HELP MY FRIENDS START THEIR FUTURE FAMILY

My name is Samantha Avendano, and I’ve known my friends Steve and Emily Layton for over a decade now! I met them as a Freshman in college at Iowa and since then they moved to the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago with their two dogs, which is where they call home. Every time I think of Steve and Emily, they always bring so much joy to my heart. They truly are my ride or die friends who would do anything for me to help in a time of need, so it is now my responsibility to do the same for them!

They got married in December 2018 and decided to start a family this year, but sadly they had difficulties with their pregnancy journey. Emily and Steve lost their baby earlier this year and while they were pregnant discovered they can ONLY have a healthy baby in the future if they go through IVF with PGS testing or if they adopt because they are both a match for a life-threatening genetic disorder. Neither Emily or Steve would ever ask someone for money and that is why I’m sharing their story in the hopes to help raise the funds needed for them to start a family.

Now almost 5 months since the passing of their baby girl, they are eager to start trying again, however they have yet again hit some road blocks. Emily has expressed that they are still trying to pay off their medical bills from the pregnancy and even though they are in the very beginning of the IVF process, it’s hard to take this step forward in pursuing a family when the upfront costs for IVF, PGS and adoption are astronomical.

Emily and Steve were told that a healthy embryo is not guaranteed through IVF, so adoption would be the most successful route in having a healthy baby, but they would love to do both to grow their family faster. But this is where you come into play!

The IVF PGS Genetics Lab and Fertility clinic ($12,800 - this is a starting price based on how many embryos retrieved, embryo biopsies, and cryopreservation; I’ve been told this number will increase), adoption fees through Angel Adoption ($30,200), and medical bills add up to $48,647 (a looming debt for any couple). You have no idea how much of an impact this would make on them; honestly, any dollar amount is so appreciated! Please, help my friend’s dreams of having a family come true!

Emily and Steve have been open about their journey on their personal Facebook pages in hopes of bringing awareness and helping anyone in their situation. If you’d like to read Emily’s original post letting friends know about their pregnancy journey and about the loss of their baby girl, I’ve posted it below. (She did give me permission to post this). I thought it was important sharing, so anyone reading this can understand the emotion of what Steve and Emily went through. Please keep in mind this post was written a few weeks after the loss of their baby girl:

“I apologize in advance for the long sad post. I didn’t want to post this at all, but after thinking about it a million times I’m going to share my experience over the last few months in hopes that it brings awareness and can help someone out.

I’ve experienced a rough pregnancy. This is a time my husband and I should be joyous and happy. It’s been far from that. I had the typical awful 1st trimester sickness. Everyone told me it would get better during the second trimester. Day 1 of the 2nd trimester I got covid and was still very sick. I went to my normal doctor appointments and took a genetics test among other tests. We were excited for these results because we got to learn the gender early. We had an amazing gender reveal where pink fireworks filled the night sky over the lake. We were ecstatic to have a baby girl on the way.

A couple weeks later we were told my genetics test came back positive for a genetic disorder and that my husband had to come in to do a blood test to see if he’s a match as well. My doctor made us feel like we shouldn’t worry because it would be very rare for him to come back with an exact match and that they had to do this more as protocol. We waited and didn’t think anything of this. In February we received a call from the doctor's office that he was in fact an exact match. She also shared that in her 30+ year long career that she’s only had one other couple that has matched. This is where the uneasiness and true sickness crept in.

I was immediately told that we needed to speak to a genetics counselor and schedule an appointment to get an amniocentesis two days later. I had no idea what I was in for. We had a call directly after getting the news with a counselor in which the woman on the other line spoke to us as if our daughter 100% had this genetic disorder, which wasn’t true.

I went in for the amniocentesis, which I had no real idea what I was getting into prior because I didn’t look anything up beforehand because I know the internet would more than likely show horror procedures and I didn’t care to know. All I knew is that this is what I had to do because I was following my doctor's lead and needed to know what to do to make sure my baby girl would enter this world as healthy and as happy as possible.

Let’s just say that the procedure did not go as planned. They start it off by telling you it will only be 1-2 minutes long, followed by all the things that could go wrong. It was terrifying. A screen was in front of my face showing me an ultrasound of my baby girl. Right when they stuck that 7 inch needle through my stomach, muscle, and finally my uterus (without any pain meds mind you) my baby girl kicked off my stomach, swung around and grabbed the needle with her hand. A nurse gasped as the doctor said “um, she has the needle. We need to wait to proceed until she lets go”. What seemed like an hour, she finally let go and they finished after 10 minutes. It was the most painful and scariest thing I’ve ever gone through- and I’ve had heart surgery. I didn’t know if she got hurt and for the next few days wasn’t sure if the extended time in there was going to make me miscarry. I was put on bedrest and just waited.

Oh the wait…. Waiting for those results was eating me alive. The longest 4 weeks OF MY LIFE. The doctors shared with me the statistics, which were high in our favor that she would not carry the genetic disorder. Everyone who knew what was going on assured us that she wouldn’t have it, even I believed it. The unknown was awful, but I still continued to build our registry, finished her nursery, and planned the baby shower.

March came and we received the call. The genetics counselor called and said “I’m just going to cut to the chase…” while letting us know that our baby girl will be born with this genetic disorder. Tears ran down my face and our new reality started to set it. It was then that it doesn’t matter if it’s a 1% chance. When it happens to you, it’s 100% your reality.

We spent hours speaking with doctors, genetic counselors, therapists, insurance companies, support groups, and specialists. You name it- we did it to get prepared.

I felt like I was in a nightmare. I felt guilty. I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt numb. This was a time we were supposed to feel excited and happy, filled with love. I was terrified because the future looked so unknown.

The stress and sadness throughout this time was unimaginable.

We ran into more unfortunate complications which led me into the hospital and after multiple complications, it breaks my heart to say we did end up losing our sweet baby girl.

I’m over halfway through my pregnancy and never in a million years thought in the beginning it would end like this.

In the beginning I pictured our new little family of three. An amazing summer and new fun experiences for the rest of the years to come.

Instead I have Facebook ads of baby stuff, my baby's finished bedroom, her already purchased cute clothes, baby apps telling me how big she is now, and my still looking pregnant body to remind me of the loss of my baby girl I already loved so much.

I try not to go in public because I’m aware of little things that can be triggering. There was one day I had to go out to grab groceries. The worker at the store in the checkout line said “Aww are you pregnant” in excitement and followed with “Are you having a boy or girl?” I didn’t even know how I should respond at that moment but for whatever reason I said “girl”. She continued to talk about how I’m carrying the child and how my body looked and finished by saying congratulations. I immediately went to the car and just cried.

I know now that going back to “normalcy” will take a long time to get to or maybe never. We know now that since we are both carriers of this disorder that we will only be able to have a child through IVF or adoption. I know now that I will never EVER comment on a woman’s body even if she 1000% looks pregnant.

Again, there’s a reason for sharing all of this. I hope people can learn from what I learned. Before getting pregnant I asked a few different doctors if there was anything I should do before doing so. I just wanted to be as prepared as possible. The ONLY thing they said was to take a prenatal vitamin. I know some people don’t agree with genetic testing, which I understand and fully support if you wish to not test. However, I wish WISH WISH WISH in my case one of them mentioned that my partner and I had the option and could take a genetics test prior to getting pregnant if we wanted to. I had no idea that was even a thing then. With that information we could have gone through IVF or adoption from the very beginning instead of going through this devastating heartache. Anyone who is planning on getting pregnant, I would HIGHLY suggest doing some research on this. Since then one of my siblings has checked and they are a carrier too so I am thankful they have that information.

The other thing I would hope people can take away from this is to be sensitive to family situations. You never know what people are truly going through. Even if someone looks pregnant, do not say anything. They may be pregnant, they may not be pregnant, they might be excited, but they might be living a nightmare.

I’m sad to be posting this because I never even had the chance to share that she was here. We were so busy and wrapped up with everything that we were going to post after things settled down. I’ve contemplated whether or not to post this a million times. I’m not one to share a lot of personal things, but I truly hope someone can take something from this and this can help someone.

If anyone else has been through something similar or is going through this now please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need support. Even if we haven’t talked in 10+ years, I’m here for you.

Also, if anyone has been through IVF because they had to do PGD testing and would like to share their experience I would love to connect.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has reached out to myself and/ or Steve. I’m sorry if I didn’t respond- just know that it was all appreciated.

Baby girl you are and will always be loved.”

A note from Emily and Steve:

Samantha shared with us that she is setting up this Go Fund Me, and tears filled our eyes, as we couldn’t be more grateful. We would have never done this without her. Thank you so much Samantha for going out of your way and thinking of us and to anyone who is willing to help and support our journey.

Since getting together 12 years ago, we have always talked about having children together and how amazing that would be. We have close friends that often come over with their children and as we are all hanging out, we often catch ourselves smiling at each other knowing that one day we will hopefully have children to call our own.

We would absolutely love to grow our family. We love our little family now (Steve, Emily, and our 2 pups) but we know adding children to the mix would bring that much more joy and love to our lives.

Words cannot describe how much this would mean to us. Anything helps, even if it’s just encouraging words of support.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!