Help Lauren's Egg Retrieval & Cancer Journey
Donation protected
My husband Nathan and I have been married for 13 years, but we have been together for almost 21 years! Where does the time go?! A couple of years ago we wanted to start a family. After a year of no success Nathan was diagnosed with undetermined infertility. Luckily, because of a surgery we were able to freeze some of Nathan's guys. After that we were trying to figure how to tackle the fact that we were looking at IVF and trying to decide what we wanted to do. I am sure a lot of you are aware that IVF is not covered by most insurances and is very expensive.
Fast forward to December of 2019, out of the blue I had been feeling extremely unwell. A couple visits to doctors and ER trips later I underwent emergency abdominal surgery and was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer. This was a complete shock to not only Nathan and I, but also our family and friends. After recovering from intestinal surgery the next steps were to figure out when to start chemotherapy and to also undergo egg freezing. Most child-bearing aged women are encouraged to freeze their eggs before starting most cancer treatments. Unfortunately because of the ill timing and the urgency to start chemotherapy I was not able to under go egg retrieval before starting my cancer treatment. This was absolutely heartbreaking and devastating news for Nathan and I on top of everything else we were trying to wrap our heads around.
Since then I have recovered from my surgery, completed 6 months of chemotherapy (all the while dealing with a pandemic) and recovering from the craziness that has been our lives for the past 14 months or so. All of my CT scans have been great so far! It is looking like our goal of a curative treatment is looking very promising. So now this brings Nathan and I to our next stage of our journey! We will not be able to try to conceive for another couple of years. I need to have some more clean scans under my belt first (about 3 years worth from my date of diagnosis), so we are looking at egg retrieval and embryo freezing until we can attempt IVF.
We have consulted with a fertility specialist and he was even surprised that with everything I have gone through it is promising to move forward with egg retrieval. This doctor is very conservative and straight forward, so hearing this news was amazing! We really did not know if this would even be a possibility after chemo. I am scheduled to start the egg retrieval process in the beginning of July 2021.
This procedure is expensive, not covered by our insurance, and we need your help! The funds that we are asking for are to cover all of the pre-procedure testing, the full egg retrieval procedure; which includes all ultrasounds, monitor testing, the medications needed for the procedure, specimen transfer, and some funds to cover genetic embryo testing. Without these funds by July it will make it harder if not unlikely that we'd be able to do this. 100% of funds will be used for this procedure.
To those of you who know Nathan and I, we want to thank you for your generosity and thoughtfulness. We are both pretty private people and this has been hard to even ask people for help, none the less do a fundraiser. To the strangers out there with big hearts who might help us, we humbly and graciously thank you! (so do the future grandparents as well )
Fast forward to December of 2019, out of the blue I had been feeling extremely unwell. A couple visits to doctors and ER trips later I underwent emergency abdominal surgery and was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer. This was a complete shock to not only Nathan and I, but also our family and friends. After recovering from intestinal surgery the next steps were to figure out when to start chemotherapy and to also undergo egg freezing. Most child-bearing aged women are encouraged to freeze their eggs before starting most cancer treatments. Unfortunately because of the ill timing and the urgency to start chemotherapy I was not able to under go egg retrieval before starting my cancer treatment. This was absolutely heartbreaking and devastating news for Nathan and I on top of everything else we were trying to wrap our heads around.
Since then I have recovered from my surgery, completed 6 months of chemotherapy (all the while dealing with a pandemic) and recovering from the craziness that has been our lives for the past 14 months or so. All of my CT scans have been great so far! It is looking like our goal of a curative treatment is looking very promising. So now this brings Nathan and I to our next stage of our journey! We will not be able to try to conceive for another couple of years. I need to have some more clean scans under my belt first (about 3 years worth from my date of diagnosis), so we are looking at egg retrieval and embryo freezing until we can attempt IVF.
We have consulted with a fertility specialist and he was even surprised that with everything I have gone through it is promising to move forward with egg retrieval. This doctor is very conservative and straight forward, so hearing this news was amazing! We really did not know if this would even be a possibility after chemo. I am scheduled to start the egg retrieval process in the beginning of July 2021.
This procedure is expensive, not covered by our insurance, and we need your help! The funds that we are asking for are to cover all of the pre-procedure testing, the full egg retrieval procedure; which includes all ultrasounds, monitor testing, the medications needed for the procedure, specimen transfer, and some funds to cover genetic embryo testing. Without these funds by July it will make it harder if not unlikely that we'd be able to do this. 100% of funds will be used for this procedure.
To those of you who know Nathan and I, we want to thank you for your generosity and thoughtfulness. We are both pretty private people and this has been hard to even ask people for help, none the less do a fundraiser. To the strangers out there with big hearts who might help us, we humbly and graciously thank you! (so do the future grandparents as well )
Organizer
Lauren Neely
Organizer
Indianapolis, IN