Thrilled!!

I am so thrilled to be able to help a dear friend Whitney, who I met while I was attending UCMT last fall.  She poured her heart out to our class about her dreams and desires (as we all did at one point) and they touched my heart so significantly.  Some of you will know that I was pregnant with my fourth baby at the time and it was a very emotionally difficult pregnancy for me as I hadn't planned on having another child so quickly. And to hear Whitney's struggle with starting a family, I knew at that moment I wanted to help her and now the time has come to make that happen. So I have decided to start a blog to help fundraise money for her to be able to undergo fertility treatments.

I am including Whitney's story below

Mark (my husband) and Whitney (me) met and got married the summer of 2007. Yes, you read that is right. 2 months and 10 days between meeting and marriage. And it was the best decision we ever made. We are best friends. There is really nobody else I can see myself being this happy with and I'm glad God decided we needed each other.  We have been married just over 5 years. And for the first 3 years family and friends would always say " hey when are you gonna pop out some babies!?"  It never bothered us, we thought it was funny and we were hoping that someday soon one would be "popping out".  After a while I wondered if something was wrong with me and maybe I was the reason we hadn't gotten pregnant yet. Endometriosis and polycystic ovaries and many other things run in my family so it wouldn't have been a complete surprise. But then my husband informed me that in his monthly checking for lumps in certain places he had noticed that a lump he had had for a long time was starting to get bigger and was tender.  Eventually I convinced him to go to the doctor. They did and ultrasound on his right testicle and decided that the lump was a cyst (generally not a problem and they don't operate on them because usually that causes more problems).  However, this cyst was connected to the testicle on the epididymis (the place where sperm are stored and trained in their duties before being sent out.) The doctor thought the cyst could be blocking any sperm from getting through from that testicle. By chance they decided to do an ultrasound on the other testicle as well and they found an unidentifiable mass inside his left testicle. They said it was most likely testicular cancer and that they would need to operate. They could not be sure what exactly it was without doing a biopsy. However, if they did a biopsy before operating and it was cancerous, it would spread the cancer to his scrotum. So we banked some sperm over the next few weeks as recommended by the doctor and got the operation.  They removed Mark's left testicle and discovered it was cancerous but benign, which is incredibly rare as most testicular cancerous are malignant (meaning they can spread).  He has healed well and we have grown closer through the experience.  We have gone to the temple and got the impression that it was time to start a family just a few months ago. however due to the cyst, it is unlikely that we will get pregnant the normal way. Thankfully we have the banked sperm and we can use that to get pregnant.... just costs a bit more than buying a cute little nighty...:]


Let's help Whitney and Mark achieve their dream of becoming parents by donating today!