Our third grant that was going to be awarded at our Dinner & Hope Event goes to a wonderful couple that will be undergoing fertility treatments in the hope that they can grow their family.
Our grant will cover the cost of their frozen embryo transfer. The couple does have one child that was conceived naturally however they began experiencing secondary infertility when they began trying for their second child.
They have sadly experienced several losses through a missed miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies. They have gone through IUI, IVF with a fresh transfer and a frozen embryo transfer.
We are extremely hopeful that they will have success in their next frozen embryo transfer and are happy that we are able to provide a grant. Please send your love, support, and prayers to the couple for their upcoming treatment.
A note from the couple about their infertility journey:
“We were able to conceive our daughter on our first try in 2016. We always wanted to have our children close together so we started trying again when she was 9 months old. I, naively, thought it would be easy. After a few months with no success, I started noticing that my period was extremely light lasting only 2 days. I went into the OB office in June of 2018. The person I saw told me not to be concerned even though an ultrasound showed my lining was very thin after ovulating.
I got a second opinion in July of 2018. The OB was very concerned about my lining being so thin. Knowing that I had a C-section with my daughter, she wanted to check to ensure I didn’t have Asherman Syndrome. We scheduled a Hysteroscopy for the following month. To our surprise, we found out I was pregnant before having the Hysteroscopy. Unfortunately, it resulted in a missed marriage at 7 weeks and I had a D and C.
It took 9 weeks for my HCG to get back to zero before we could start trying to conceive again. The doctor then prescribed Letrozole with timed intercourse. After three cycles, we had no luck. We then set up a consultation with a local fertility clinic in March 2019. All of the testing came back normal except my estrogen was high, so the doctor was concerned for Diminished Ovarian Reserve.
There are two doctors in that clinic so the second doctor tested my estrogen a cycle later and it was in the normal range, so he felt that I didn’t have Diminished Ovarian Reserve. He recommended trying an IUI with Letrozole. We did two IUIs in the summer of 2019 with no success, and I now wish we hadn’t. I was ovulating on my own and my husband's sperm count was good, so I just feel that there probably wasn’t a big benefit to doing it and our insurance has no infertility coverage, so they were out of pocket.
After both IUI’s failed, they recommended IVF. We decided to look into other clinics. We found Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago. The biggest benefit is that they offer financing through Lending Tree. We were able to secure a loan for treatment. We met our doctor and he came up with a great protocol that we felt comfortable with. He also looked over all my records and did all the required testing. He felt that I didn’t have Diminished Ovarian Reserve and our Secondary Infertility was unexplained.
We started our stim cycle in September 2019 and had great success. We were able to do a fresh transfer and freeze 4 embryos. Since I am younger, we chose not to do genetic testing on our embryos. Our fresh transfer turned in an ectopic pregnancy that would not resolve on its own. I received methotrexate in October 2019.
I was told to use protection and that we needed to wait three cycles to conceive again. In December 2019, I was able to start updating labs and schedule a frozen embryo transfer for January 2020. I was waiting for my period to begin. I took a pregnancy test the day of my missed period and it was negative.
Of course, we didn’t use protection even though we were advised to because we hadn’t conceived on our own so why would we now? I took another test 4 days after my missed period and got a faint positive on December 23, 2019. I went in for a BETA and it was 12. My OB had me come in every other day.
My levels continued to double, and we got excited thinking it was a miracle. On December 31, 2019, I started bleeding and having a lot of cramps on the same side as my previous ectopic. My OB continued to monitor as my levels still slowly kept going up. I finally had to have laparoscopic surgery on January 10, 2020, to remove the ectopic and my left tube. I was able to heal and complete all testing ordered in February 2020 and do a frozen embryo transfer which we just learned, failed.
I have not been comfortable being open about my infertility journey to other people, besides on all of the IVF, secondary infertility, and ectopic discussion groups on Facebook. I have so many regrets already like not doing the multi-cycle IVF program through Advanced Fertility Center. Our loan is already up to $16,000 and that program started at $16,500. I also wish I would have done genetic testing on our embryos; I still wonder if egg quality is an issue and that testing could have helped with some of that.”
