up so the Dr. would have a big target when she went in with a needle to individually extract each egg. I was so bloated and uncomfortable at this point but that’s what they wanted. While plumping up my ovaries I was being monitored basically every other day at a location in Appleton. Ultrasounds and blood draws were how I started my mornings before heading to work. Once I was given the green light we went back to Illinois, I was sedated and the Dr. was able to retrieve 22 eggs!

We had 17 embryos created and 9 that made it through the rigorous “grading” process. All that was left for us to do was the transfer of an embryo or two. 😉 The transfer would take place 3-5 days after the retrieval, back down to Illinois. We would do a fresh transfer meaning the embryos we transferred were not yet frozen. This gave us the best chance of the embryo implanting into my uterus as freezing and thawing can limit the chances of an embryo surviving the process. For 80 nights after this Paul had to give me progesterone in oil shots in the booty. Thick, slow and painful but Doctors orders. Paul trained on an orange in preparation to poke me with the 2 inch needle and by the 80th shot he was a pro. Nurses make the worst patients.

Now, I mentioned we got a loan in January and that we were both working full time jobs so we should have been covered, right? Wrong. Insurance covered nothing. All the appointments to figure out what was wrong, the labs and procedures, the out of state appointments, the monitoring appointments and the medications. Insurance. Touched. Nothing. Oh and the original amount we were told did not include the medications (that would need to be ordered more than once which was also not clearly stated to us) or the every other day monitoring appointments. Just the IVF procedure itself. Want to blow through money like a rockstar? Go through IVF. We stopped counting after we hit $35,000 because why bother at that point and becoming parents was priceless to us. The remaining 7 embryos are frozen in Illinois (no we will not be implanting all 7). To keep them frozen we pay $200 4 times a year. We are very grateful we have the frozen embryos because some couples don’t get enough eggs or viable embryos and they have to go through the process more than once. Again, this is where we recognize we have it pretty good considering.

The moment that was worth the struggle and tears was when we literally got to watch me become pregnant on a large monitor as the Dr. implanted one embryo into my uterus lining and then a second embryo. At the time it is not confirmed as a pregnancy since there is a chance my body could reject it. Which meant more monitoring in Appleton until a confirmed pregnancy. You have to understand that up until this point we had been so let down that we were convinced this would not work on the first try. IVF has a success rate of 55-60% and is expensive. We didn’t want to go through all of the aforementioned for more let down. That is why we transferred two embryos, an insurance policy if you will. There was no way in my mind that they would both stick and be viable. Just no way, I was betting against us.

April 2020 was when we went into the Appleton location and it was confirmed we were pregnant…with TWINS. Believe it or not even though we implanted two we were still in shock. I know that may not make sense since we knew there was a chance but after all the struggle it truly wasn’t a possibility in our mind. THE EMOTIONS WE FELT. Oh my goodness, finally all the good feels-until morning sickness made an appearance.
Well, we are ready to go through the transfer process which is much less invasive but still costly, emotional and time consuming. I will have to take medications, give myself shots and Paul will resume booty poking duty. This time we are going to be transparent and ask for help. Any way you feel you can be of help. Prayers. Awareness. Kind words. Landon and Libby are our everything and we want to do it all over again to give them another sibling. Through this process we have been humbled, we have grown together and we still believe our purpose is to be parents. Wish us luck. Love to you all.