WALK OF HOPE - SAN DIEGO March 12th @ 9am

Raising awareness and advocating change in the insurance industry means so much to me.  So much so that I have been working very hard over the last year to bring to San Diego, the Walk of Hope.  I am the Chair of this event I am happy to say that we are 59 days away from the inaugural San Diego Walk of Hope.  RESOLVE’s Walk of Hope is RESOLVE’s signature fundraising event. The Walk of Hope recognizes the many ways in which families are built and supports the 7.3 million women and men living with infertility, including Ryan and I. Click here to read Why I Walk

Funds raised from the Walk supports RESOLVE’s programming including support groups, public awareness initiatives, and advocacy efforts to ensure family building options are available to all!  Currently, the World Health Organization recognizes infertility as a disease but insurance companies see it as a lifestyle choice and most are forced to pay out of pocket for treatments which cost thousands.  We are looking to change that today!

For those in Southern California, please join us:

Walk of Hope San Diego

Date: Saturday, March 12, 2016

Time: 9 am -12 pm

Location: NTC Park @ Liberty Station

2455 Cushing Road, San Diego, CA 92106

Check-in begins at 9:00 AM and walk begins at 10:00 AM. One-mile walk, all ages welcome. 

Register here

For those not available to join us on the walk, would you please consider donating to our team?  Living with infertility comes with its own difficulties, but then adding on the cost of treatment just makes it that much harder.   This needs to change.  Please help team Love Haight help in this important endeavor.  To donate, click here and then click DONATE NOW.

Thanks for supporting the walk and thanks for reading,

HEATHER

A New Year, A New Plan

Since our last failed cycle, after we managed to breathe again, Ryan and I spent countless hours researching and soul searching as to what to do next.  The only thing we know for sure is that our journey to have a family isn't over yet.  We decided to have consultations with about every clinic and every doctor and every agency that we came across to see what are options are.

After the last failed transfer all I know for sure is that I am done cycling myself.  I can't keep putting my body through that and I'm not sure I would survive the emotional side of another failed cycle again. IF is plain crappy for everyone going through it, but I always seem to cycle longer than most and have the absolute worst side effects.  Its not like I didn't try.  I literally did everything I could and then some and it still didn't work. 5 years has taken its toll and its time to move on.  We have spent the last few months speaking to, consulting with or emailing the following to figure out next steps:

• Our acupuncturist Jeneanne Paden, our naturopathic doctor Dr. Panda, our current RE Dr. Kettel at San Diego Fertility Center, our old clinic Reproductive Partners Medical group, Oregon Reproductive Medicine (one of the highest rated clinics in the country), Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (another highly successful clinic in the US), Dr. Chang at Hanabusa in San Diego, California Conceptions (we met with both the ED side and the embryo adoption group), AdoptHelp, IVF Zlin in the Czech Republic, HRC in Oceanside, Dr. Acacio in Newport Beach, The Donor Egg Bank, The Independent Adoption Center, West Coast Fertility Center, PVED, Adoption Network Law Center, Peas In A Pod, Genesis Group and A Perfect Match.

By taking my own genetic material off the table, we are left with donor egg, donor egg and donor sperm or adoption.  We have decided to move on to donor egg first.  We are switching clinics once again and here comes the surprising twist ..................  we are taking this thing international yo!  We are headed to the Czech Republic for our donor cycle (unless we change our minds again which is always a possibility).  The clinic is in a city called Zlin which is on the east side of CZ.  They are a highly recommended clinic in all of Europe and the cost is about 1/5 of the cost here which is still very expensive but somewhat affordable for us.  We would be there for about 8 - 10 days. We are in the midst of matching us with a donor right now and looking at a April transfer date.  While I don't know anyone personally, I have met several other couples from the US that are cycling there through a fertility board called Czech Mates.  I do have a clinic here that I'm working with on all the before and after stuff.  For right now we are working on the abundance of paperwork that is required to move forward.

Thanks for Reading,

HEATHER