Help Deanna and Danny have a baby!

As some of you may know, Danny and I had been trying for over two and a half years to get pregnant. I completed six months of fertility treatments, and on the night before Easter 2018, we finally got that positive test! We were both over the moon and couldn’t wait to tell our families. They were all so happy for us when we told them Easter morning. They thought we were pulling an April Fools joke, but we weren’t! A couple days later, I noticed something wasn’t right and had some tests done. My hormone levels were increasing, but they were not doubling every 48 hours like they were supposed to. I had my 8 week ultrasound and they couldn’t find anything; however, my HCG levels were still slowly increasing. April 19, I was in such immense pain that Danny took me out to the ER at St. Joe’s so I could see my team of doctors. They did another ultrasound and still couldn’t find anything. The test results came back basically inconclusive, but they said that miscarriage was highly probable, and there was a chance that it could be an ectopic pregnancy. I ended up needing injections of methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug, to stop the cell division. The doctors were hopeful that it would “take care of itself”, so to speak, so that was administered April 19 at 8 pm. Five hours later, I awoke at home unable to move because of how much pain I was in. Danny called 911 and an ambulance transported me to Garden City Hospital. After ultrasounds, blood tests, and hours of pain, they told me they would have to remove the pregnancy surgically. While preparing for pre-op, I was told there was a chance that I could lose my left tube where the pregnancy was located because they weren’t entirely sure, but it was likely that the tube had ruptured. Two and a half hours of surgery later, I awoke next to a nurse and the first thing I asked her was, “could they save it?” And she looked at me sadly, slowly shaking her head. I knew from that point, our dream of starting a family would be harder than ever. My left tube did in fact rupture, and it was unable to be saved. 

Fast forward to August 2018. We have the okay from our doctor to start “trying” again. We completed six more rounds of Clomid, the fertility drug that worked the first time, and were unsuccessful. We were referred to a specialist: a reproductive endocrinologist out of IVF Michigan in Ann Arbor. She told me my next step was to have a hysterosalpingogram, or HSG test to see if my remaining right tube was blocked. While it is not blocked, the risk of another ectopic pregnancy is 30% while the fertility drug success rate is only 5%. She did not feel comfortable giving me the drug, so our only option here on out is to go through with in vitro fertilization, or IVF. We were quoted $15,000-20,000 for one round, and that does not include medication (trigger shots, etc). We are feeling so defeated in this journey but are so grateful for the continued support from our family and friends. You all mean so much to us. Thank you.