Help Mike & Amber with their journey through IVF!

Hi!  We are the Madej’s!  We met and fell in love in the summer of 2015!  In 2017 we moved from South Florida to Ocala to start our very own homestead!  Mike became a Firefighter with a local department and it was a perfect fit!  We eloped and married in 2018 up in the Smoky Mountains, saying our vows together in a hot air balloon!  We loved every winding road on our honeymoon.  We’d always discussed children and deciding to move to the country was in huge part because we wanted to be sure our future children had an upbringing with fishing, farming, picnics, fields to run and so many of the other things the country had to offer.  I ended my career in aviation, and started my own business restoring furniture and developing our homestead!  Getting pregnant seemed to be a bigger challenge than we expected, but one day those lines finally read PREGNANT!  We were over the moon!!  It was finally our time!  
At about 7 weeks Mike took me to the nearestER due to severe pain and bleeding.  They ran a few tests, and asked us to return in a few days saying I was pregnant and all seemed normal.  Hubs was on shift that day and works 24 hours at a time.  A dear friend brought me back into the ER and Mike was allowed standby for us to receive news on our further testing.  It was that day I learned what and Ectopic Pregnancy was.  Mike held me, we cried and it was only just the beginning.  From there, I was admitted and not all doctors were convinced it was Ectopic.  We grasped at hope and agreed to every test and exam.  I was given an evasive medication called Methotrexate, which is a form of chemotherapy, to attempt to save my tube.  Our baby had not survived the pregnancy and it was now dangerous.  The Methotrexate was unsuccessful and I was rushed back into the ER for an emergency surgery where they removed one tube, attempted to save the other and removed any Endometriosis they found.  Mike and I were heart broken, but still full of hope, as I still had another viable tube!  Due to the chemotherapy, we were told to wait three months for it to leave my body before we began trying again.  Six months later, we saw those two lines again saying PREGNANT!  We were full of emotions and happiness!  Instantly we made the first appointment to see our doctor!  They did blood work for several days to ensure my HCG numbers were rising and my pregnancy was progressing!  We scheduled my 8 week appointment for a sonogram and couldn’t wait to hear that heart beat!  At 7 weeks hubs came home one morning from a shift and I could barely get up off the floor or walk due to pain.  Mike rushed me to the ER and after many tests, it looked like another Ectopic Pregnancy.  I was hospitalized nearly a week again as they couldn’t quite figure it out.  After five doctors and many many more tests and exams, I was given the Methotrexate once again.  Mike was so amazing though it all.  My rock, my friend, my happy place.  I began to wonder if my other fallopian tube perhaps had issues as well and Mike and I both felt it was time to see a specialist.  We did our research, asked friends and family for advice and found a reputable Fertility Clinic that could help with our infertility struggle.  Thankfully Gainesville is a short hour drive away and UF is a teaching hospital that comes very recommended.  We felt confident to get answers!  After Mike and I met with Dr. Christman, we were so excited to finally know how to move forward!  They did a procedure called Hysterosaltingography (HSG) where they push dye into my tube to see if the fluid will go through one end to the other, while looking on a screen.  Other than excruciating pain, nothing happened.  My other tube was useless.  Our doctor sat us down and then began telling us our only hope for pregnancy was In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).  Furthermore, because of my age (36), it’s not something they recommend waiting to begin.  

The past few months have been a blur, yet full of hope!!  We’ve spent all of our savings and taken out several loans to be able to try and have a chance at becoming parents.  The amount of medication that was needed for this round of IVF was incomprehensible!  Mike is such a great sport and helped me make the daily injections and process more of a fun team effort!  I was getting up to three injections a day and on days Mike was at the station, I was sure to drive to him so we did every step together!  We’ve documented the whole process with films and photos, thus far!  Once the daily IVF injections,exams and bloodwork were finished, it was time for the Retrieval!  Throughout the treatments I went in daily to measure my egg growth and be sure the doses and such were where they should be.  It was touch and go daily.  On Retrieval day they put me under local anesthesia, insert a needle into my ovaries through my uterus and extracted as many eggs as possible.  We were told we’d be lucky to retrieve 4 and they retrieved 14!!! We couldn’t believe it!  Amazing!  The process after retrieval is to have the Embryologist fertilize the eggs and place our embryos in what I like to call an easy bake oven for 5 days.  After five days we returned for the transfer.  The transfer is where they place 1 or 2 embryos back inside my uterus and thereafter I’d be pregnant.  Any left over embryos are then frozen so we are able to come back in the future and get pregnant again.  Many people have many eggs frozen during this process.  We had none to freeze.  Zero left over.  Luckily we had 2 embryos that survived and we chose to transfer both babies!  We pray this round is successful!  If not, we will have to do the process all over again and that will mean more debt and more heartache.  We are prepared for any outcome and trust that god has a plan for us and our children!  Our miracles have currently been in my belly since last Thursday, December 17th!  We are currently nearing the end of the Two Week Wait (TWW) that began on our retrieval day!  I have been on hormones three times a day since the start and Mike and I have been praying for this to be our time!  It’s Christmas Eve, and in two days we will go in for bloodwork to discover weather or not we are still pregnant and have twins growing in my belly!  

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness never tried IVF.  #babysteps