Chase and Jen's IVF Journey
Donation protected
We are Jennifer and Chase LaBillois, and this is our story.
For as long as Jennifer can remember, her only real goal in life was to become a mom. Some people have dreams of travelling the world or to be successful in a career, not Jennifer, her biggest dream was always to be a mom. When we decided to start a family, we knew that it would not necessarily be easy. Due to complications on Chase’s end, we already knew that we would have to go to a fertility clinic. We never thought Jennifer would end up with fertility complications on her end as well.
We have been battling unknown Secondary Infertility for over 4 years now. We were blessed with our first little miracle in November of 2014. We returned to our fertility clinic in September of 2015 to begin the process of trying to conceive our second child. We started with a regular IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) in October of 2015, the same process we used to conceive our Beautiful, now 5-year-old daughter.
The IUI’s
Our first IUI attempt resulted in a negative pregnancy, we were still optimistic though because we only conceived our first daughter on our second IUI attempt. We moved on to a second IUI attempt soon after the first in November 2015, then a third in December 2015 and a fourth in February 2016, all resulting in negative pregnancies. Obviously, this process wasn’t working for us, so we went back to the drawing board. Jennifer had a procedure done on her fallopian tubes to make sure there were no blockages, to our surprise there were none and we were cleared to move forward with IUI with Ovarian Stimulation. This type of IUI involves fertility drugs to help with the growth of mature egg follicles. The goal is to have between 2 and 4 mature follicles. This process is monitored with blood work and ultrasounds. Our first round of IUI with Ovarian Stimulation had 2 mature follicles, we were beyond happy, this was going to be it, we were going to have our second baby… but nope just like the 4 IUI’s before, this one also resulted in a negative pregnancy. We didn’t give up hope and in August 2016 we attempted a second IUI with Ovarian Stimulation, this cycle was cancelled because Jennifer did not produce any mature egg follicles. Back to the drawing board.
IVF (In-Vitro-Fertilization)
September of 2016 marks the start of our first IVF cycle. Since IUI’s were not working, we moved on to the next step, the more effective and expensive procedure. In order to be able to move forward with IVF we had to take out a personal loan, thankfully we were able to do so. After 2 months of medication and fertility drugs, the big day arrived, egg retrieval day (eggs are removed from the ovaries and brought to a lab). The doctor retrieved 13 egg follicles from Jennifer’s ovaries, 10 of which were mature. Amazing news, or so we thought until 5 days after the eggs were fertilised and only 2 made it to become blastocyst. On November 14, 2014 we returned to the clinic and our OBGYN did a fresh embryo transfer, transferring 1 of our 2 Blastocysts into Jennifer’s uterus. About 12 days later we received a call from the fertility clinic to tell us that we were pregnant, YES pregnant! We were beyond excited. A few short days later we lost the baby. This was an extremely hard time in our lives, how could something like this happen? Receive so much happiness to just have it taken away, it broke us. After taking much needed time to heal, we had more clinic visits for; blood test, ultrasounds and uterus examinations. After time both us and our Doctor felt that we were ready to start preparing Jennifer’s body for the transfer of our second Blastocyst. On February 8, 2018 we did a frozen embryo transfer, which resulted in yet another negative pregnancy.
Back to IUI
Even though we had another negative pregnancy result, we weren’t ready to give up, so we went back to trying IUI with Ovarian Stimulation we did our first new round of IUI’s in April of 2018, which resulted in a negative pregnancy. We attempted, second IUI with Ovarian Stimulation in July of 2018, this cycle was cancelled because there were no mature egg follicles. We went back and tried a third IUI with Stimulation cycle which produced 2 mature egg follicles, but also resulted in a negative pregnancy. Back to the drawing board again, after talking with our OBGYN and the nurses at the fertility clinic it was decided that it would be best to take some time off and for Jennifer to lose some weight, in hopes that it would help her body react more positively to the fertility medication. So that’s what we did, Jennifer lost some weight and we stayed away from the clinic for almost 1 year. In October of 2019, we returned and moved forward with another IUI with Ovarian Stimulation and as expected Jennifer’s weight loss worked, she produced 4 mature egg follicles. These 4 egg follicles, however, still did not produce a positive pregnancy result. So, Jennifer returned to the clinic and did another IUI with Stimulation in November of 2019 with 2 mature egg follicles, which if your counting for the eleventh time resulted in yet another negative pregnancy. Back to the drawing board yet again…
IVF #2
We returned to our fertility clinic on January 22, 2020 and it has been decided that our only option is to move forward with a second IVF cycle, but this time with a different donor’s sperm, different medications, vitamins and hopefully your support. We are shooting to do our second round of IVF in July 2020. The IVF procedure is not only time consuming, but it is also very costly; the IVF procedure itself is $7675, a vial of donor sperm from creating Canadian families comes to $886, there will be a cost for fertility medication, which we will only know approximately a month before the procedure once the medications are prescribed, but the clinic estimates anywhere between $2000-$6000. The procedure will require us to do 7 days straight of morning visits, 7:30 on weekdays and 8:30 on weekends. Since we are at least 3 hours out of town we will be required to stay there for at least 6 nights, which will also result in a cost. We will be doing everything from now until we are able to move forward with the procedure to come up with the money we will need for this journey on our own. We truly never thought that our journey would lead us here. With the cost of IVF and our numerous trips/visits to the clinic over the past 4 years we are tapped out and are unable to take out anymore loans. We are reaching out to you to help make our deepest desire become a reality. Any donation will be helpful, and your contribution is greatly appreciated. We literally could not go through this procedure without outside help.
We want to thank you for your support,
The LaBillois’
For as long as Jennifer can remember, her only real goal in life was to become a mom. Some people have dreams of travelling the world or to be successful in a career, not Jennifer, her biggest dream was always to be a mom. When we decided to start a family, we knew that it would not necessarily be easy. Due to complications on Chase’s end, we already knew that we would have to go to a fertility clinic. We never thought Jennifer would end up with fertility complications on her end as well.
We have been battling unknown Secondary Infertility for over 4 years now. We were blessed with our first little miracle in November of 2014. We returned to our fertility clinic in September of 2015 to begin the process of trying to conceive our second child. We started with a regular IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) in October of 2015, the same process we used to conceive our Beautiful, now 5-year-old daughter.
The IUI’s
Our first IUI attempt resulted in a negative pregnancy, we were still optimistic though because we only conceived our first daughter on our second IUI attempt. We moved on to a second IUI attempt soon after the first in November 2015, then a third in December 2015 and a fourth in February 2016, all resulting in negative pregnancies. Obviously, this process wasn’t working for us, so we went back to the drawing board. Jennifer had a procedure done on her fallopian tubes to make sure there were no blockages, to our surprise there were none and we were cleared to move forward with IUI with Ovarian Stimulation. This type of IUI involves fertility drugs to help with the growth of mature egg follicles. The goal is to have between 2 and 4 mature follicles. This process is monitored with blood work and ultrasounds. Our first round of IUI with Ovarian Stimulation had 2 mature follicles, we were beyond happy, this was going to be it, we were going to have our second baby… but nope just like the 4 IUI’s before, this one also resulted in a negative pregnancy. We didn’t give up hope and in August 2016 we attempted a second IUI with Ovarian Stimulation, this cycle was cancelled because Jennifer did not produce any mature egg follicles. Back to the drawing board.
IVF (In-Vitro-Fertilization)
September of 2016 marks the start of our first IVF cycle. Since IUI’s were not working, we moved on to the next step, the more effective and expensive procedure. In order to be able to move forward with IVF we had to take out a personal loan, thankfully we were able to do so. After 2 months of medication and fertility drugs, the big day arrived, egg retrieval day (eggs are removed from the ovaries and brought to a lab). The doctor retrieved 13 egg follicles from Jennifer’s ovaries, 10 of which were mature. Amazing news, or so we thought until 5 days after the eggs were fertilised and only 2 made it to become blastocyst. On November 14, 2014 we returned to the clinic and our OBGYN did a fresh embryo transfer, transferring 1 of our 2 Blastocysts into Jennifer’s uterus. About 12 days later we received a call from the fertility clinic to tell us that we were pregnant, YES pregnant! We were beyond excited. A few short days later we lost the baby. This was an extremely hard time in our lives, how could something like this happen? Receive so much happiness to just have it taken away, it broke us. After taking much needed time to heal, we had more clinic visits for; blood test, ultrasounds and uterus examinations. After time both us and our Doctor felt that we were ready to start preparing Jennifer’s body for the transfer of our second Blastocyst. On February 8, 2018 we did a frozen embryo transfer, which resulted in yet another negative pregnancy.
Back to IUI
Even though we had another negative pregnancy result, we weren’t ready to give up, so we went back to trying IUI with Ovarian Stimulation we did our first new round of IUI’s in April of 2018, which resulted in a negative pregnancy. We attempted, second IUI with Ovarian Stimulation in July of 2018, this cycle was cancelled because there were no mature egg follicles. We went back and tried a third IUI with Stimulation cycle which produced 2 mature egg follicles, but also resulted in a negative pregnancy. Back to the drawing board again, after talking with our OBGYN and the nurses at the fertility clinic it was decided that it would be best to take some time off and for Jennifer to lose some weight, in hopes that it would help her body react more positively to the fertility medication. So that’s what we did, Jennifer lost some weight and we stayed away from the clinic for almost 1 year. In October of 2019, we returned and moved forward with another IUI with Ovarian Stimulation and as expected Jennifer’s weight loss worked, she produced 4 mature egg follicles. These 4 egg follicles, however, still did not produce a positive pregnancy result. So, Jennifer returned to the clinic and did another IUI with Stimulation in November of 2019 with 2 mature egg follicles, which if your counting for the eleventh time resulted in yet another negative pregnancy. Back to the drawing board yet again…
IVF #2
We returned to our fertility clinic on January 22, 2020 and it has been decided that our only option is to move forward with a second IVF cycle, but this time with a different donor’s sperm, different medications, vitamins and hopefully your support. We are shooting to do our second round of IVF in July 2020. The IVF procedure is not only time consuming, but it is also very costly; the IVF procedure itself is $7675, a vial of donor sperm from creating Canadian families comes to $886, there will be a cost for fertility medication, which we will only know approximately a month before the procedure once the medications are prescribed, but the clinic estimates anywhere between $2000-$6000. The procedure will require us to do 7 days straight of morning visits, 7:30 on weekdays and 8:30 on weekends. Since we are at least 3 hours out of town we will be required to stay there for at least 6 nights, which will also result in a cost. We will be doing everything from now until we are able to move forward with the procedure to come up with the money we will need for this journey on our own. We truly never thought that our journey would lead us here. With the cost of IVF and our numerous trips/visits to the clinic over the past 4 years we are tapped out and are unable to take out anymore loans. We are reaching out to you to help make our deepest desire become a reality. Any donation will be helpful, and your contribution is greatly appreciated. We literally could not go through this procedure without outside help.
We want to thank you for your support,
The LaBillois’
Organizer
Jennifer LaBillois
Organizer
Dalhousie, NB
