Help Grow The Gallagher Family

Hi Everyone,
My name is Larinda Jungjohann. I'm a friend of Jamie and Trent's. I've never seen a couple fight as hard as they have for the miricle they're hoping for. These two have been trying to become parents together for many years now and finally have been told by their doctor: The only way for them to have a child together is through In Vitro.  I personaly can't imagine the pain and the struggles Jamie and Trent have faced but I'm hoping to help them out as much as I can to help their miricle come true through the use of this amazing tool.  Please take a moment to read their story. This subject is very hard for Jamie and Trent to talk about, so please read it and try to help out where you can and if you can.  All funds will be going to the proceedure needed as soon as the goal is met. 

Jamie and Trents Story:
Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Though it doesn't have its happy ending yet, we still pray that it does eventually.

Please bare with me, sharing these words with what feels like the world is one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life.

Four years ago we decided to make a big change in our life. At this point in time we had been together for around a year and were happy in our relationship and we were ready to move forward. We decided we'd welcome a baby if the day came that we were lucky enough to be parents together. We weren't "planning it" but we were intentionally not preventing hoping things would happen naturally for us. Months after we stopped using birth control and still hadn't become pregnant we decided to give the ovulation tests a shot. I checked to make sure i was ovulating but didn't want to put too much focus on this. They say when you're stressed your body won't allow a pregnancy. So after a few months of making sure i was in fact ovulating we went back to the not trying but not preventing method again hoping one day it would just happen for us. A year and a half had gone by and we still hadn't become pregnant. I knew it wasn't my now husband as the reasoning behind us not getting pregnant because he already has a son. So i knew if something was off, it was me.
Eventually we decided to make an appointment with a Dr. In Cedar Rapids to see what the issue was and how we could help.
She started me on medication to make me ovulate even more, ran a series of tests to make sure the medication was working and decided to jump straight into IUI. (artificial insemination) In simple terms this is where they basically take the fastest swimmers and inject them hoping the egg and sperm meet in less distance and the egg becomes fertilized.
After more tests and more meds and more rounds of IUI they noticed in one of the ultra sounds a growth on my ovary that was growing at a rapid pace. After a few months this went from the size of a walnut to being even larger than my hand and they felt it was best to remove it because they were worried it would one day become cancerous.. the called this growth a "benign tumor" at that point in time the Doctor thought it was possible that the reason we hadn't gotten pregnant yet is because the tumor had wrapped itself around my ovary, cutting off any potential egg that we may have gotten from that side. We agreed for the sake of my health to schedule the surgery and move forward with her treatment plan. She told me while in there conducting the surgery she planned to check my tubes and make sure they were open. Fast forward to the day of surgery, this was my first surgery and i was beyond scared at the idea of everything.. this thing they are removing, if it was going to become cancerous if not treated, if we were able to have a child together.. everything. Before i knew it i was already waking up from the anesthetic. It was a tough few weeks both physically and emotionally not knowing what to expect at my follow up. She briefly told my husband and best friend what she found but not like she told me the day of my follow up. (You know those movies you watch when they are given not so great news and you can literally see them mentally check out of the conversation?! Well that happened to me on this day)
I walked in feeling physically much better from the surgery, awaiting the next steps in her plan. She told me she was able to remove the benign tumor successfully without damaging any part we'd need to make a baby, which was great! (But then came the not so great news.. the news that makes you feel like you were just kicked in the stomach) she told me my tubes appeared to be blocked. She wasn't sure how or why she just couldn't get the dye through them properly, and even tried opening them up but wasn't successful. Now I'm clearly not a Doctor, but I know you need your tubes in order to have a baby.. they're a big piece of the equation. She told me not to worry we still had In Vitro as an option. As someone who had no idea the cost or the process, as soon as i gained my heart back to where it should be and not in my throat.. and could successfully get myself to stop crying because of my now broken heart.. we did some research. In Vitro at the University is not cheap and usually not covered by insurance. That was a big pill to swallow. It took weeks to start to emotionally feel normal again (even though every part of me is telling myself I'm broken) Trent, who is simply amazing by the way said to me "Jamie we're engaged let's just pick a wedding date and focus on that and come back to the baby plan after the wedding." He knew I was heart broken, and though he was too he did a pretty good job of hiding that on the days I was falling a part. So we put baby plan on hold, picked a wedding date and planned one of the most exciting days of our lives. After our wedding we came back to the baby plan and decided to get a second opinion, we wanted to see a specialist this time. This time we started to see a Doctor at the University Of Iowa.
At this point we are now about 4 years into us trying for a baby with no luck, but very hopeful at this new Doctor we just met. This Doctor was a breath of fresh air. He was so upbeat and positive, on a different level than any Doctor we had ever seen before. For the first time in awhile we felt hope again. He looked through my chart from Cedar Rapids and ran some more tests. He found out my thyroid level was 2x higher than where it should be to conceive. (At first i was upset thinking "another thing wrong with me!" But quickly reminded by Trent how cool it was he was able to catch something so small but so important in this process as quickly as he did.) A few more tests in he decided to redo the dye test to look at my tubes. (This was what we were hoping for.. a second opinion!) He scheduled us for a HSG test. Basically they inject dye into your cervix and uterus and watch it go through your tubes.. well it would have but mine were showing a blockage so the dye couldn't travel. (This was by far the most painful thing i had ever been through in my entire life!) The results of this not only pointed to a blockage in my tubes but some scar tissue on my uterus. The HSG did confirm we needed to go the In Vitro route in order to get pregnant, but without surgery to remove the scar tissue, a baby can't attach to the uterus once the fertilized egg is placed back inside me. (in a nutshell that is what In Vitro is) We agreed to move forward with the surgery to remove the scar tissue because we still so badly wanted to be parents together. Doctors are still not sure what causes it but my condition is called Endometriosis. Basically your body produces abnormal growths on your female organs, scar tissue. It's not something you can prevent or change, it's just the way some people are born.
We had been saving for In Vitro since we found out that was the only way for us to be parents together, and then life threw another monkey wrench in the air. We found out a pipe collapsed in our yard that insurance doesn't cover and neither does the city. Being a home owner it was completely up to us to replace. So here we are using the saved In Vitro money towards this collapsed pipe, and had to take out a loan to cover the difference. This collapsed pipe pretty much put us back to square one. This time without savings and without an option to take out a loan from the bank.
I just had surgery a few weeks ago and though healing has been difficult with this round at our follow up our Doctor said we are physically ready to move forward with In Vitro!! (How exciting, I'm healthy enough to finally carry a baby!!) This would be perfect if life hadn't thrown us another curve ball of the pipe collapsing. We thought we had things figured out and moving in the right direction but it feels like once we move 2 feet, we're pushed back 3. We are back to square one trying to figure out how to make this dream happen. We are both pretty quiet, private people and had no intention of announcing this to what feels like the world. But a couple of good friends and my sister in law suggested we do this just in case it would make a difference. So here we are pouring our hearts out to whoever may be reading this hoping and praying for a miracle.