Our Story
Brandon and I met while I was pregnant with A, and I had already had my adoption plan, met my couple and had that confirmation that she needed to be placed within their family. We dated for 7 months (during and after pregnancy) and got engaged May 2012. We were married and sealed in the Mesa Arizona LDS Temple 9/1/2012.
For us, becoming parents has always been a goal of ours.
We knew when we got married 4.5 years ago that we only wanted to prevent for a few months, get settled and then start trying to create our Eves family.
[february or march 2014]
After a year of "trying" we decided to see my regular OB/GYN, and he ordered a semen analysis for Brandon and some regular blood work for me. A few of my levels were abnormal and seemed like an easy fix, but Brandon's levels on the semen analysis came back really low. While adjusting some of my levels and hormones, my OB/GYN also referred us to a specialist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT.
At this point they only had northern Utah offices so our first initial consult was on UofU campus. Brandon had many extensive surgeries as a baby that we thought might have been why we were having a hard time conceiving. Many visits later, we learned the news that we would most likely have to move forward with IVF, but that he also had a few other problems that would require surgery to fix, and would be able to try to naturally have a baby after surgery.
[february 2015]
During surgery, Brandon had gone into Anaphylactic Shock with an allergic reaction from the antibiotics used during surgery. Luckily, the surgeon hadn't ordered the antibiotics to be given until almost the end of the procedure or else he wouldn't have been able to complete the surgery. Brandon was then rushed via ambulance from the surgery center to the ICU where they worked on him to get him stable. Luckily we were near the hospital when he was given these antibiotics so that he could get all the medical attention he needed.
After this surgery and the expensive ICU stay, we were mentally, physically and financially exhausted. We needed to take a break from all of this and be married. We weren't preventing getting pregnant, but we weren't actively seeing a specialist either.
We decided to go back to our fertility doctors to talk about plans. Nice that this time it was in St. George! :) We hadn't been preventing for the last year and we still weren't pregnant. Brandon was tested again and we discussed medications, but were struck with the news that IVF would be our most realistic choice to become parents. GULP. That's a lot of money! How could we ever be ready to take that leap?
[March 2017]
Our fertility doctor (for women) referred us back to see our other fertility doctor (for men) in SLC. We chatted and discussed some medication options but he wanted to re-image brandon to see if he could figure out what was going on. We left thinking we were going to have to an $8,000 exploratory surgery while finding sperm (cash pay) and then IVF after that. We left the appointment with a plan, but were hoping for a better alternative. The next day as we were driving home, our doctor called us to give us the results from the ultrasound of Brandon. He had told us that Brandon has a blockage from all the scar tissue from his surgeries as a baby, but that he thought the sperm was in there and he could go in with a needle and extract them, freeze them, and then do IVF. ($2000 cash pay option--much cheaper!) We thought about all of our options and decided to move forward with that option.
On 4/18/2017 Brandon had his surgery, which was successful; allowing us to move forward with IVF.
I met with my doctor and am scheduled to start medications in June and July with egg retrieval on 7/10/2017 and implant 3-5 days later.
Thanks for reading!
We are so happy and grateful to finally have a plan and to finally be able to be on the right track towards parenthood! Follow along to get updates! :)
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