Little Footprints Wanted

Our Story

My husband Shawn and I have been happily married for 9 years.  We are best friends and have so much fun together.  We have wanted want so badly to become parents for a long time but were not prepared for the obstacles we were about to face while trying.  We are here to share our story in hopes that we will be able to make our dream come true. 

We knew it would be challenging starting a family as I have infertility issues due to my fallopian tubes being damaged from endometriosis.  We never imagined we would have to take the road less traveled.  Thus began a five-year journey filled with doctor appointments, shots, surgeries, miscarriages, fertility treatments, medical bills, and many highs and lows.  It started with a couple of surgeries and no success, our Doctor suggested we try In-vitro fertilization (IVF).  In 2007, we went through our first round of IVF, which was unsuccessful.  We had 9 embryos left to freeze in hopes of additional chances of becoming parents.  Unfortunately, we had no success after 3 frozen embryo transfers, which took place over the next year and a half.  In between the 3 transfers, I found out I was pregnant.  It was a very exciting moment however it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy and it had to be terminated.  That was really difficult.  We decided to take a few years off as we were emotionally exhausted and so were our finances. 

In 2010, we decided to try again.  We tried a new clinic and a new Doctor, who immediately wanted to perform surgery to explore the damage of my tubes.  After assessing the situation, they had to be tied as they were causing more damage to the process.  Our next IVF attempt was in 2012.  We were very optimistic and felt very comfortable having a little more knowledge and experience from the last attempt.  We had 11 embryos however only 3 made it to the blastocyst stage.  We did not have any extra left to freeze.  Given our history, we decided to transfer all 3 embryos for a better chance.   It worked, we were pregnant!  We were cautiously optimistic but so happy. Our first ultrasound was so amazing and we were able to see the flutter and hear the heartbeat at 6 weeks. We continued our excitement and going for ultrasounds until our 9^th week, there was no heartbeat.  There are no words to describe the heartache.  The days that followed were the some of the worst of our lives.  We were devastated and kept thinking it was something that we did.  Soon after, we learned that it was a missing chromosome and it was the most common form of miscarriage. AND it was not genetic. That was a tiny bit of good news to follow the bad. 

The Impact

Having run into this roadblock in our life plan has been a huge emotional and financial challenge for us.  It has left us feeling like we've been running in circles for a long time.  It is such a defeating place to be when you're told you can't have the one thing you wish for the most. Money should be no object in obtaining life. 

The Goal

We would love to try again this year however we used all of our flexible spending for the year and insurance, of course, does not cover any of it.  I had to use the balance of 2011 flexible spending for the medication and wait until the beginning of 2012 to pay for this last round.  We are trying to save as much any extra money that we can.  Our main goal is to have a baby, of course, and hopefully with everyone's support we can make it happen!  We heard about crowd funding and thought we might try it. But, even though we may not reach our donation goal, during our journey we've been surrounded by many supportive friends and family members, and have stayed strong and hopeful that this will happen one way or another.  And by being open about our struggles, we have even been able to share what we've learned and provide guidance and support to many friends and friends-of-friends who have dealt with their own infertility struggles.  And happily, many of their journeys have ended in success!

What your donation will be used for

"¢Fertility Medications ($3,500)

"¢Clinic Deposit/Fees ($4,500)

"¢Cycle Stimulation, Monitoring and Ultrasounds

"¢Egg retrieval with Anesthesia

"¢Embryo Transfer

"¢Laboratory Screening and Pregnancy Testing

"¢Positive Pregnancy Test (fingers crossed)

"¢Happiness

We know that times are tough and understand if you cannot donate. However there are other ways that you could help by just spreading the word. You can post this page on any sites such as facebook, twitter and linkedin.

We truly appreciate all of your support and look forward to sharing some happy news with everyone down the line. We are more than ready to move on to the family phase of our life and enjoy all of the fun, stress, laughs, tears, sleeplessness, silliness, love, and joy that comes with being parents :)