Andrew and Katelyn

My husband, John, and I were college sweethearts. We knew we would be together forever from the day we met; you know, love at first site and what not. We got married in November 1998. I was 20 and he was 22. We decided we would wait a few years before we started trying to have a baby. Within 2 years, we were ready to start trying. One year went by - two years went by and my doctor finally decided to do some testing to see why it was taking us so long to get pregnant. I wasn’t ovulating, so I began taking Clomid. I went through three months of Clomid and we finally got pregnant with our first son, Trey, in 2003. 

Life went on, as usual, and we assumed we couldn’t get pregnant again. 18 months later we were in disbelief when we found out that we had conceived naturally. Our second son, Crockett, was born in 2005. When Crockett was a newborn, Trey was 2 and was being diagnosed with autism. I was a stay at home mom and John was working 60+ hours a week. I cried everyday that first year, I think. It was hard…. like, REALLY hard.

After much advocation and early intervention for Trey, he began making tons of progress at home and at school and we felt as if we were ready to add to our family again.  

We began working with our doctor and tried to conceive again for almost another decade.  Finally, on Halloween 2015, we found out we were pregnant again! On the day after Thanksgiving- I was 9 weeks along- I had a miscarriage. It was the single hardest day of my life. We were broken but we fully relied on God to carry us through it.

John wanted to continue to try to have a natural child, but I wasn’t sure I could handle another loss and I was scared. I didn’t want to spend all the money that it took to do fertility treatments if we could not be sure I could carry a baby to term…not to mention I was a pushing 40. 

Finally, in 2017 we decided to adopt. We are currently in the process of adoption and we are just waiting to be matched. I chose to speak up to my employer about the need for fertility coverage and I am so glad I did because until last year when TruGreen added Infertility coverage, no company I had ever worked for covered fertility treatments. I wish the coverage had been available to me in years past and then I would not have had to go through 14 years of trying to conceive and miscarriage and I could have tried fertility treatments.

Looking back at my struggles with infertility and just life – in general – I am so proud of how strong it made me. I am proud of the woman I have become who can and will advocate for those that can’t or don’t know how.  It is my goal in life to share my experiences with infertility, miscarriage and autism so that no one ever feels like they are in this life alone. God gave me a voice and I intend to use it until the day he decides to take me from this earth.

"Casey and I met, on Facebook, through mutual friends in August of 2011. Our story is very different than most considering the first 4 months of our “relationship” was all online and through phone calls due to deployments and overall long distance. In November of that same year, we finally met face to face and it was, as they say, love at first sight. I knew from the first moment that I spoke to him on the phone that I would marry him, but it was really solidified when we met in person. We were engaged by April of 2012, only the 4th time we had every seen each other. He is my soulmate.

Fast forward to September of 2013 and we were married. Casey finished his service in the Marines and immediately jumped into full time school. I was working for an OBGYN and we were happy. We knew we wanted a family from day 1, but thought maybe we needed “time to just be married” before adding to our crew. Little did we know, it would be slightly longer than WE had planned. God had his own timing. Almost a year after being married we began trying for a family, but things just weren’t right. After 8 months of TTC and numerous pregnancy tests, we were still at square 1, so I began “the conversation” with my doctor, who I worked with and saw personally. I cried every day on the drive home from work because what was once a fun job, was now a constant reminder that I wasn’t getting pregnant. Soon after, I quit my job at the OB/GYNS office. My heart just could not stand all the pregnancies around me any longer. After a small about of begging, my doctor agreed to start me on fertility medications. I remember him saying that if the medication did not help in getting me pregnant, then he would have to send me to a specialist. Well, needless to say, the Clomid didn’t help and I still could not shake the feeling that something else was wrong. I was desperate. I finally requested to have an HSG performed and luckily, we finally received some answers. My fallopian tubes were completely blocked in multiple places and were beyond repair, so out they went. I will never forget the doctor telling me that conceiving naturally was no longer an option and that IVF was our only hope.

Now, there we were in the summer of 2015 and beginning IVF. Eggs retrieved, sperm collected and all of the boxes checked off, we finally had our first embryo transfer in the Fall of 2015. Unfortunately, my body rejected the transfer and our cycle failed. We were heartbroken, financially drained and physically exhausted. Although Casey was in the military and we were covered under Tricare Insurance, thanks to him serving in the National Guard, infertility was still not considered a “necessary” treatment, so everything we paid was out of pocket. We had taken out a personal loan ($17,000) to cover the cost of IVF only for it to be unsuccessful and completely gone. Fast forward to January 2016 and The Starfish Infertility Foundation gifted us with a $3850 grant to help cover the cost of a frozen cycle. This was, without a doubt, the miracle that we had prayed for and a moment in which we realized that God truly answers prayers. In February 2016 we successfully transferred 2 frozen embryos and we were pregnant with twins!! Unfortunately, almost 8 weeks in, we lost one of our precious babes. We did however come out with one perfect child.

My Duncan.

This boy of mine is the most loving, strong, thoughtful, funny, smart, snuggly, imaginative and rambunctious child. He will be my mommas boy and best friend.

Then, in 2017, we started the process again. Duncan was born to be a big brother and our hearts had more love to give. Enter stage right…Henry Hightower, born in September 2018. He came 5 weeks early, in a fast and furious, VERY EMERGENT delivery with a personality to match.

Henry is smart, intense, loud, forceful in both playing and loving, attentive, impatient and a boy in full. He will be my protector and best friend.

My heart smiles today."

My husband Matt and I met over 4th of July weekend 2013 through a mutual friend and began dating within the month. Matt proposed on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2015), and we married in September 2017. The week before our wedding, I accepted my dream job and later that year we moved to Memphis where we quickly began imagining our life together in this new city. Fast forward to August 2018, we realized we hadn’t yet established a network of providers in the area, and Matt went for a yearly physical to do so. Walking into this physical he was the healthiest person I knew – even that day his labs looked perfect, he looked great, felt great, but his doctor quietly palpated a mass in his abdomen. An in-office ultrasound turned into an emergent CT, which turned into an immediate referral to West Cancer Center, and soon we were blindsided with Matt having a diagnosis of stage IV SDHB-deficient Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (a very rare, genetic soft tissue sarcoma without current treatment or cure). He had major abdominal surgery in November 2018 to remove the primary tumor off the lining of his stomach for quality of life (and to decrease risk of rupture into his stomach). Following this surgery, he still has 10 tumors in his liver, and residual cancer cells along his stomach lining and lymph nodes that there currently is no cure or safe treatment for; we feel so incredibly blessed that this all has been stable without treatment since surgery in 2018.

If we rewind, our IVF journey technically began in August 2018 as Matt’s oncologist encouraged sperm banking prior to initially starting chemotherapy (before his exact sub-type of GIST revealed chemo would not work); and it has been a roller-coaster ever since. Shortly after diagnosis, we met with a genetic counselor and found out there was a 50% chance our children would receive this gene deletion that led to Matt’s cancer, and if received, a 50% chance they would inherit one or more of many various types of cancer. We immediately made the decision to pursue IVF with PGD (genetic testing of our embryos) to hopefully end this gene risk within our family, and do everything we could to protect our sweet babies from the start.

Upon meeting with our RE for the first time (and following the slue of tests) it was expressed that if we could get at least 1 embryo without Matt’s gene, everything with us both looked great as candidates for IVF – no other fertility concerns to worry about.  We were so encouraged to then receive the news after retrieval, fertilization, and testing, that 5 great graded embryos passed both PGD and PGS testing, and were frozen and ready for us. Unfortunately, our first transfer ended with an ectopic pregnancy resulting in surgery/removal of our sweet boy and my tube; our second transfer ended in chemical miscarriage; and our third transfer failed to implant.  We are still searching for answers/reasons as to why this has not been as smooth as expected, meanwhile keeping faith that God’s plan does include bringing home our miracle baby one day.

We are so thankful to have incredible health insurance considering Matt’s cancer journey, but unfortunately, our insurance does not include fertility coverage. We also quickly realized that we don’t qualify for any grants (that we have found) as Matt is not “no evidence of disease” or “in remission” (and we aren’t sure if/when he will ever be), which many cancer-funded fertility grants require. We are advocating for fertility coverage across Tennessee (and ideally the United States and world if we’re dreaming big), in hopes that any individual or couple choosing or required to seek help in building their family, won’t be limited in doing so due to their finances. We also hope by sharing our story, we increase awareness and acceptance of PGD testing for genetic conditions, as we firmly believe attempts at protecting your baby pre-conception should be viewed the same as if you were doing so after birth (and covered by insurance similarly as well). Please feel free to reach out with any questions about our journey, or for prayers on your own, as we believe in the power of both prayer and community. {He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. -Job 5:9}

 ”We are Austin and Alexis Ehrat from Memphis, TN. We married in 2017 and have been battling infertility for a little over 2.5 years now. After a year of trying, we were referred to Dr.Ke at Fertility Associates of Memphis and haven fallen in the category of unexplained infertility. We knew we immediately wanted to do whatever it would take to try and increase our chances so we jumped right into testing and went on our way to starting IUI. 

Everything came back good on our test results for both of us so we were cleared in that part. Unfortunately, after 3 failed IUI attempts (not to mention, 1 on thanksgiving day and another on Christmas day) we decided to hang it up due to only having a low chance of it working for us anyway to moving on straight to IVF. I couldn’t believe we were actually on our way to starting IVF (something I couldn’t even wrap my head around or accept the fact that this was going to be our chance at having a baby hopefully) 

I accepted it pretty quickly and was ready to move on to battle (how my husband describes it ha) We had our first egg retrieval in March right before they shut down for Covid, praise the Lord and we were successful with many embryos. We were able to do our first transfer in June and at first were successful (on my birthday) but unfortunately had a missed miscarriage and found out at our 9.5 week appointment that we lost our baby. Did I mention we don’t have good luck when it comes to holidays and fertility treatments haha?

IVF is one hell of a journey in itself but then you throw miscarriage in with it and it has been one of the hardest journeys of our life.  You want something so bad that you will pay an arm and leg to make it happen but ultimately we have come to realize that no matter how much we do at the end of day it is Gods will not ours. That is something that I have learned in this journey is that usually when you want something in life you can make it happen some day some how but wanting a baby so bad is ultimately out of our control. I didn’t think I would make it past the miscarriage to be honest. My heart hurt like it has never hurt before and in the words of Lysa Turkheurst I truly felt as if I had licked the floor of hell that day. Everything we had worked so hard for and put our faith and trust in was taken from us to soon & that everything is something that I don’t get to understand now but one day will. 

Still to this day after consults, testing, IUI, IVF and prep for transfer #2, we have had zero insurance coverage for infertility as it has been all out of pocket expense. 

Thankfully God pulled us up and out of that slump so that we could go back to battle and prepare for our transfer #2. We are in the process of going through our next round so please keep our anxious hearts in your prayers. 

One piece of advice I would give to someone else going through infertility is to advocate for yourself as a patient. I have learned that through my failed trials after taking notes and documenting what has worked and what hasn’t worked for me that you must speak up for yourself. We have a passion for infertility and I know many of you out there are struggling so if you need someone to talk to or just to listen please don’t hesitate to reach out. My biggest prayer for being faced with this journey is that it would help just one person along the way and if it helps more than one that’s wonderful too.  This suffering is meaningful and just remember your journey your story and your struggle is meaningful, it is not meaningless. 

Thankful is an understatement to be able to work alongside the TN Fertility Advocates.”

As a Psychologist, Academic, and Advocate, I believe in the importance of insurance coverage so that financial barriers and coverage should never be a reason for not pursuing fertility treatment. I hope that through telling our story, we can add to the growing list of voices advocating for change in the state of Tennessee. 

My partner Marc and I met in our late teens, have been together for 12 years, and married for 6! For the first 3 years of our marriage, I was finishing up my doctoral program (I have a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology) and working to become licensed as a psychologist. The first year of marriage, I was initially pretty naïve and fretted over getting pregnant while finishing up my Ph.D. program. No one in my family had ever struggled to get pregnant (in fact all of my extended family members had a pretty easy time of getting pregnant) so I was worried about becoming pregnant while still finishing my program. Little did I know how long that journey would take.  

I had completed my doctoral and post-doctoral training in August of 2017. Marc and I found our dream jobs and settled in Knoxville, Tennessee in August of 2017. Shortly after moving, we began earnestly trying to get pregnant. The first few months, I remember feeling so confused. I asked myself, “Why wasn’t it working?” I remember telling myself, “maybe it takes a little bit of time after getting off birth control.” I remember being so strict about drinking and eating, sure that I was pregnant each month. Each month, I was disappointed.

In doing my research, everything I read suggested that we should try “naturally” for 1 year before pursuing help, but I turned 30 in July of 2017 so I didn’t want to wait a year before talking to my doctor. I made an appointment with my gynecologist in early 2018 who encouraged me to keep trying naturally for 6 more months and come back if I still wasn’t pregnant. So, we kept trying. 

We had a chemical pregnancy (or really early miscarriage) in October of 2018. I remember feeling so sad but also hopeful that if I was able to get pregnant once, I could do it again. So, we continued trying. I went back to my gynecologist who started doing blood work and Marc did a semen analysis in November of 2018, all of which came back normal. I had an HSG done by my gynecologist in January of 2019 where I found out that I had a blocked right fallopian tube. My doctor assured me that people got pregnant all the time with one “good” tube so we moved into several rounds of medicated cycles without any success.
In May of 2019, I decided to seek out a reproductive endocrinologist as I felt like we needed more help. We did three rounds of medicated cycles with a different medication. After none of those were successful, my RE suggested we do surgery so that she could go in there and look around. I had my first laparoscopy and hysteroscopy in August of 2019. My RE found a uterine septum that she corrected, some endometriosis that she cleaned up, and she was able to open up my right tube. I was hopeful for the first time in so long after the surgery and the next month we were able to try again. We had one more medicated cycle before she found a very large ovarian cyst and I went on birth control for 3 months to get rid of it. At this point, Marc and I were both pretty frustrated, sad, and hopeless. We were able to begin trying again in January of 2020 and did our first IUI. My numbers were great, Marc’s numbers were great and the cycle looked great! I was sure it would work! Then, it didn’t. We tried two more IUIs after that. Both cycles looked great. Neither of them worked. At that point in time, my RE told me that she did not recommend more IUIs and that her recommendation was to pursue IVF. I was devastated but also resigned in our plan. We would have to pursue IVF. In some ways, this news was a relief because deep down I already knew that IVF would likely be our only option. 

Preparing for IVF was no easy task (and we haven’t even started yet!). The first major issue we faced was where to go for IVF. Our RE did not do IVF and so we knew we would have to find someone else. I did a lot of research about the various facilities and clinics that offered/specialized in IVF that were within driving distance, and ultimately decided on a clinic in Chattanooga (a 1.5-hour drive from Knoxville). We scheduled our first consult during the height of Covid-19 and were able to go for our first baseline appointment in May of 2020. Our new doctor wanted to do another HSG to make sure my opened tube was still open from my surgery in 2019 and I was lucky that I was able to do that the same month. I did a second HSG and my doctor was concerned that my right tube had closed again based on the scans. So, I underwent a second laparoscopy and hysteroscopy in July of 2020 where my doctor found that my tube was not blocked and that everything looked good (he did remove some mild endometriosis). We tried one more IUI after surgery to take advantage of the surgery and that was not successful. At this point in time, we decided to stop trying other things and focus on IVF.  

I called my insurance and quickly learned that IVF was not covered through my insurance, which meant that any cost would be completely out of pocket. Marc and I talked for a long time about how we would pay for IVF and ultimately decided to sell our house and use the money we made to pay for IVF. We knew we did not want to take out a loan, and couldn’t/wouldn’t ask to borrow money from family -selling our house was the only option. So, we sold our house, and used the money to pay for IVF. We reserved our cycle for the earliest month possible, which means we will hopefully do our first retrieval in January. Now we wait.

We feel grateful to be able to sell our house and use the funds to pay for IVF. We also feel angry and frustrated that we do not live in a state that requires insurance coverage for IVF. I tell our story in hopes that it will: 1) normalize infertility struggles and provide insight into the vast amount of time, energy, money, and effort that goes into infertility treatment, and 2) add to the voices of people advocating for fertility and infertility insurance coverage in the state of Tennessee. We are one of the lucky ones to be able to make this happen and we have hope that all of the time, emotional energy, money, and waiting will ultimately result in a biological child. However, there are no guarantees. So, we stay content in our hopefulness and try to take it one step at a time!

Hey everyone! My name is Slade. My wife is Kasey & we’re the Patterson’s. I understand that most posts about fertility/infertility are typically from a female perspective and that is just fine with me. But I’m going to switch gears and speak from a new view - mine - and for all the guys out there reading this, let me explain some things about myself - I deer hunt. I carry a pocket knife, I take my 4 wheel drive truck through mud holes and I shoot guns. I wear work boots and I can drive a tractor. I know how to build a fire & sometimes, I even listen to Garth Brooks. I’m a man that does man stuff. However - I couldn't care less about being too tough to have a tender heart - I love my wife with all I’ve got to give. I love my family just the same and I love Jesus Christ for loving me more than I could love anyone. When I say I’m a Christian, I mean it. I work hard to pick up my cross and deny myself daily. I have to work at it because it’s hard to do. I don’t go to church to check a box. I go to church to be in the presence of the Lord. I trust He is working all things out for my good because I’m called to love him and I truly feel that hope & trust in my heart. Even after all that I believe, there’s one main thing I continue to struggle with - I’m just a sinner that sins. I struggle with pride and approval and I’ve already proved that in this post. I’ve always tried to be the man and take care of problems, provide for my wife, and take care of my family. 

Kasey and I tried to have kids for about a year and nothing happened so we completed some tests and received the results. The doctor said the problem is me. I fit in a class of less than 1% of men who don’t produce what is needed to allow pregnancy (I knew I was one of a kind, but c'mon man). Doc said, I have a better chance of hitting the lottery than us having a biological kid. Although I've known that I’ve not been in control of my life, the day we got that news was the first day I felt it. When I was a kid, I dreamed of playing in the NFL and the NBA...and a side gig, ninja. When Kasey was a little girl she dreamed of being a mom. Hearing that I’m unable to make that happen, as her husband, breaks my freaking heart. It feels like I robbed the dream from her heart to mother a biological child. It helped hearing the doctor say I was born this way and it's nothing that I caused or did wrong to have this outcome. On the other hand, it makes me question why God made me this way. I can't do a single thing to change it. Even though I know the verdict, I break a little more each new month that we don't become pregnant. There’s not enough essential oils to reverse what my body prevents me from doing or a Pinterest diet to change my results. The only professional procedure we have learned about, equates to a car-note sized expense, with a 50% success rate. Like a wise woman once said, "It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife..." 

Prior to trying for kids we discussed adoption and how it had been on Kasey's heart. It wasn't initially mine. I wasn't opposed to it but I hadn't given it much thought at that point. Once we received the news, we didn't question it. We jumped right in. For me it happened so fast that it camouflaged the thought of infertility. I didn't mean to suppress it. It just sort of happened. We had bought our first home and we got busy with renovations and the adoption process, that I accidentally stuck my reality on the back burner. We became a waiting family in November 2019. I was confident we'd be chosen in approximately 13 minutes after being on that list. However, it's been 328 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes and counting... For those who aren't familiar with adoption, we are chosen by the expectant mother. I continue to have no control. Waiting for months without being chosen creates doubt and self consciousness. It's a hard road to navigate and live out. This wasn't the way I pictured our life going. As time goes by, my heart yearns for a child. God has softened my heart and adoption is exactly where we are needed. The wait is difficult though. It’s hard seeing my wife sad and unable to change it. It's hard to know how to process something I’ve never experienced and it’s hard to open up about it because the feelings change daily. It’s painful hearing people ask “so, when are you gonna have some kids?” and the question cuts deeper each time. Or when people ask “how are you doing today?”....like, do you really want to know or is this like a “howdy” kind of thing? I have hope. I do! But the longer it goes, the more waiting that is required, and the less patience that I have. It’s known that 99.9% of people will respond with beautiful words of encouragement that feel like salt in an open wound on some days but those same exact words feel like the best hug ever, the next. It’s a confusing place to make camp. As a man, - it’s one of the most confusing places I’ve ever been in because I feel inferior due to my inability to fix it. To be completely vulnerable, it makes me feel less of a man because I can’t do this one thing that I feel like I’m supposed to be able to do. By default, it causes me to feel like I have to prove myself to people. I take on more at work to show that I can handle it. I take on more projects to prove that I can complete it and be successful. Let me clarify, my wife doesn’t make me feel any of this I'm describing. She is the best and we do what we can for each other in all we do. This lying voice is in my head that tells me I’m not enough. It's the voice that makes me feel like I have to try harder in order to prove I'm not a failure. Even though I know it’s a lie, it won’t be quiet and it’s hard to mute. 

When I close my eyes, I can see a child that is mine and he calls me Dad and in my soul, I believe the Lord will let that day come to pass but I have no way to prove it, except for the hope that's in my heart. Kasey and I are traveling through this valley & sometimes I look around and all I can see is her standing beside me. It feels lonely sometimes and it's difficult to be ok with a good day when this lingering sadness is present in the thoughts of my heart. I try to lead. I try to be strong but I have learned that I don’t have to be any of those things. I can be a busted and broken dude and it's allowed. If I can pass on one thing I have learned to another man, it would be to let down your guard. It doesn’t take a tough guy to get through the valley. It takes a willing heart to submit his ways to the Lord's plan. You don't have to like it. You just have to do it. Submit your ways to the Lord and He will make your paths straight. 

I’ve enjoyed telling my story and thank you for bearing through the length of it with me. If you need a listening ear, if you need advice, if you need prayer - I can be that guy. Rest assured that I do not have the answers you may be looking for unless that question is, “where do I turn?” I’m going to tell you to turn to Jesus. If you’re struggling with patience and trust, ask for grace. If you’re struggling with pride, ask for mercy and forgiveness. I struggle with all of the above. I'm cool with learning in the valley but I know our mountain top is coming. Really though, it doesn't even have to be a mountain. It can just be a slight incline just shy of a plateau - totally fine with me. I'd say the struggle bus is real, but the struggle bus broke down a while ago. Now we're barefoot and brokenhearted walking in this dang valley but we are together, my wife and I. We will make it through with the strength we're given as we go. "But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me." - Micah 7:7.  I hope everyone reading this can find comfort knowing that wherever you are in life, Gods there too. It’s not on us to make life work. It’s on us to let Him work.