Campaign Story

My name is Nicole and I am having a really hard time even writing this. We are usually the last people to ask for help, which is why I feel sick even trying this. I am a kindergarten teacher and my husband, Bob is a park manager at a local theme park. We live in Pennsylvania. If you are a PA resident, you know that fertility coverage is not mandated like it is in 15 other states.
We were married in May of 2022 and were immediately eager to start trying for a family. A year later with no luck we began seeking out help from doctors. Lo and behold, we were diagnosed with a very rare form of infertility. We were informed that IVF with ICSI was the only shot we have at having a family.
In November of 2023, we quietly began our first round of IVF medications, egg retrieval, and fresh transfer, hoping to have a positive pregnancy test for Christmas. We transferred two medium grade 3-day embryos with high hopes. A few weeks into December, we got the call that our IVF cycle had ultimately failed.
We have suffered a great loss both financially and emotionally. We still have two frozen embryos that are not of the best quality that we are hoping are viable enough to transfer in the future. Bob and I also have multiple appointments scheduled with different endocrinologists and urologists to get to the root cause of our infertility. Should our frozen transfer not work, we will need to undergo a whole nother egg retrieval process along with an invasive surgery to ensure the embryos are viable enough for proper fertilization. This includes another round of monitoring, medications, etc. We are paying for all of this completely out of pocket with the exception of blood and ultrasound monitoring covered by my insurance. Behind the scenes I’ve been working hard to speak to the right people in hopes of getting this eventually being considered for coverage by our workplaces and our state. Thank you in advance your support.