Adoption, Donor Egg or IVF baby!

This fund is for myself and my husband to have a baby through Adoption, IVF or Donor Eggs.  We have been trying to have a baby since we were married in 2012.  I am a Licensed Mental Health Therapist for children and families, and he is an Accident Prevention Manager at CRST.  Every day I help children with their anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc; yet, I cannot have children of my own.  It is a source of vast sadness.  In 2014, at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, I was diagnosed with Diminished Ovarian Reserve, a condition where your egg supply is depleted too early in life.  I do have eggs left; there just are not a lot of them.  The doctors report that there is nothing wrong with my uterus, just my egg count is low.  My husband has no fertility issues; in fact it is quite the opposite, they are always impressed with his numbers! 

     We started using supplements to improve my egg count, fertility monitors to predict when I was ovulating, fertility medications - you name it, we tried it.  Nothing worked.  We went to a fertility clinic in Des Moines in 2016, and started IUI (Intra Uterine Insemination).  We paid out of pocket because insurance does not cover IUI or IVF in Iowa; not unless you are really lucky.  We did 3 IUI’s, each time we were hopeful that this was “the time”, but we did not get pregnant.

    The fertility specialist recommended that we start IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).  We did not have the $15,000 that they require as a deposit before you even get started, so after taking out a loan, we began IVF.  I had to give myself daily shots in the stomach, take medications and supplements to produce multiple eggs for egg retrieval, but when it came time to take the eggs out, the ultrasound revealed that there were no eggs at the the right size for retrieval.  We were devastated, we were not even aware that this could happen.  We tried again the next month and there was only one egg at the right size.  The doctor felt it was too risky to take out one egg, as it often dies if they do.  Fertility specialists say they can take out 6 eggs, and maybe 3 will live, etc.  So, he switched us to an IUI for that month instead.  We were hopeful that with all of the fertility medications, ultrasound monitoring, and trigger shot used to release my egg at just the right time - that this time it would work.  I had a positive pregnancy test for the first time in my life and I was ecstatic!  However, we learned that it was the trigger shot that caused the positive pregnancy test and we were not actually pregnant.  I cannot describe mine and my husband’s despair.

    Frustrated, I found a Fertility Doctor in St. Louis, Dr. Sherman Silber at The Infertility Center of St. Louis, who developed a way to take out one egg at a time and keep it alive.  This means that women who have my condition can get pregnant because if they only produce one egg a month, it’s okay, Dr. Silber can take them out one by one until you get enough to start the implantation for IVF.  I met with the doctor in St. Louis two weeks ago.  He said this is possible, but it may take 3-6 egg retrievals to get enough eggs out of me to start IVF.  Just so you understand the process, the doctor has to take at least 6 eggs out of you, inject each one with your husband’s sperm, let the embryos grow for 5 days, see how many live, test them for genetic diseases and then put the embryos inside your uterus 1-2 at a time and wait for two weeks to see if they implanted for pregnancy.  It is quite a process and it is quite expensive each time.  Dr. Silber in St. Louis wants to start me on fertility medications in a few days in order to do egg retrieval on June 10, 2017.  A deposit of $4050 is due in two weeks and $6350 is due in four weeks.  This is just for round one of egg retrieval.  Each subsequent round is $7550.  All medications are an extra expense.

     Why don’t you just adopt you ask?  It is just as expensive and often more expensive than IVF.  For instance, adoption can cost around $45,000.  Why don’t you use donor eggs you ask?  They are more expensive than IVF with your own eggs.  Donor eggs and transfer procedures cost around $35,000 minimum.  We are considering all of these possibilities because we want children.  It means the world to us.  We will no longer see children all around us and feel sad.  We will no longer hear about all of the sporting events and proms and graduations and be saddened because we do not have children to experience these dreams with.  But we cannot do this alone.  We need your help.  Your help would mean a family to us.  A dream fulfilled.  You cannot put a price on that.  It is emotion, it is love.  Please help us.
Sincerely,
Miranda and Michael Breeden