Melissa and Aaron’s IVF journey

Hi everyone,

As some of you may know, Aaron and I have been struggling to build our family for many years. When we first got married we imagined that we would start a big family very quickly, but it took us almost three years to get pregnant with Alaric. Despite seeing multiple specialists, no one could tell me why it took so long because all of my tests came back “normal”.

After Alaric was born I was completely unable to breastfeed and had other complications that finally got the attention of my medical team. They ran new tests and I finally found out that I have PCOS. They didn’t have a lot of answers but told me it would be difficult to have another child, and that I was lucky to have one at all.

Since that time many many years ago, we have tried without success to bring another child into our family. My infertility issues have been long unexplained by modern medicine, and we have attended countless doctors visits trying to figure out how to fix the problem. Not a lot worked, and I was often reminded how miraculous it was that I was even able to get pregnant at all.

Last year, I switched specialists and started seeing a fantastic provider who moved us forward and finally got us some answers. The answers weren’t great news by any means, but it was something. In February I had surgery to remove polyps that were physically preventing a pregnancy, and since then I have done multiple rounds of medicated injections to force my body to ovulate, I have taken multiple cycles of medications to try to make my body recognize the ovulation as a pregnancy, and I have done two IUI cycles in preparation for IVF. This last cycle of medications finally got us somewhere, just not to the finish line. I finally was able to produce mature eggs, but my body refused to let them go. I developed a reactionary syndrome that causes swelling and a significant amount of discomfort and pain and it will take a few weeks for my body to reset for us to start medicated injections again. Because of these complications, the next step will be a surgical egg retrieval and implantation.

As you can imagine, all of the steps leading up to this have been very expensive, and the costs continue to grow. In order to have eggs harvested I will have to be on specialty medications again, none of which are covered by insurance. I will need to have surgery to have the eggs harvested, which will only be partially covered by insurance. Once fertilized, every embryo will undergo genetic testing to ensure they are candidates for a transfer. Genetic testing alone is $4,500 for up to 8 embryos, and is not covered by insurance. After testing, the embryos will be monitored continuously in the lab at Methodist hospital until they reach maturity, at which point I’ll be scheduled for a transfer and the remaining embryos will be frozen. I can only have one embryo transferred at a time, and each transfer is an additional surgical cost.

As much as it is uncomfortable for us to ask for your help, this journey is far from over and we are doing our best to prepare for the cost associated with these procedures. If you are able, please consider donating to help us cover these costs so that we can focus on the journey ahead of us. Thank you for taking the time to read this and to consider donating to our cause!

-Melissa, Aaron, and Alaric