Help Brittany & Ryan start their family

Dear friends,

Many of you know my best friends, Brittany and Ryan Hendrix, and as you know they are pretty awesome, and would make the greatest parents ever! Brittany and I have been friends since middle school. We have always dreamed of having babies together and them growing up together, unfortunately we haven’t had the opportunity to make this a reality because Brittany has been struggling with fertility issues that can only be fixed through an expensive surgery. I have seen Brittany go through emotional, physical, and mental pain through this tough fertility journey, it has been absolutely heartbreaking for them both. But through all the pain and tears they aren’t giving up hope to one day (hopefully soon) be able to have their miracle baby. I have been thinking of ways to help them reach this goal quicker, and Brittany finally agreed to let me start a GoFundMe on their behalf. I asked Brittany to share their fertility journey, so here it is:

Hello there! For those of you who know me (and those who don't) this is something that is hard for me. I am typically the type that is a "fix it" and "make it happen" type. But as my friends keep saying, you are not super woman!! It is okay to ask for help...you never know who will bless you!! So, I am finally listening and going to open up about our fertility journey. This does not come easy for me, please know this! This is very hard for me to even share, but I knew one day God was going to have me share it. So here goes our story…

Our journey has not been easy, but I am so happy to say that I have the absolute best rock, my hubby! We have been together for 10 years and we just celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary this October. What a wild ride it has been! When we got married, we told each other, let's wait a year to get pregnant, let’s enjoy our first year of marriage and just make it about US! Well, little did we know God had different plans and he would take us through the hardest journey ever. The end of 2017 was coming and we wanted to start trying to conceive, so we tried on our own for about a year and was not successful, so we decided to go see my OB(Dr. R, I will leave it as these names for the doctors because we have seen several and it will get confusing lol). He was willing to help and started us on some pills. Fast forward to the beginning of January 2019, I was in EXTREME pain, like bent over couldn't even walk pain. We got into the OB that day and sat in the room for a while, I had to lay down as the pain was terrible, Dr. R sent us to go get a shot down the road from a pharmacy and they would administer the shot when we brought it back(we paid $100 for this damn shot), went back to the front of the office and told them we had the shot and they got us back immediately and put us into a room only to tell us, they are not going to give me the shot because Dr. R watched me walk out of the room bent over in extreme pain, so he said y'all need to head to the hospital, I am going to admit you and we are going to see what is going on. Ryan and I had NO idea this was going to happen, so we were not prepared at all. We had no clothes, and our dogs were at home waiting for us to come home. Ryan got me over to the hospital (they brought out a wheelchair because at this point, I couldn't even walk). Ryan called my mom to tell her what was going on, she rushed to Giddings to get our fur babies and grabbed us the essentials. They finally got us up to a room and they gave me meds right away. Well, the meds made me completely sick and I couldn’t stop throwing up. Fast forward 2 DAYS in the hospital, Dr. R decided he was going to take me under and see what is going on because I was still in severe pain! He came to tell us that I was being diagnosed with Endometriosis! If you don't know what this is, look it up, it’s AWFUL! I had to heal from that surgery before we could start trying again. 2 Months later, I was at my doctor appointment by myself because my hubby was back on his hitch. Dr. R gave me the worst news "I am sorry but I can no longer help you with this journey, I will be sending you to a fertility clinic" MY HEART SUNK!!! I got out to the car and I just cried, and sat there for about 30 minutes. I called the fertility clinic and I left a message, sadly, I NEVER HEARD BACK FROM THEM!!! Ugh! Talk about depression!!

Around July of 2019, a photo of what endometriosis looks like from the insides was shared on facebook and I shared it to let people around me know what it’s like to have this terrible disease. After I shared it, I kid you not, I had 6 different people message me and tell me about this "amazing" OB Dr. in Austin. So, I get to talking to all of these people and they ALL had success stories with him. So, Ryan and I talked and we were like, okay maybe we should try him since the fertility clinic didn't get back with us. We finally had an appointment to go meet with Dr. S in August. What a sweetheart he was, Ryan and I LOVED him!

Sadly, we had a set back and we couldn’t start treatments, I was experiencing pressure behind both of my optic nerves (even lost vision in my right eye), Ryan took me to 4 different ER’s and no one could tell us what was going on. That is a story in itself lol.

Fast forward to January 2020, we finally got to go back and see Dr. S and see what was next for us on starting our journey to have a family! They found that I had a golf ball size cyst rupture AND 5 more cysts were forming. They wanted to go full force on getting us pregnant, so all this bad stuff would go away. Well, February comes and I had to have another surgery to remove endometriosis AGAIN, he found 2 huge spots, and lots of scar tissue from last year’s surgery, he also found 2 cysts sitting on my fallopian tube.

After I was healed and cleared from surgery, Dr. S had us do 2 months of natural and nothing was happening. So we started doing IUI’s, and if you have not gone through anything like this before, NONE, absolutely NONE of this is covered by insurance, so everything leading up to this and here on out was OUT OF POCKET!

I went through 5 IUI’S (these were over $1,200 each time, a lot more went into just doing IUI’s, sending semen through CPL labs, doctor visit itself and the shots), everyone I had talked to said theirs was not painful, however mine were AWFUL! Luckily, Ryan was able to be with me for the first round and my mom went with me on the 2nd round, then covid hit! I had to go by myself because the doctor’s office was not allowing anyone besides the patient to come in and it was awful. The first 2 I had someone’s hand to hold and someone there to keep me distracted from the pain. My first IUI, they wanted to try it without a trigger shot, so we did the IUI and Ryan said I almost broke his hand from squeezing him SO hard, it was so painful! The 2nd one, they decided we should try and do a trigger shot to make sure the follicle releases, and that hurt SO BAD! I yelled and scared the nurse and then I couldn’t stop crying! Our last 3 IUI’s I had to do by myself, thanks covid! My mama got me a stress ball and I squeezed the crap out of it. After going through 3 more and seeing no success, I told Ryan I couldn’t do anymore, my body was tired, I was exhausted and depressed about the failed pregnancy tests over and over.

So we stopped and took a break. I had many cry sessions on our bathroom floor, many days I couldn’t even get out of bed, and TONS of failed pregnancy tests (these are not cheap at ALL). But through all of this, my hubby has been my biggest rock. This journey for any marriage is not easy, I am thankful God gave me him!

Ryan and I started talking again about trying and seeing what our options were. A success story was shared on Facebook about this amazing Fertility doctor in Austin, this is Dr. S (2 Dr.S’s LOL). So, I called them to see about possibly getting in with them and meeting this doctor! They were so busy that we could not get in till December 2020.

We finally go to our appointment in December and met the doctor(little did we know this was the clinic we called and the Doctor was very upset that they had never called me back), he does an ultrasound and right away he said “I do not like what I see.” He decides to send me to get an X-ray with dye done. This procedure should have been a breeze, however it was not. Because of covid, I had to go alone; my hubby had to stay in the vehicle. They got me prepared for the procedure and during it I got extremely hot and they had to stop, I was about to pass out. They sent another nurse in to help, she walked in and said “you are so pale; let me get you a cool rag.” After a little while, they were able to start it again. I was happy to get out of that place after that awful procedure. A few weeks later they gave us the results and it wasn’t good news, we were given another setback.

They found that I have a Septate Uterus and my right tube was completely blocked. We spent bookoos of money with the OB only to find out from the fertility clinic that there was no possible way of me even getting pregnant. Talk about heart and gut wrenching!

We were then informed we had to talk to the surgery coordinator and she would give us the details as far as getting prepared for surgery. Sadly, insurance doesn’t cover anything fertility related, so she informed us that we would have to pay $5100 out of pocket up front before surgery can happen. This is where we turn for help, we know we can’t do it all on our own.

These past 4 years have been very hard, this is not easy AT ALL for me to open up about this. I knew one day I wanted to tell my story for others to be aware and know that they are not alone. Infertility is not for the faint of heart. And we’re not asking you to feel sorry for us. We’re asking you to strengthen us and lift us up when we’re weak. We are telling you of our journey because infertility affects more people than you are aware of. 1 in 8 couples will experience infertility. So, when someone tells you they’re struggling to get pregnant instead of telling them to “just relax,” tell them you love them and that you’ll always be there to cheer them on. Too many women and couples struggle in silence, cry in the bathroom at family functions, feel alone and isolated on this journey.

God put this sweet soul in our life, Melanie. She has been through infertility and has been there with us through every step of our journey! I am forever thankful God put her in our life! She gave us this sweet onesie that has been with several ladies on their journeys and they were all able to get pregnant, I know our time is coming and we too will add a baby to that beautiful onesie. We take a little box with us to every baby appointment. This is what is in our box….

And yes, we already have kid’s shoes…you’d be surprised what all we already have because we thought we would be able to get pregnant right away!

If you got all the way to the end, I thank you for reading our story. We know times are tough, and we would love to have your prayers! For anyone reading this and going through infertility and you need someone to talk to, I see you and I am here for you