Tamra & Anthony

Tamra & Anthony's Story:

Anthony and I have been together for just over ten years now. We met while I was a Junior in college studying sports management and playing softball. Anthony was in the Coast Guard stationed in New Orleans and was a boat mechanic. We dated for three years and got engaged January of 2013, we set the wedding just 10 months later. We were married November 2, 2013. Not long after we got married, my husband had decided to get out of the Coast Guard so that we could settle down. We were ready for a new start in the work force to help us build our dreams. After taking small jobs here and there to make it by, he finally found what we thought would be his forever job working on big machinery. We were so excited that he finally had a job he loved and where he would be given the opportunity to move up throughout his career. He started his new job September 22, 2014, and a month earlier I had just accepted my first head coaching job for softball at a local high school. It seemed that our careers were finally aligning with where we were meant to be in our lives.

On the morning of October 22, Anthony got up before sunrise as he did every day without a complaint, he got dressed, gave me a kiss, and said, “I love you” before he headed off to work. This was our routine every day. Little did I know; this day was not going to be like every other day. Just months after our wedding and exactly one month after beginning his career at Caterpillar, the unthinkable happened. I received a call from the front desk clerk. All I was told was that Anthony was working on a piece of heavy machinery and it collapsed, pinning him between the machine and machine’s arm. They told me he was being airlifted to Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge. I was praying to God to please let my husband live, and after what seemed like an eternity, I arrived at the emergency room where I was directed into the room to finally get to my husband. I turn the corner to see him crying in pain saying he thought his back was broken, because he couldn’t feel his legs. At this time, the doctors finally gave me the details about what exactly happened. I was informed that the arm on the machine had collapsed, pinning Anthony’s pelvis between the two large pieces of the machine with the tail pipe puncturing his upper thigh. The way it was described by the doctors is that, Anthony was trapped between these pieces like a mouse would be trapped by a mouse trap. The Orthopedic doctor wasn’t available, so we were told he’d have to wait until the next morning to have the orthopedic doctor perform his major surgery. While waiting out that first day, Anthony received his first X-ray results. The results revealed that Anthony had an open book pelvis break. This specific break also led to his colon and bladder being punctured. Within the first hour of being in the hospital, I was signing papers for surgeries that I hoped would save his life, no matter what other difficulties we would have to face together. The day he was admitted, the first of the many surgeries to follow was completed and successful. We were making progress to heal my husband and that’s the only thing I could hope for. The next morning, Anthony’s family and I met with the orthopedic doctor about the upcoming surgery on his pelvis. The surgeon explained that Anthony’s pelvic break was one of the worst he had ever seen. He made it clear that he would do his best in surgery, but we should be aware that he could never know exactly where the bones might move during surgery, or what Anthony’s mobility would be following surgery. He also informed us he would have an external fixator for several weeks and would be unable to bear any weight on his feet while his bones healed. For two weeks following the surgery we stayed in the trauma intensive care unit where Anthony was kept intubated and asleep to allow him to heal. For those two weeks, I was not allowed to stay with my husband. I was only allowed to see him during the short and very strict visitation periods. The nurses gave me as much information as they could between visits and even bragged on how well Anthony was doing when they woke him for short periods of time. Both of our families made sure someone was there for every visitation, so he would never feel alone. My sister and brother-in-law went to visit during the last visiting hours one night that I was not able to make it back for visitation. Anthony was waking up despite the sedatives. He was unable to speak because he was still intubated so my sister gave him a permanent marker and paper, so he could try to write it down. He became very frustrated that he couldn’t get his hands to do what he wanted them to, but after couple attempts, he finally wrote I love You, he then mouthed my name to her. My sister sent me the picture and I just remember crying and thanking God for blessing me with such a thoughtful husband, even when faced with such trauma, he still thought of a way to make me smile. About a week after the accident and following the two prior surgeries, the doctors moved on to the area where the tailpipe punctured his thigh. He had plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery to repair his shredded hamstrings. The week following his hamstring surgery, we finally got the tube out of his throat where he could talk and communicate with us! We moved floors to a less intensive care unit and were waiting for Anthony’s bladder to heal on its own, but it had its own plan. His urine was going out the other gashing hole in his body, where the tailpipe had punctured instead of through the catheter they had placed. Several weeks following his initial operations, they finally had to go in for yet another surgery to fix his bladder. Three weeks into the hospital stay, was the day of our first wedding anniversary. Being a selfless husband, Anthony arranged for his family to bring my favorite food and dessert to the hospital. He surprised me with a brown bag filled with these foods and the bag read, “with you every step of the way”. This was our quote we learned to live by during the trials of this time in our lives and the trials to follow. I’d love to say we enjoyed our dinner together and laughed, but the truth is Anthony didn’t even eat, he fell asleep. That didn’t matter, the fact was my husband who had experienced so much trauma and was in so much discomfort all day had planned it all out, from the music to the food. We had made it through our first year of marriage and were celebrating in the hospital that he was still alive. As we neared a month and half in the hospital, they set a goal for Anthony to try and stand for the first time since his accident. This was the last step before he could move out of the hospital and into an acute care facility. It wasn’t a long stand, and it was assisted by two people who basically straightened his knees for him and held him up, but it counted! We moved to a facility not far from the hospital where Anthony would undergo physical therapy one hour every day of the week. He worked on maneuvering a wheelchair, and we both learned how to transfer him from bed to chair and vice versa. Thanksgiving was another turning point in our journey. Just two weeks after being released to the acute care center, we were facing another trial. Anthony slept all day and missed every meal. He began developing red blotches all over and running a high fever. It didn’t take long for the staff to send us back to the emergency room at Our Lady of The Lake. He was admitted immediately, and we found out he had gotten MERSA at some point during our stay. We stayed at the hospital until they got it under control, and the blotches slowly went away. We would have to stay until Anthony could prove to the hospital that he could do move to a more intensive physical therapy inpatient hospital. There he would do physical therapy seven days a week for two hours a day. Our final month and half I spent every day and night in the hospital apart from leaving to work a few hours at a time before returning. Anthony worked on vocational rehab, strengthening his upper body so he could move without my assistance, and finally learning how to walk again. Anthony continually proved the doctors wrong, going above and beyond what anyone expected him to do. For better or worse, we had survived what seemed to be the biggest challenge we would have to face.

The trials we faced were not what most would expect to deal with during their first year of marriage. We had plan like all newlyweds, after a year of marriage we would start to try for a family. Instead, we spent months at three different hospitals/rehab facilities just hoping Anthony would live a somewhat normal life. To be honest babies were the last thing on our mind for many months, but as our two-year anniversary came up so did that desire to try for a family. My husband had survived a life-threatening trauma and came out stronger than anyone could have predicted. We were finally to the point of starting the family we had planned on all of these years.
This injury was one of the hardest things we have had to face as a couple. Going through infertility is just as emotional and just as hard as an injury you can see from the outside. Anthony and I know about struggle, we have experienced it through personal trauma and through infertility. You can mend bones and try to fix something that you know is wrong, but to be in the unknown unexplained infertility box might just be as bad as going through my husband’s accident all over again. We started as usual, going through my OBGYN after a year and half of nothing on our own. We started with Clomid after four rounds of that, and we still didn’t get pregnant. After we finished, we waited a couple months to go see an infertility Dr. for an HSG which came back normal then shortly after started with IUI’s. We did three rounds of IUI’s locally, which were unsuccessful. After those three rounds, the Dr. and I had another conversation that she thought it was best to go to IVF rather than more rounds of IUI’s because of the length of time we have been trying on top of IUI’s not being successful. Our round of IVF seemed like it was going great. I reacted well to the medicine my follicle count was great. Thirteen eggs were retrieved, and seven were mature. Out of those seven mature eggs, five were fertilized and made it to day five, and one embryo made it to day six. We watched our cycle numbers go down but kept the faith that this one embryo would make it through the PGS testing, and we would get to transfer our single embryo. Our hopes were crushed as the Dr. called to tell me that our embryo was severely abnormal, and we wouldn’t be moving forward with the transfer. There we were one failed IVF round and nothing to show for it.

Picking up the pieces, I knew that we couldn’t afford another round at the local clinic. I started looking into CNY and waited three months for my phone consult. We started in October of 18’ with our egg retrieval where we had a much better response and more mature eggs and embryos. After PGS testing we had 3 PGS normal, 1 mosaic, and 1 abnormal embryo. We were ecstatic and felt this was one or more of our babies. We started transfers right away in November of 18’ and December 18’ of single transfers which both failed with no implantation. January we were lost and confused as to why this wasn’t working for us. We did an ERA (endometrial receptivity analysis) and a hysteroscopy to check for any clue as to why our embryos were not sticking. Everything came back normal and within range, so we proceeded with another transfer in February of 19’ with our last PGS normal, led to yet another negative. After talking with Dr. Grossman, he firmly believed this would work for us, he reassured me I was doing everything I could to make this work. I can’t tell you how much Dr. Grossman’s phone calls after the failed transfers meant to me. He gave me hope and faith that this would work even when I doubted it very much myself. After speaking with him after our third transfer we decided to do another egg retrieval and save our mosaic as a last resort.

Our third egg retrieval we had another good response with 21 eggs retrieved but only 10 were mature and we ended up with 3 untested embryos on day 6/7. Our fourth transfer was with our 2 day 7 untested embryos, and again we were faced with another negative. At this point in time we had thrown everything but the kitchen sink into our transfers. Between the 4 transfers we had tried PRP, HCG wash, glue, lovenox, and neupogen. We were down to our day 5 low grade mosaic and day 7 untested. I traveled by myself to Latham, September 11, 2019 for my transfer the following day and flew home hours after transfer. I knew I had tried everything I could to help with implantation and came to the conclusion that if these babies wanted to stick around they would have to fight, we decided to do no add-ons at all for our fifth transfer. I told my husband to stay home as we would probably be back for another retrieval later in the year, so he needed to save his days. I remember the nurse being very nice and uplifting as I told her which transfer this was and what two embryos we were transferring with tears in my eyes. She said to hold onto hope and to think positive thoughts I was pregnant until proven otherwise. Two weeks went by my midway labs were good as usual, and I didn’t test early. The day of BETA was never my favorite. I hadn’t bought any tests at all since the second failed transfer. I decided to buy a test on my way home from BETA, lets be honest no one wants to take the extra PIO shot if they don’t have to. I took the test when I got home, and shock isn’t even the right word to describe the feeling. I was in disbelief there was not only two lines, but the test line was way darker than the control line was. I quickly put something together to let my husband know he was going to be a dad when he came home on his lunch break. I threw some clothes in the dryer with the letter board and pregnancy test on top of it and asked him to take the clothes out of the dryer for me. I’ve never been so excited to tell the best husband and man that he would finally be a dad.

Along with this pregnancy also came fear. Fear that if it was the mosaic something could potentially be wrong, and of a high miscarriage rate through the first trimester with our chromosome that was affected. We put our fears aside and try to live by our motto “Faith Over Fear” throughout this whole journey. Although we won’t ever 100% know it was the mosaic that took, we do know the mosaic was a boy and I’m pregnant with a boy currently. We know regardless of which embryo took he is a fighter just like his parents. I can’t thank CNY enough for being a clinic that not only reports mosaic embryos, but also pushes embryos to day 7. CNY is also one of the clinics who will also transfer mosaics and giving them a chance to correct. I am currently 22 weeks and our baby Brock has come back normal in all his testing thus far. Our journey continues as many still suffer, I hope to be a beacon of hope for those with implantation failure and multiple retrievals, those with mosaic/day 7 embryos, and last for those who have had a tragedy before even beginning this process.

The Regalos

Favorite Team Member at CNY:

Greta, Kristen Crumb, Dr. Grossman