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Why have we decided to share our experience of trying to have a child of our own with our family, friends, associates, and many others? Well, my name is Michelle Dusing and I've been married to my husband Jeff for 7 years, we dated for 5 years before that, and we were best friends for 3 years prior to dating. When we were married Jeff knew he was marrying a woman that could never have her own children. Luckily, God blessed me with a man that never even had the thought of not sharing his life with me because I could not have babies. Through all the years and time we've spent together, Jeff loved me no matter what the circumstances we were given. That's how we live our lives, completely in love and dedicated to one another no matter what obstacles we persevere through while still hoping that somehow a miracle child is in the plan for us. I can still remember years ago telling Jeff my story for the first time.
I was an extremely active and athletic youth and teenager. I played basketball, volleyball, and softball in high school and in the summer. I was consistently playing hockey, rollerblading, and running and doing whatever I could to be moving and active. By the time I turned 18, I had still not received my period and had always just assumed it was because I was such an active girl. Well, all of my friends had gotten their period and there were very few that didn't by this age so my family and I started to worry. My stepmother Shelley had this wonderful gynecologist Dr. Michael Feingold that she always talked about to me. Her plan was to bring me with her to one of her appointments to meet him and tell him what's going on. I told him and immediately he took on my case. From that point on in the medical world I was labeled in all my files as "anomaly." I had to go through tons of ultrasounds, blood work, and chromosome testing. I was so scared going through these tests because they would show if I was genetically a girl or a boy on a DNA level. I don't know how I would've handled the news if the results came back and determined I was a boy, but luckily for me it did not, I was officially a girl, phew. After that I went to my first ultrasound and found quite a shocking discovery. Dr. Feingold found that I had no right kidney, no uterus, no ovaries, and no cervix. I can remember thinking that the ultrasound was really taking a long time and the room was filled with an awkward uncomfortable terrifying silence. When I was first confronted with all this news, I was young, and while I was shocked and a little sad, I took the initial news pretty well. I thought ok no big deal, so I had no internal female organs, there were way worse things in life. My family on the other hand did not take the news well as they were broken up for me. Especially my mom who couldn't help but blame herself. Dr. Feingold told me that I could no longer play hockey and contact sports because I really had to protect that one kidney. I was an athlete and I took this part of the news way harder at the time, but I finally had some answers and was ready to move on with my life as a teen on the verge of adulthood. I always held out hope that there would be other options for me and my future husband such as adoption.
As some time went on, I was now married to Jeff, both knowing and understanding we could never have a child of our own. My family was begging me to get a second opinion on my situation. So I was introduced to Dr. Kevin J. Lederer, another amazing doctor placed in my life for my journey. He also immediately took on my anomaly case. I had to go through tons more blood work, ultrasounds, and procedures. I was brought to the University of Chicago for a more intense ultrasound procedure, because Dr. Lederer strongly believed that I had to have a working ovary somewhere based on all my blood work. So there I was, in an auditorium procedure room full of students and doctors to witness my anomaly case. Dr. Lederer proceeded to look for my mythological ovaries and as he guided up my stomach and abdomen near my ribs. He saw what he believed to look like an ovary. He scanned the other side and found another ovary. The entire room was in tears for me, as after 7 years of knowing I had no ovaries, I now found that I had 2 ovaries that had floated up under my rib cage. We found in a later visit that one of the ovaries was extremely healthy and contained real actual eggs! This was an absolute miracle! Wow, so I now had 2 ovaries and eggs. This is wonderful news but what do I do now. So some time passed by between more doctor visits because I still wasn't sure how to process all this information I had just learned about myself. As you can probably imagine it's not the way you would exactly draw it up. We still weren't ready for a baby at this point and we didn't know if anything was even possible.
When the time came to determine if this would be possible, Dr. Feingold referred me to Dr. Charles Miller to further determine our future options. Dr. Miller is an incredible renowned doctor in the fertility field and we instantly felt a connection with him and his knowledge. He read my history and officially diagnosed me with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome. Yes it is an actual thing. He assured us as we found it a bit amusing at the time. I felt awesome as now I could not just be known as an anomaly but I had a real actual diagnosis. Through these years of my mid-twenties, I was consistently attending baby showers and pretty much all my family and friends of age were pregnant. This is the time when the reality of things really hit me hard and I realized what I would never be able to do. Through the support of my faith, prayer, and family members, I knew just how special and blessed I was then and now knowing that God has a unique plan for me and Jeff.
We were now at a place that we were ready to try to have a baby of our own. Over the course of another 4 years I had countless visits, tests, and procedures through Dr. Miller's checklist of tasks we needed to complete. The biggest and scariest for me was the laparoscopy operation to surgically go into the side of my abdomen and locate and sweep my ovary that's up in my ribs down to where it's supposed to reside. Dr. Miller performed this procedure with Dr. Feingold sitting in to assist, as he has looked out for me all my life. The procedure was a huge success and it set up my ovary for egg extraction when we are ready to make an embryo.
We are so incredibly blessed to have such skilled doctors that are so caring and compassionate to make this miracle child for us even a realistic possibility. Now through the assistance of a gestational surrogate whom we have also been just recently blessed with, our once impossible dream may just yet be able to become a reality. When we started telling our story to family and friends, people were so anxious and generous to help us financially, and we are so humbled and lucky to have them all be apart of this journey and share the experience with us. Through the years the procedures have really added up and we've spent tens of thousands of dollars to try to make this impossible dream happen. Now the final steps and procedures as well as the carrying of the potential child will add up in the range of $80,000-120,000 depending on circumstances of the pregnancy. We are so honored to be able to ask people to keep us in their prayers and thoughts and if they would like to help us and be a part of this journey. We will be forever humbled and thankful to everyone to help bring us this gift of life. Truly, thank you so much for taking the time to read the first few chapters of our journey and for all those willing to help bring our story a happy ending we will be forever grateful and we love you all.
Sincerely,
Michelle and Jeff Dusing
I was an extremely active and athletic youth and teenager. I played basketball, volleyball, and softball in high school and in the summer. I was consistently playing hockey, rollerblading, and running and doing whatever I could to be moving and active. By the time I turned 18, I had still not received my period and had always just assumed it was because I was such an active girl. Well, all of my friends had gotten their period and there were very few that didn't by this age so my family and I started to worry. My stepmother Shelley had this wonderful gynecologist Dr. Michael Feingold that she always talked about to me. Her plan was to bring me with her to one of her appointments to meet him and tell him what's going on. I told him and immediately he took on my case. From that point on in the medical world I was labeled in all my files as "anomaly." I had to go through tons of ultrasounds, blood work, and chromosome testing. I was so scared going through these tests because they would show if I was genetically a girl or a boy on a DNA level. I don't know how I would've handled the news if the results came back and determined I was a boy, but luckily for me it did not, I was officially a girl, phew. After that I went to my first ultrasound and found quite a shocking discovery. Dr. Feingold found that I had no right kidney, no uterus, no ovaries, and no cervix. I can remember thinking that the ultrasound was really taking a long time and the room was filled with an awkward uncomfortable terrifying silence. When I was first confronted with all this news, I was young, and while I was shocked and a little sad, I took the initial news pretty well. I thought ok no big deal, so I had no internal female organs, there were way worse things in life. My family on the other hand did not take the news well as they were broken up for me. Especially my mom who couldn't help but blame herself. Dr. Feingold told me that I could no longer play hockey and contact sports because I really had to protect that one kidney. I was an athlete and I took this part of the news way harder at the time, but I finally had some answers and was ready to move on with my life as a teen on the verge of adulthood. I always held out hope that there would be other options for me and my future husband such as adoption.
As some time went on, I was now married to Jeff, both knowing and understanding we could never have a child of our own. My family was begging me to get a second opinion on my situation. So I was introduced to Dr. Kevin J. Lederer, another amazing doctor placed in my life for my journey. He also immediately took on my anomaly case. I had to go through tons more blood work, ultrasounds, and procedures. I was brought to the University of Chicago for a more intense ultrasound procedure, because Dr. Lederer strongly believed that I had to have a working ovary somewhere based on all my blood work. So there I was, in an auditorium procedure room full of students and doctors to witness my anomaly case. Dr. Lederer proceeded to look for my mythological ovaries and as he guided up my stomach and abdomen near my ribs. He saw what he believed to look like an ovary. He scanned the other side and found another ovary. The entire room was in tears for me, as after 7 years of knowing I had no ovaries, I now found that I had 2 ovaries that had floated up under my rib cage. We found in a later visit that one of the ovaries was extremely healthy and contained real actual eggs! This was an absolute miracle! Wow, so I now had 2 ovaries and eggs. This is wonderful news but what do I do now. So some time passed by between more doctor visits because I still wasn't sure how to process all this information I had just learned about myself. As you can probably imagine it's not the way you would exactly draw it up. We still weren't ready for a baby at this point and we didn't know if anything was even possible.
When the time came to determine if this would be possible, Dr. Feingold referred me to Dr. Charles Miller to further determine our future options. Dr. Miller is an incredible renowned doctor in the fertility field and we instantly felt a connection with him and his knowledge. He read my history and officially diagnosed me with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome. Yes it is an actual thing. He assured us as we found it a bit amusing at the time. I felt awesome as now I could not just be known as an anomaly but I had a real actual diagnosis. Through these years of my mid-twenties, I was consistently attending baby showers and pretty much all my family and friends of age were pregnant. This is the time when the reality of things really hit me hard and I realized what I would never be able to do. Through the support of my faith, prayer, and family members, I knew just how special and blessed I was then and now knowing that God has a unique plan for me and Jeff.
We were now at a place that we were ready to try to have a baby of our own. Over the course of another 4 years I had countless visits, tests, and procedures through Dr. Miller's checklist of tasks we needed to complete. The biggest and scariest for me was the laparoscopy operation to surgically go into the side of my abdomen and locate and sweep my ovary that's up in my ribs down to where it's supposed to reside. Dr. Miller performed this procedure with Dr. Feingold sitting in to assist, as he has looked out for me all my life. The procedure was a huge success and it set up my ovary for egg extraction when we are ready to make an embryo.
We are so incredibly blessed to have such skilled doctors that are so caring and compassionate to make this miracle child for us even a realistic possibility. Now through the assistance of a gestational surrogate whom we have also been just recently blessed with, our once impossible dream may just yet be able to become a reality. When we started telling our story to family and friends, people were so anxious and generous to help us financially, and we are so humbled and lucky to have them all be apart of this journey and share the experience with us. Through the years the procedures have really added up and we've spent tens of thousands of dollars to try to make this impossible dream happen. Now the final steps and procedures as well as the carrying of the potential child will add up in the range of $80,000-120,000 depending on circumstances of the pregnancy. We are so honored to be able to ask people to keep us in their prayers and thoughts and if they would like to help us and be a part of this journey. We will be forever humbled and thankful to everyone to help bring us this gift of life. Truly, thank you so much for taking the time to read the first few chapters of our journey and for all those willing to help bring our story a happy ending we will be forever grateful and we love you all.
Sincerely,
Michelle and Jeff Dusing