Rachel and Cody IVF
Hello friends! Sorry I'm writing a whole book here but we love so many of you dearly and want to bring you into our journey. Scroll to the end if you just want a summary :)
Cody and I have been trying to have children for about 8 of our nearly 10 years of marriage. Through our several major moves we have had many frustrations such as trying to advocate for ourselves with new doctors and therefore having to repeat different medications and interventions, my hormones being all over the place (including one intervention that resulted in some of my hair falling out and a rash all over my entire body), and all the complex emotions that go along with hoping monthly for a new result. Last year in November we were finally referred to the fertility center of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon (3 hours away from us). This is the leading fertility Center in this state and they have been pretty incredible. We were given our options and Cody and I prayed and opted to try a method called gonadotropin injections with an IUI which stimulate the ovaries to mature multiple eggs. This came with a huge multiples risk and required close monitoring and many many long trips for our appointments. I have done 4 rounds of gonadotropin injections followed by an IUI for 3 of them. For 2 of the rounds I had positive pregnancy tests followed by loss of those pregnancies only a day or 2 later, what the medical world calls a chemical pregnancy. On Sunday, August 1 I went to Eugene for an ultrasound for my latest round of gonadotropin injections. My ovaries had responded dramatically to the medication and I had 9 large follicles (the potential for 9 pregnancies). This was a very high multiples risk, and because of our belief that life is valuable and the moral boundaries we have established with our faith Cody and I are not willing to selectively reduce if we were to become pregnant with multiples. Our doctor recommended that we change the plan to an IVF cycle so we could take out the eggs and therefore eliminate the extreme risk. Cody and I were initially resistant to IVF because we early on decided that if we create and fertilize embryos by medical intervention, that we want to give each one of those a chance at life and are not comfortable disposing of or adopting out our embryos (Please hear me, this is not to guilt anyone who has done this any other way, this was just the decision we were comfortable with) . Our doctor agreed to work within our ethical/moral boundaries and freeze only the amount of embryos we were comfortable with. So, as of Sunday we converted to an IVF cycle, we've been back and forth between Klamath Falls and Eugene all week, and this morning (Aug 5th) I had surgery to retrieve the eggs. The doctor retrieved 18 eggs, and we agreed to fertilize an amount of those that statistically would result in 2-3 viable pregnancies.
Our insurance does not cover infertility. We have had to pay most of our medical expenses out of pocket including thousands in medications and IUI costs, not to mention travel and hotels in Eugene for when we have to stay the night. All this before we unexpectedly turned to IVF this week, which on its own carries around a 14k cost once its all said and done. We have decided to fund raise to help offset some of the immediate surprise cost.
No pressure to give! We have felt so much love and support from so many this week. Our car AC compressor broke this week and dear friends in Klamath Falls have let us borrow cars for appointments, prayed with us, bought us dinner, and more... So much love! We are already so so blessed. Mainly I want to share our journey, and any funds we receive to pay off our IVF costs are secondary to the love I have felt from my community.
In Summary if that was too long: We've been trying to get pregnant for years, it costs alot of money, this week we opted for a last minute surprise IVF, and our friends and family totally rock. The end!