Julie and Tyler West IVF Fund

To know Julie and Tyler West is to know kindness. Though they have suffered through several stumbling blocks in their lives together (they met in high school in 2008), they remain two of the most selfless and optimistic people you can know.

They married in July of 2021 (after rescheduling their wedding THREE times due to COVID) and immediately decided they wanted to start a family. After a whole year of trying, Julie and Tyler got a positive pregnancy test in May of 2022! Their son, Everett Nels, was due in late January 2023.

Other than a very troublesome rash in her third trimester, Julie’s pregnancy was relatively normal until her 39th week. On January 19, 2023, Julie noticed Everett wasn’t moving as much as usual. She is a pediatric nurse and had her own portable heartbeat monitor which she used to check for his heartrate, but she was unable to hear it. She rushed to her OB’s office where an ultrasound confirmed their worst nightmare – Everett had passed.

Julie had to endure the traumatic experience of being induced and delivering her deceased son over the following 36 hours. At 10 PM on January 20, beautiful Everett was born. He was 7 lbs. 4.4 oz., very long and slim, had 10 finger and 10 toes, brown curly hair (resembling Tyler) and looked as peaceful as could be. He was everything they had wanted except he wasn’t alive.

Everett showed no signs as to what may have happened to him. Julie and Tyler spent the next several hours holding their son, introducing him to his grandparents, reading him their favorite books and looking over each part of him to commit every detail to memory. They made the most difficult decision to hand him over forever at 6:30 AM the next day. Julie was discharged from the hospital, and the devastated parents went home with their arms and hearts completely empty.

I wish the heartache of this story was over but, unfortunately, Julie and Tyler were just at the beginning of a long and winding road. Doctors wanted to run many tests on Julie to figure out why this happened to their sweet Everett. Julie was in a post-partum blur planning Everett’s funeral and going to appointment after appointment seeking answers and relief. Julie continued seeing a Dermatologist as her horrible itchy rash persisted and worsened. It was originally misdiagnosed as PUPPS during her pregnancy but was finally diagnosed as Prurigo of Pregnancy, Leukocytoclastic Vasculitis, and Sjogren’s Syndrome post-delivery. The doctors did not think any of these issues caused Everett’s death. Julie was also seeing a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor, a Rheumatologist, an OB Genetic Counselor and a Cardiac Genetic Counselor. Julie and Tyler were also seeking mental health help from a specialized psychologist as they were both dealing with severe depression and anxiety.

The Genetic Counselor suggested a common childhood genetic test panel. When the doctor called and asked them to come in and review the results, their hearts sank. Julie had an abnormal result – she is a carrier of Duchenne/Becker Muscular Dystrophy. Again, this diagnosis is not a direct cause of death for Everett, but it does open an entirely new issue for Julie and Tyler trying to conceive future children. With Julie being a carrier, DMD has a 50% chance of being passed to a fetus – if passed to a female, she would be a carrier of the gene while if passed to a male, he would have the disease and there is a 100% chance of early death. For this reason, the Genetic Counselor said that the only way to avoid this is to conceive through IVF where they would do genetic testing on all of the embryos prior to implantation.

Julie and Tyler made a promise to Everett the night that they held him in their arms to make him a big brother one day. If you’ve given birth, then you know the expense of the delivery and the hospital stay. Just because Julie and Tyler didn’t bring a baby home, doesn’t mean the bills go away. The genetic testing that they’ve endured has also had a heavy cost. They met with a Fertility Specialist in July who broke down the cost of IVF and it will cost them over $20K out of pocket because neither of them has fertility insurance coverage. To add to their financial concerns, Tyler’s company was recently bought out and is being relocated to Wisconsin leaving him without a job.

There are no two people more prepared and ready to be parents than Julie and Tyler. They have shown so much love for each other and resilience through the past unbelievably difficult eight months. They’ve cried, yelled, and have been angry, but they’ve been able to work through their pain together supporting each other through their grief to find hope once again.

The Wests need our love and support through their IVF journey which they would like to begin in October. Please consider a donation to help with their medical bills and IVF payments. Julie and Tyler will be forever grateful for your support.