Campaign Story

Hello. My name is Hope. My Husband Alex and I have been married since April 2013. I am diagnosed with unknown infertility.

Back in 2019 my husband and I suffered our 6th miscarriage. The miscarriage happened in such a way that even though the fetus stopped growing at 6 weeks 3 days, my body still thought that I was pregnant.

We found out in January shortly after my Grandfather Gary lost his 20+ year long battle to cancer. We had so many miscarriages by this point that I was scared to be happy. So I made an appointment with an OBGYN. At our first ultrasound the tech said she found the gestational sac but no fetus. The doctor then came in and told me to get ready to miscarry.

I then went up to UofU for a 2nd ultrasound. There they had better tech and they might be able to tell me what’s wrong. They found a small fetus inside the gestational sac that measured 5 weeks. So we just thought that I got my dates off by a week. We went home with happy hearts.

A week later I returned to UofU for a 3rd ultrasound. They couldn’t detect a heartbeat. They told me to get ready to miscarry. I was devastated just last week I went through this. And I thought we had overcome it. We went home with heavy hearts.

A week passed and there were no signs of me starting to miscarry the pregnancy so I returned to UofU they did a 4th ultrasound and nothing had changed. The baby measured at 6 weeks but no heartbeat detected. They told me to return 3 days later for a D&C.

3 days later I went back up to UofU for a 4th time this time to have my baby removed from my uterus. But as they were putting me under for the procedure I heard “WAIT THERE IS A HEARTBEAT!”

I came a little while later and the doctor told me that she found a heartbeat and didn’t do the procedure. She said the baby’s heart rate was 101 which was slower than normal but still there. She sent me home with instructions to rest.

I returned a week later and a different Dr did my ultrasound. He told me that the heart rate had dropped to 60 beats per minute. He told me that the pregnancy was dying and that I should just do the D&C now. But in my heart the baby was alive as it had a heartbeat so I would wait until we were sure that the baby was dead in all aspects.

It took 2 weeks for the heart to finally stop. When I should have been around 13 weeks on April 5th I went in and had the D&C done. They did not put me under this time. They just lightly sedated me. Worst. Experience. Of. My. Life. I remember every agonizing moment. Every cramp. Every pull. I blacked out a few times from the amount of pain I was in.

They sent the fetus to be tested with the hope we could find out why I had 6 miscarriages with 0 living children over my 7 years of marriage. I can say we were finally able to find answers. Just in the worst way possible. I suffer from a condition where my body contributes to many chromosomes to the fetus. This is called trisomy. Sometimes babies can live with this. Like trisomy 21 is downs syndrome. But my body did 16 which is not viable with life.

After the consultation with my OB and the genetasist we came to the conclusion that IVF with embryo testing called PTG-A would be our best best to be able to have a healthy pregnancy with hopefully minimal hardships.

I was worried about the financial and physical consequences of IVF but I came to find out that my Grandfather (who helped raise me from age 7 to 14) left me an inheritance that was just enough to cover the cost.

Summer 2022 came and the last of my inheritance from the sale of my grandparents house allowed me to pay for the IVF and we started the process August 2022.

To start with we had to get my body ready for the egg retrieval. To do this I had to do 6 weeks of twice daily injection in my lower stomach along with taking oral hormones.

The day of egg retrieval itself was relatively easy as they put me under general anesthesia. So I was OUT. they were able to retrieve 11 eggs. The aftermath of the retrieval? BRUTAL I felt like I was in labor or something similar for the next 3 days. I couldn’t walk around without doubling over and having to lamaz breath to get through the pain and cramps. It was awful and I pray that I never have to do the egg retrieval process again as I do not want to go through that again. The thought makes me wanna cry.

The day of the egg retrieval they did assisted fetus hatching. This gave us 9 fertilized embryos from the 11 eggs retrieved. They then scraped the outer part of the embryos then flash froze them and sent the scrapings off to be genetically tested.

At the beginning of December we got the results back. Out of the 9 embryos 2 were genetically viable both were little girl embryos. Shortly after Christmas I started a new set of injection hormones. This time to get ready to transfer one of the embryos in January. The transfer itself was the easiest part of this whole process!! I went in laid down they inserted a clear catheter got the embro out thawed it and plopped it into my uterus and then began the 2 week wait. Which sucked as I was on bedrest and the cabin fever was REAL.

The transfer was successful as 2 weeks later I got that much hoped for double pink line and my HCG levels were perfect

After confirming my pregnancy we couldn’t have been more excited to meet our little girl. We started thinking about names and talking about future plans.

I went in for my 7 weeks ultrasound and the universe in its ever sarcastic sardonic dumb dumbness hit the “repeat 2019 miscarriage”button. There was a gestational sac but no fetus. Get ready to miscarry.

A week passed and no signs of miscarriage (see where this is going yet?) Then one night around 9 pm I started hemorrhaging but thank goodness I had a best friend who wasn’t squeamish because she drove me to the ER at midnight and proceeded to help me though one of the most traumatic experiences I’ve been thru bearable. She made sure to make me laugh and was a true friend.

A few days after the ER visit I went back to UofU and met with my Dr where I found out that there was still pregnancy tissue. So she had me take a pill to re-induce the miscarriage to get everything out. With my luck. It. Didn’t. Work. So my last option? Another D&C. Yay. Me.

I told the Dr that this time I needed to go into the OR and be put under. She was understanding and that is what we did. So here I am 1 year into the process and preparing to start the transfer process for a second time. Only the Dr doing my IVF treatment unfortunately wants 3600$ I have used all of my inheritance on the rest of the process and now my husband and I don’t have enough money to do the transfer of out final little girl embryo. We have until the end of September to pay for another year of cryo or to transfer the embryo. We are hoping to transfer the embryo, by the end of September. But we need help to do so. So we are humbly asking for help with what we hope is the last step we need to start growing our little family.

Thank you for reading my novel and any assistance you can provide. Even a share or 5$ goes a long way 💜