Kevin and Mindy O’Neil had their first pregnancy all planned out.
They were both 26 years old and had been married for a few years. They were healthy and active and ate healthful foods. Mindy was working as a teacher; Kevin, a Portland firefighter.
The Washougal couple planned the pregnancy so that Mindy would have the baby once school was released for the summer.
“And that just kind of never happened,” Mindy said.
Instead, the O’Neils learned creating a family would require a third person — a fertility doctor.
In the four years since deciding to start a family, the O’Neils have experienced two rounds of in vitro fertilization that resulted in the birth of their son, Killian, and three miscarriages. They’ve drained their savings account, twice, and recently held a fundraiser to cover the cost of their third round of IVF.
They have no guarantee they’ll conceive again, but they plan to do whatever they can to give Killian a sibling.
“This isn’t the road we saw ourselves going down,” said Mindy, 30. “But at some point, you have to accept it and keep trucking.”
Unexplained infertility
When they couldn’t conceive naturally, Kevin and Mindy tried various medications and treatments before Mindy got pregnant by intrauterine insemination, a kind of artificial insemination. She miscarried at six weeks gestation.
Their health insurance covered only four attempts. So, after those attempts, the O’Neils went to Oregon Reproductive Medicine, a fertility clinic in Portland, where all treatment would have to be paid out of pocket.
There, Mindy and Kevin learned there was no specific reason they couldn’t conceive. They were experiencing unexplained infertility.
“Sometimes sperm and eggs just don’t match,” said Kevin, 29. “It’s like a square peg in a round hole.”
The O’Neils decided in May 2012 to use the money they had saved to tour Italy to try in vitro fertilization. IVF is the process of fertilization by manually combining an egg and sperm in a petri dish and then transferring the embryo to the uterus.
The process came with a $20,000 price tag, but it was successful on the first try. Killian O’Neil was born in March 2013.
IVF is an intensive process. For two weeks, Mindy injected fertility drugs into her abdomen three times a day. The drugs stimulated egg production. She visited her doctor every other day and underwent a slew of blood tests, ultrasounds and other procedures.
Mindy went under anesthesia and her physician retrieved 25 eggs — far more than the goal of eight eggs.
“We kind of felt like we were in the clear,” Mindy said.
When it was time to fertilize the eggs, however, Mindy and Kevin learned only seven of the eggs were suitable for fertilization. After a few days in the lab, two embryos were transferred to Mindy’s uterus. The remaining embryos weren’t good enough to freeze.
Physicians couldn’t explain why only two of the 25 eggs retrieved were viable.
“He’s kind of our one-in-a-million baby,” Kevin said of Killian.
Losing twins
This May, the O’Neils decided they were ready to try IVF again in order to give Killian a sibling.
This time they had 15 eggs retrieved, all viable for fertilization. Two eggs were transferred to Mindy’s uterus; 12 were frozen.
In August, the O’Neils learned Mindy was pregnant with twins. They heard the babies’ hearts beat. They were told the babies were growing normally, doing great.
But when Mindy was nine weeks pregnant, one of the babies’ hearts stopped.
“Which was totally shocking and devastating,” Mindy said.
Then, two weeks later, the other baby’s heart stopped.
“Our world kind of fell apart,” Mindy said.
They told friends and family about the losses, and then they shut themselves away from everyone. They cried a lot during those few weeks.
In addition to grieving the loss of two babies, the O’Neils were confronted with their financial loss. They had emptied their savings account, again, to try to have another baby.
“Not only are we no longer pregnant, but we couldn’t afford to try again,” Kevin said.
While the abbreviated IVF process is cheaper when embryos are already harvested and frozen — about $7,000 instead of $20,000 — it was still outside of their reach.
Kevin and Mindy didn’t like the idea of asking for help, so they decided to work for the money. They hosted a dinner and auction, Tacos for Test Tubes, on Nov. 14.
They also used the event as a way to share their journey with friends, family and strangers — the miscarriages, the money, the sadness — and educate people about IVF.
“You feel so alone on that road,” Mindy said.
The O’Neils hope sharing their story will help others traveling on the same road.
“I felt like people felt embarrassed they were going through infertility,” Mindy said. “It’s not our fault. It’s the cards we were dealt.”
“I just want people to know they’re not alone,” she added.
In addition to the fundraiser, a friend started a GoFundMe account, Coins for Conception. In total, they’ve raised nearly $7,000.
The day after the dinner event, the O’Neils made a down payment for their next round of IVF.
“We have 12 little babies in the freezer waiting to be thawed,” Kevin said.
‘Given everything’
Like much of their infertility journey, Mindy’s recent miscarriages are unexplained. And their doctor can’t promise it won’t happen again.
“We’re still scared to do it again,” Kevin said. “We have to get going in a month, and it’s terrifying.”
Mindy has spent this month undergoing tests to prepare to begin the IVF process again in January. The physician will again transfer two embryos — the maximum for someone Mindy’s age.
While they’re fearful of what’s to come, the O’Neils aren’t ready to give up.
“I just want to fast-forward to holding a baby and Killian with a sibling,” Mindy said.
“We’ve given everything for that,” Kevin added.
