Medical Cost for Natalie

Natalie is a dear friend from High School and  was even closer to my sister Jenny. She has overcome a lot over the years. She has gone through pain and great joy. In the last months or so she has encounter hardship that is unfathomable. Here is an opportunity to help in a tangible way, to praying and to support. Cancer sucks! Ovarian Cancer sucks! Let’s fight with her and make some dreams come true.


Here is her story that she wrote:


“I have wanted to be a mother my whole life not only an amazing wife but also meet the right person to raise children with. After a painful divorce I gave up on the dream of having the right partner to have children with until I met Edlow, my now husband. He was an amazing father to his 3 children from his previous marriage and helped me become a really great stepmama to his kiddos. We became a really great team and also a co-parenting team with his kids mother, which is pretty hard to do. I thank her as often as I can for sharing her awesome kids with us freely. I naturally wanted to continue to grow a family with this amazing man and watch the kids we raise together experience gaining another sibling. We never didn't not try for a child but I was told I was to morbidly obese to even be considered for fertility drugs. I was offered an opportunity to have weight-loss surgery. I proceeded to have a weight-loss surgery in Oct. 2018 with high hopes I would stabilize my weight before marrying my fiance. I was told that the weight loss surgery would let me get pregnant naturally and help prevent cancer in my body from losing the weight. I did get married to my husband in September 2019. Before getting married we had decided to keep on our doctors about the fact my womanly cycle had never ended since August of 2018 towards the beginning of my weight-loss journey. In February 2020. I started have pelvic pain on my left side and issues with bloating. I gained back 40 pounds of the 140 that I had lost within a month. We decided to meet a fertility specialist  who started a routine exam upong hearing about my huge journey to finding the right partner I wanted to have kids with. The fertility specialist did an ultrasound and discovered a 9cm tumor in my left ovary. Due to how quickly the tumor grew they did a pelvic wash and discovered I in fact have a rare cancer. It is an ovarian cancer that only happens to about 2% of cases with tumors in the ovary like I had. Luckily, we caught it  at stage 1C. However, chemotherapy can damage my right ovary the one that is left over in my body. It has been suggested that I extract the eggs to save for after chemotherapy; which they say I have a 92% chance of going into remission with such an early caught case. I just whole heartedly do not want to give up on my dream of experiencing a pregnancy in my young life. I truly only want the one pregnancy at this point. Just once. That's all we may be able to afford later but right now, I need help saving my eggs for a chance at it after a year more. It costs $10,000. Insurance doesn't cover anything fertility related. I have been offered discounts on the medications or get them for free. I just need to ensure that we can cover the costs of getting my eggs out and storage for the first year. We can save up for IVF in the future which is $5,000 per time we try it but I need to get through this first round of chemotherapy and hope nothing more has to be taken out. If this chemotherapy doesn't work next step they remove all of my organs and I will have to have a surrogate but knowing I will have that option with this process of saving my eggs for later will make it easier to endure future surgeries and treatments. I would like to hold out hope to have a child that came from me. I already know what it is like to take on 3 kids that aren't of me. I love them deeply but I really would love to see what a mixture of my husband and I could bring to the world.”


Any help will be is appreciated. Thank you! ❤️