Amanda

Amanda's Story:

Our story began almost 24 years ago when Jeff and I first met. We started dating as teenagers and immediately fell in love. It has always been the two of us. We dated for several years before marrying, and then as we began looking for our first home, that's when we knew we were ready for a family. In 2013, we bought our first house and started trying to conceive.

We got pregnant after about a year, and that early pregnancy ended in miscarriage. I immediately felt something was wrong, even though my doctor told me how normal miscarriages were.

After a few more months, we decided to go see a local fertility doctor. We both did testing and everything was normal.

I started tracking my ovulation with the Creighton Method. We did a couple of rounds of timed ovulation and intercourse with no success.

After another year or two, we decided to do an exploratory laparoscopy and found I had tubal blockage in both of my tubes. I will never forget our follow-up appointment when we were told, "You are poster children for IVF". I remember feeling devastated and hopeless. Not ever imagining having to do IVF, or that we might not be able to have children of our own.

After a couple of years we decided to do IVF with a local clinic. I wish we could have done it sooner, but financially it was not feasible. We did one retrieval and got three frozen embryos that were tested normal. We transferred the first embryo in fall of 2019.

I received a call that the embryo was technically implanted, but the HCG level was very low, and likely it would not be successful, which it wasn't. No one prepares you for when it does not work. On average, it takes three rounds of IVF for it to be successful for women in my demographic. 

We followed up with the doctor and asked what else could be wrong, and what other testing we could do. We did an additional test, a mock biopsy, to check to see if my uterine lining was ready for the transfer of an embryo so it could attach. Mine was off so we adjusted medication and did a second transfer.

In July of 2020, we transferred our 2nd embryo. We received a devastating call on the way that the embryo didn't survive the thawing process, and our third/last embryo was thawing and it would be transferred.

I knew then that the outcome was not good. I just felt it inside. We received the call a few weeks later, our last embryo did not implant. Our hopes and dreams of having a family were officially gone.

We had no more embryos, and that was it. At the follow-up appointment with our local doctor, they said, well, we just have to keep trying. We had no answers on why we had two failed implantations with healthy embryos. There was nothing else to do but another round of IVF, which was not affordable.

After this loss, Jeff and I continued to live our lives and love one another. We had done all we could, mentally, physically, and financially, to start our own family.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and passed in 2022. Six short months later, we lost my mother-in-law unexpectedly. After the loss of two parents, life began to look and feel different. I knew life was too short. I could not fill this void in my life that constantly felt like something was missing. The thought of getting older really hit me as I was 37 and my husband was 40.

For me, I didn't know what my purpose in life was if I wasn't meant to be a mother. After years of trying, I wished the desire to have children and be a mother would go away; it would be so much easier if I just didn't want kids.

I told my husband I wanted to try one more time to do IVF, and I found a place we could afford to do it again, CNY Fertility in New York.

He supported me in whatever decision I made. So we began our journey with CNY in 2023.

We scheduled our consult and did the pretesting that's recommended. That fall we had a consult with Dr. Chang. I was so worried at 37 I was getting too old to have children. He assured me I was not, and if we could get more embryos, now was the time to do it.

We did all of our monitoring locally with a wonderful doctor we found at Parkview in Fort Wayne, Dr. Issac Thimmesch. CNY would advise me through the portal what testing I needed done and when. They would place an order in the portal and I could take and have it done at my local clinic. I would just relay to my local doctor what I needed done, and they would put in an order to have it done locally. I would then wait for the results to come through on MyChart and upload them to the CNY portal along with my local doctor's office sending them. I didn't have to send them myself but I chose to. So I could ensure CNY got the results in a more timely fashion.

This time around I was much more involved and I did a lot of research and asked a lot of questions. We ended up doing a high-dose package with immune medication since I had two failed transfers, the thought was I likely also had some immune issues affecting implantation. I also chose to do an HCG wash. At CNY, the team was very willing to listen to my questions and change my treatment plan.

We traveled to CNY for egg retrieval in the spring of 2024. I was so nervous that we wouldn't get any embryos. We took a couple of days off work and drove to Buffalo, New York.

We stayed the night and had our retrieval the next morning, and then drove back home to Indiana. The clinic was clean and staff very friendly. The retrieval process was pretty simple. Dr. Chang and his nurse assisted me through it. It was a very short procedure. I was at the clinic maybe an hour to hour and a half. I was sent home with some pain medication, and of course, stopped and got McDonald's. I did have some light cramping for a couple of days after. I found hope that day in knowing that the nurse I had had both of her children through IVF.

We then waited for the call/report on our embryo status. We had two embryos survive and were frozen on day 3. We choose not to have them tested this time around. So we waited a few months for my body to heal from the egg retrival. We finally were able to do our transfer August 17, 2024.

We anxiously waited two weeks, and I had labs drawn to check to see if it worked. I constantly checked the portal, waiting. I was at lunch at work when the labs came through, and it was positive. I was pregnant, I thought. I went home and took a pregnancy test anyways. After years of negative at-home tests, we finally had our positive. Tears of joy, and hesitation were poured that day.

My husband and I were very cautiously optimistic. It took months for me to actually believe I was pregnant, and this was real. The first ultrasound in which a heartbeat was detected was a huge sigh of relief. Our little peanut was strong and growing. This was the farthest we had ever come.

As each week passed, we were a little more excited. Our chances of miscarriage and loss continued to decrease. We found out at our 20-week ultrasound that we were having a girl! As the weeks went by, I continued to count the milestones.

My pregnancy and delivery were quite unemarkable. I felt very good most days and had little to no complications. I did end up having a 2-vessel umbilical cord that required some additional monitoring. I prayed every day for a healthy pregnancy, delivery, and baby.

After 12 years of trying to conceive, we had our precious Madelyn Jane on 4-30-2025. Our dream of becoming parents had finally come true, and it has been everything we imagined.

(Photos by Sarah Renae)

Favorite Team Member at CNY:

Not one certain person stands out to me during our time with CNY. The whole team does!

One of my biggest fears doing IVF as a travel patient was being able to reach someone if I had questions. As fertility treatment is very time sensitive. Every time I called I was able to reach someone no matter what time or day it was. Every message in the portal was responded to that day and usually within a couple hours. Every person we met and spoke with was very nice and easy to speak to. The day of our transfer the embryologist and the Dr. Arroyo said how beautiful our embryo was. I will never forget those words or that day.

Helpful resources Amanda found:

During our journey at CNY I joined the Facebook support group, and Instagram page. The support group was such a tremendous help. I gained a lot of knowledge and had a place to go for support or just to vent. Just being able to speak with others who understand and are dealing with the same issues you are was a huge relief. I also relied a lot on prayer. I found a few fertility prayers and wrote them down and carried them with me and prayed them daily. I also reached out to my church and others for prayer.

The Moment:

When we held our precious girl for the first time it was surreal-- literally like a dream. I cried as they put her on my chest and told my OB I never thought I would be able to be a mother. They took her and placed her on the warming station and my husband followed her and calmed her as she had her first cry in this world.

At the sound of his voice she instantly stopped crying and wrapped her tiny hand around his finger. It was such a magical moment it even had our delivery team of nurses and doctors in tears. Being a mother/parents is the greatest gift of all and we are loving every minute of it.

Hope, Inspiration and Advice:

Infertility will break you time and time again. The grief that it causes is not measurable. You have to advocate for yourself. Do your research and ask questions. Be involved in your treatment plan and trust your instinct's.

We can only wish that our story gives someone else hope. It can happen to you! We are proof. If you have a dream or goal do not give up on it.