Collin and Tawny’s IVF Journey

Collin and I have been married for 5 years and together for 14! We started trying to conceive 3 years ago. Almost a year in with no success we decided to start running some basic tests. After many many many tests and 3 different doctors we were diagnosed with “unexplained infertility” (yes that is a thing). It is one of the hardest diagnosis’s because we have nothing blaringly wrong. But something is obviously not working. Doctors suggested starting with IUIs but we decided not to waste our time and money on something that has an 11% success rate. In December 2018 we had our first egg retrieval! I did 12 days of 39 shots. My ovaries both grew to the size of grapefruits each! We had 19 eggs retrieved and 11 successfully fertilized! These were great numbers and we were feeling really good about it. After fertilization they grow the embryos to day 5 or 6 blastocysts. We lost 9 embryos, that completely stopped progressing on day 5. They biopsied and froze the last two remaining embryos. We sent the biopsies off to genetic testing and waited about 2 weeks for the results. The results were devastating. 1 embryo was not chromosomally normal, therefore not usable. The other came back inconclusive. I went into IVF expecting it all to just work. I thought we would even have embryos for future babies if we wanted more than one. The heartbreaking reality was that we were left with one that has a 50/50 chance of miscarriage. Neither of us are game to take that chance at this point in time. Adding a miscarriage to an already incredibly emotional situation would be awful. We have decided to do another egg retrieval in September of this year. As of now we are just trying to get our bodies in tip top shape for the second round. IVF is terribly expensive and we are the unfortunate ones that do not get any insurance coverage. Everything is out of pocket. Starting this go fund me is one of the hardest things for me to do because I hate asking people for money. But some very kind people have said they want to help and this was a good way to do it! Any help is greatly appreciated. We are looking at a procedure that will cost us in the $20,000 range.