Krystal and Mark's Hope for a Family

To whomever is reading, we appreciate you taking the time. We know that we are not the only ones struggling financially, but we also know that there are many people who are wanting to help us.

Mark and I got married in 2012. I have always loved children and desperately wanted to become a mom. After one year of marriage, we got off of birth control and started to try for our little one. We were devastated as our friends and family members who started trying to conceive around the same time became pregnant and had children while we remained childless.

We finally gathered up the courage to go to doctors that could test the cheapest and easiest tests. One doctor (my gyno) actually tested my tubes and ovaries but found nothing odd. The other doctor (Mark's urologist) refused to test, telling us that we were just being impatient and to keep trying.

We felt defeated and embarrassed that we were being so "impatient" (we weren't, it had been three years by this point). We became foster parents, trying to help children in need.

Foster care was rewarding, but emotionally difficult.

Time went on.

Negative test after negative test. Every month another wave of hope, every month another crushing blow as we remained unable to conceive.

Finally, we moved to Japan and got up the courage to see another doctor about our infertility concerns. He was kind and reassuring with us. We were shocked to discover that we had severe male infertility. The only way to conceive would be through IVF with ICSI, the most intense form of IVF.

We were crushed.

We saved up until we had enough to do the procedure. It took a year, but we gathered all of our savings and went to the clinic. The doctor tested us one more time, just to double-check that everything would be okay before starting the intense medications.

But the male factor infertility had vanished. Not only did my husband not have a low sperm count, he had an incredibly high sperm count. The doctor smiled at us, congratulated us, and suggested the we go back to trying naturally for a year.

Mark was overjoyed and hopeful.

I was crushed. More waiting.

When another year went by without a child, we were getting ready to start the IVF process again when COVID hit. All the hospitals in Japan shut down any non-essential visits. IVF was non-essential.

More waiting.

We moved cities in Japan, and I found another job working with kindergarteners.

This meant that in 2021 I had to find a new IVF clinic. I had to run all the expensive tests again. We finally found one we liked, ran the tests, and found that the male factor infertility had returned. We needed IVF with ICSI.

We saved up and had planned to do IVF during the school's winter break.

Unfortunately, the timing of everything ended up being that the clinic was closed during the most important days (IVF is very timed-centric).

Another delay. Another disappointment.

Two months later I was in the hospital being treated for inflammation in my brain. 4 MRIs and one spinal tap later, I was diagnosed with M.S. The damage was so much that it appeared that I had had it for years without noticing the havoc being done to my brain.

One month later we returned to the U.S. to get better treatment for my M.S. and have the support of my family.

I went from being the sole breadwinner to suddenly being unable to swallow my own saliva on some days. It was terrifying. It took time to get my M.S. under control (well, under control ENOUGH), and by that point we had found another clinic.

So imagine our surprise when we go to that infertility clinic just to find out that we don't just have male factor infertility, we also have female factor infertility that was never diagnosed by any of the other three doctors.

With all of the money we had and going from no debt to almost $8,000 of credit card debt, we bought the medications and started our first ground of IVF with ICSI.

All together, we spent around $12,000.

We were ecstatic when my body performed incredibly well and we were able to get 23 eggs.

But then the embryologist contacted us and told us that our male factor infertility showed it's ugly head once again. Rather than having the usual 6 million sperm to choose from, the embryologist had 50. Not 50 million. 50. Only 50. He told us that our chances were not good.

The next day he called to tell us only 10 out of the 23 had made it.

We waited with little hope that any would make it to be day 5 embryos, which is where they needed to be in order to be transferred.

Then we got the call.

2.

2 made it.

Out of 23 eggs we should have had around 13-15 embryos.

We had 2.

But 2 was better than 0.

Then one month later we transferred those frozen embabies. We crossed our fingers and prayed.

Then five days later I cracked and took a pregnancy test.

Positive. After 11 years of trying to conceive, I finally saw my first positive pregnancy test.

It took five more pregnancy tests over the next five days to come back positive before I finally started to believe it.

When I was 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant, we got our first ultrasound and heard the strong heartbeat. Between the two embryos, one of them actually started to grow. But that was enough.

Finally, we would be parents. All of the hoping and waiting and praying was finally paying off. All of the hard nights and countless tears would be worth it as soon as we held this little baby in our arms.

We started to feel confident that we might actually be parents soon.

When I was 10 weeks pregnant we had our last ultrasound at the IVF clinic. We were going to 'graduate' and I couldn't be more excited to see my little baby again.

No words can describe the feeling when the doctor looked at the ultrasound and said: "You're how far along? 10 weeks? This isn't a 10 week old fetus. Yeah, it's measuring 7 weeks and 3 days." He moved the wand around to get a better look and shook his head, "And there's no heartbeat."

Our little miracle baby was gone.

After 11 and a half years of trying to conceive, and over $10,000 of money spent, we were pregnant just long enough to hear the heartbeat before losing it all.

So now we are left with an immense loss from our little bean leaving us, and a ton of debt. We know that the only way that we can become parents is through IVF. We know that we want to do IVF again (well, no, we don't, but we do want to become parents).

We also know that we will need to freeze sperm ahead of time to make sure that we have more than 50 for the embryologist to choose from.

And so, we're asking, if you have anything that you'd like to give to our cause, we would appreciate it.

We are working hard trying to fund this ourselves as our insurance covers nothing, but our chances of conceiving go down significantly as soon as I am over 35. I would have been 34 the day after baby would have been born. Our due date was May 29th, 2025.

We know our time is getting shorter.

Thank you for reading our story. Just writing it has been cathartic for me, especially so close to the demise of our first little baby.

We know that finances are tight for many people, so we appreciate any and everything that can be spared.

Sincerely,

Krystal and Mark