Amanda & Brady's IVF fundraiser

I don't like resorting to this, but alot of friends have requested that I make this to help with the costs of my IVF procedure to create our family. Brady and I have always worked hard for what we have, which made it hard to set my pride aside and create this.. so here it goes... 
Brady and I started our life journey together almost 12 years ago. I was 16 years old and he was 19 years old. We were crazy teens and weren't in a rush to grow up. When I was 18 years old, I stopped birth control. I was being a careless teen. Years passed, I never got pregnant even though we never used protection to prevent pregnancy but nothing ever crossed my mind that something was wrong because like I had said before, we weren't ready to grow up and definitely weren't thinking about kids.... Fall of 2010 came, I was 21, and found out I was pregnant. It was a shock. We were still young and definitely weren't financially stable... but as days went on, we both became overly excited about our baby. January came and I ended up losing our baby. It was devastating. We both were a mess. I think we both somewhat lost ourselves as well. Time went on, years passed, and we still weren't getting pregnant. We wanted a baby, but we weren't in a rush. The baby thing was in the back of our minds always, but neither one of us wanted to admit there was a problem. The word infertility didn't seem possible. It's one of those things that you don't think will ever happen to you, so neither of us brought it up. 2015 came, I was at my OBGYN's office for a routine pap smear and checkup. We got to talking and he asked me about birth control. I had explained that I hadn't been on birth control since I was 18 years old and we didn't use protection. He brought up the fact to me that we may want to get checked out because that I wasn't getting pregnant while not using birth control for so many years. He decided to do some testing at his office. We had thousands of dollars worth of tests done. Labs, ultrasounds, procedures. You name it, we had it done. Everything was perfect. There was no reason why we couldn't get pregnant, so my doctor ordered a HSG, which is where they shoot dye through your fallopian tubes to see if they are blocked. My HSG concluded that one of my tubes had adhesions on them and I would need to be referred to an infertility specialist to have surgery. I remember the day the doctor called me. I cried my eyes out. I had never had surgery and this was alot to take in. I ended up going to a Reproductive Endocrinologist here in Springfield, Illinois. This was it. We were going to have surgery and we would have a baby in no time afterwards. Well... so we thought. I had a laparoscopy and a hysteroscopy. May 2016. Thousands more of dollars.

After my follow up appt my specialist told me I shouldn't have a problem getting pregnant now and the surgery went perfect, but he was going to start me on some fertility medicines to help. I started on these medicines July 2016. This was it. We were finally going to have a family. We were so hopeful and happy. Months passed. More medicine. More fertility procedures done. Still nothing was happening. We didn't get pregnant once. We both began to lose hope and it took a huge toll on us both.. So finally in January 2017, I lost my sanity completely and decided I needed a break and my body needed a rest from the medicine and procedures. Months passed and I finally felt mentally ready to tackle infertility again. I was referred to a new doctor, Dr. Odem in STL, MO. He works out of Washington University and Barnes Jewish Hospital. We met with him in June 2017. He started me immediately on more medicine and procedures. We began to be hopeful AGAIN. This was it. We were going to have a family. Months passed and nothing was happening. Finally after thousands upon thousands of dollars dished out for infertility procedures and medications, we decided to meet with Dr. Odem again. October 2017. He told me he was ready for us to switch to IVF, Also known as In Vitro Fertilization... I was over-joyed and felt hopeful. Brady and I sat through IVF orientation to learn about the process and learn how to do my injections for it. Only problem is, we are struggling financially... between making payments on failed infertility treatments, having to miss work for doctors appointments, the gas it takes driving back and forth to STL and the fact Brady has to miss work for my appointments as well.. The average IVF costs about $15,000 without insurance. And meds are about $3000-$5000 out of pocket on top of that. Thankfully, I work for BCBS and have amazing insurance but its still very expensive, and we have to pay off the whole balance of failed infertility treatments and a down payment to proceed with this process. Our dreams have been to become parents. I know we would be amazing parents. We both are hard workers. So here it is. Here's my story. If you wanna donate, you can. If you can't, I still appreciate your positive thoughts. We wont let anyone down if we get this chance. We want more than anything in this world to become parents. Thank you!