Tiffany & Nate

Tiffany & Nate's Story:

Our story began in 2015 when we decided we were finally ready to try to conceive. In July I experienced what I thought was appendicitis and was admitted to the hospital only to find out I had a large cyst on my right ovary.

I had to go through emergency surgery to remove the cyst. A few weeks of recovery and I met with the surgeon who suggested we have an HSG to see if my tubes were blocked before we began trying.

I went through another fertility clinic for this test and found out that I had a hydrosalpinx and IVF and tubal removal would be our best options as the hydrosalpinx is dangerous to an embryo.

I went ahead and met with a surgeon to have my tubes removed in 2016. We met with the local fertility clinic to discuss options and costs for IVF.

We decided the cost was way out of our budget. We sat around for a few months doing research for grants and saving money.

In 2017 we found CNY Fertility. We had our consult with Dr. Kiltz and discussed our options. He told us about the IVF cost-sharing grant through NYS. We decided to use the grant and start our journey.

In September of 2017, we started with lab work. The labs showed my AMH was extremely low for someone my age at .71 . We got meds and started the stimming process.

We had a few ultrasounds throughout the process to check follicle growth. In the beginning, it was going well and then the follicles stopped responding to the medications.

We eventually had to cancel that cycle and were very heartbroken. We chose to take some time to ourselves for a bit before we tried again.

In 2019 we reached back out to CNY Fertility and had another consult. We again discussed different medications to try. We finally got a good combination and the follicles were growing.

We had two eggs retrieved and both fertilized! We were ecstatic to have any at this point.

During the growing process we found out we only had one surviving embryo and we had to freeze the embryo as it needed to be genetically tested as both my husband and myself are carriers of cystic fibrosis.

We had the embryos biopsies and sent off for testing hoping everything was normal and we would be able to transfer the embryo eventually. Six long weeks later we got the results... the embryo did come back as a carrier and we would still be able to go through with the transfer.

We scheduled to start an FET. We began the meds and monitoring process. My lining was not where it needed to be so we scheduled a D&C in January 2020.

During this procedure, they located and removed a fibroid. After a few weeks, we finally scheduled our transfer. We transferred our only embryo in March of 2020 with lots of hope it would stick.

After what felt like the longest 2 weeks of my life we finally went in for beta. I got the call that It stuck and we were pregnant!

My hcg level was on the lower end so I had to continue to go in for a few more labs to make sure it continued to rise, which it did. We finally were able to start the ultrasounds to see if the pregnancy was viable.

The ultrasounds every week were probably the scariest as we wouldn't know what would happen each week. We were able to see growth each week and eventually got to hear the heartbeat which was probably the best day of our lives.

We were released and sent to my regular OBGYN to continue the pregnancy monitoring.

After a long road, we finally welcomed our healthy baby boy, Levi, on October 28th, 2020.

We cannot thank CNY Fertility, Dr Kiltz, and all the staff in the Rochester and Syracuse office enough for helping us with our journey. We will be back again to see you all soon for our next journey!

Favorite Team Member at CNY:

Dr. Kiltz
Dr. Corlet
Leigh Houghton
Katy Falcon

Helpful resources Tiffany & Nate found:

Acupuncture and keto

Unique Moments:

Finding out we only were able to retrieve 2 eggs was pretty devastating and then only having 1 survive were both low moments. When we finally got to hear his heartbeat after the struggles we endured was probably the most relief I felt during the process.

Hope, Inspiration and Advice:

Be open about your journey and struggles. It was probably the only thing that helped throughout this process. You gain a huge support system of family and friends by being open and real with everyone. You also never know who is watching or listening that may be going through the same thing but scared to say anything. Through this journey I have gained many friends that are going through the same struggles.