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Gift of Hope 2012 – Amber & Ryan

Male and female infertility complicate couple’s efforts to have a baby

Patterson couple win Gift of Hope IUI Grant 2012

Amber & Ryan - Gift of Hope IUI Grant recipients
Amber & Ryan – Gift of Hope IUI Grant recipients

Amber and Ryan’s story begins in 2007. Newly married, the couple was intent on starting a family they both dreamed of since they were young. After trying for almost a year to get pregnant, Amber finally got a positive pregnancy test. They were ecstatic and immediately headed out to tell family, friends and soon enough the whole world. They thought of nothing else but what their baby would look like and how it would feel to hold him or her in their arms.

Amber’s first obstetric appointment came and they could hardly wait to finally have a picture and hear their little one’s heartbeat. But after a few short minutes into the ultrasound, the look on their doctor’s face said it all. Their baby did not have a heartbeat, he said, and Amber was experiencing a “missed miscarriage.”

Ryan’s diagnosis of low sperm count along with Amber’s of PCOS complicated their chances of conception.

The next four-plus years were a blur of doctor visits, diagnoses, and more negative pregnancy tests. Amber’s diagnosis of PCOS complicated her chances of getting and keeping a pregnancy, but to top it off, Ryan was found to also be contributing to their struggles. Low sperm count and miserable sperm motility and morphology compounded their infertility problems even more.

Assessing their situation, they decided to try ovulation induction with IUI cycles to see if this could solve their problems. After five failed IUI cycles, their physician told the couple that with only a slight chance of being able to get pregnant on their own. In vitro fertilization would need to be their next step.

At this point, Amber and Ryan had maxed out their credit card on infertility treatment. They attempted to get a loan to cover the IVF process, but were only approved for about a quarter of the total cost. Their families offered to help pay what they could, but even then it was nowhere near the cost of the procedure. They knew there was no way to make it work financially and their hearts were broken. They had no choice but to take a break and save some money.

Gift of Hope IUI Grant 2012 gives the couple another chance at pregnancy.

During this time, they moved to Louisiana and found information about the Gift of Hope IVF Grant 2012 on social media. “We cannot even begin to explain what winning the Gift of Hope would mean to us,” says Amber. “But I will tell you that the ‘Gift of Hope’ is the perfect name for such an award.”