Millions of women are faced with the heartbreaking realities of infertility each day. Many desperately want a family, but for some, having a baby may be impossible. Some women will spend many years and a lot of money attempting fertility treatments. Those who can get pregnant and have a baby often feel incredibly lucky, while those who cannot are often left devastated.
Katie Abdou, 37, wanted nothing more than to have a child and was on a years-long journey that she fears will leave her penniless and without a child. Her story will likely resonate with other families who understand both the emotional and financial heartache.
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She wasn’t necessarily looking for a partner.
Per the New York Post, Abdou told South West News Service her quest was for motherhood, but not a love connection. “I was never interested in being in a relationship, but I always wanted kids,” she explained.
Living in Plymouth, Massachusetts, she set her sights on motherhood but didn’t fall in love with the idea of adoption or fostering. “It felt icky to be buying someone else’s child because they couldn’t afford them,” she recalled.
At first, she thought she’d find a sperm donor.
She began looking for a dad in an online registry in March 2020, and planned an at-home intracervical insemination, but it wasn’t an easy process. Abdou attempted ICI five times and ended up having three miscarriages and two failures conceiving.
She saw a doctor who took an X-ray that revealed she had blocked fallopian tubes. She was told if she wanted to become pregnant, in vitro fertilization was her only hope.
The cost of IVF treatments was daunting for the would-be single mom.
She told SWNS that while insurance does sometimes cover IVF, hers did not, and she wound up selling her home and moved in with her parents to afford the treatments. She took $100,000 from the sale of her house and went to a fertility clinic in Albany, New York, to pursue her dream. In November 2021, after her first egg retrieval, she became pregnant with a single baby but miscarried in the first five weeks.
She became pregnant again a few months later.
Her best friend, Chris, reportedly offered to help her conceive and donated sperm. Abdou found out she was pregnant in November 2022.
“I was very excited but still very careful,” Abdou told SWNS. “I had got the nursery all ready. I had planned the baby shower.”
But a 17-week ultrasound sound showed the baby had no heartbeat. She commemorated her son with a tattoo of his footprints on her shoulder.
“He was gone,” she said. “It was awful.”
She didn’t give up.
Abdou continued to have egg retrievals and failed embryo transfers as neither she nor her doctors were ready to give up on her dream of becoming a mom. She had polyp removal surgery, underwent treatment for endometriosis, and began taking growth hormones and engaging in platelet-rich plasma, all to no avail. “I felt like a broken person,” she told SWNS. “It changed me.”
She appears to be finished with her IVF journey but continues to support other moms.
“I think there needs to be more support for single and queer people,” she said. “I’d love for more information on IVF to be available.”
