Hello! We are Christopher & Felicia Shands. I am currently 35 years old and my husband is 28 and will be turning 29 in December. We first met each other in 2014 while at work. We officially started dating in June 2016 and then were married 2 years later on June 16, 2018. We have had many conversations during our years of dating about where we wanted to be in our lives and about how many kids we planned to have. We agreed that when the time came, we wanted to have 2 kids. Unfortunately, things for us have not gone as planned and we had no idea it would be this hard to have our family.

We began trying to conceive in November 2018. Surprisingly, I got pregnant our first month trying. I couldn’t believe it was that easy! 10 days after I got my positive home pregnancy test, I miscarried. I was estimated to be between 5 and 6 weeks along. We were devastated but, I have always said, things happen for a reason so this baby must not have been healthy enough so we would try again. Several months passed with no results. Between October 2019 to June 2020, I was prescribed a medication to assist with ovulation which only resulted in a chemical pregnancy during our fist cycle and no other confirmed pregnancies. We began testing in June 2020 and all our labs and radiology results for both of us came back normal. Baffled, frustrated, and confused, we then decided to meet with a reproductive endocrinologist to see if they could help us. Given there were no immediately known issues, she said we would be good candidates for IUI so we proceeded with an IUI cycle in November 2020. Unfortunately, pregnancy was once again unsuccessful, so we decided to look into the genetic testing since it was literally the only test we had not done up to this point. To our disappointment, the results came back showing my husband has chromosome abnormalities which is the primary cause for our struggle in getting pregnant.

Although not impossible, conceiving naturally would most likely result in more pregnancy loss before we would have a success and could take months or years to achieve. Our Dr recommended IVF because they could do genetic testing on our embryos to determine if they have any chromosome abnormalities and it would provide us the best chance of having a healthy embryo. We were happy we had options, but the cost was $14, 000, not including medication, and we were not sure how we could ever afford it. My husband and I spent hours discussing it and decided to take out a distribution on our retirement plan to pay for it.

In March 2021, they were able to successfully retrieve 14 eggs, 11 of which were mature and able to be fertilized. From the 11, only 6 made it to the genetics testing. The testing came back and we ended up with only 1 normal embryo. We were equally disappointed and excited about the results. We were hopeful that this was the end of our struggle and in a few weeks would be transferring our little embryo and beginning our pregnancy journey. We literally had one shot at this working but unfortunately, the embryo did not implant and has left us back at square one.

We have met with a few infertility clinics over the past month to determine if another IVF cycle is something we should pursue. I have reached the age that women’s fertility and egg quality begin to decline. However, my ovarian reserve is still very good and supports our chances of getting good quality eggs. Even with the chromosome abnormality, we have been told we have a good chance at still becoming pregnant. We have found an infertility Dr in the St. Louis area who has been treating patients for more than 40 years. He is a pioneer in the subject of infertility and is known around the globe for his work and research. We are opting out of the genetic testing this time around for multiple reasons. We are optimistic and ready to try again one last time.

This whole process has been emotionally and physically exhausting. Even through all the bad times, our love is still as strong as it was on day one and we are anxiously waiting for our miracle. We are not ready to give up yet because we still believe we can achieve our goal of pregnancy. We have spent the past several months discussing options, planning, saving money and working as hard as we possibly can but the truth is, we need some help. If you can help us in any way possible it would be greatly appreciated.

The fees for IVF treatment are $11, 900

Medications are additional and could cost anywhere between $1,500-5000

Our current target date to begin our treatment is December 2021.