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My name is Jennifer and my husband’s name is Keith. When we first met, Keith told me that he had Cystic Fibrosis and had received a double lung transplant 5 years earlier. I knew that that we would never have any children of our own, at least the natural way. I started researching our options and found Dr. Silber’s website. I knew that with the sperm retrieval, IVF and ICSI, we would be able to have hope of having our own child.
We decided to get married in March of 2010. When we sent our invitations to the wedding, we included a note about our decision to try and have a child of our own. We asked that everyone give money as a wedding present. The response was amazing! We were given over $15,000 from family and friends. My parents and Keith’s Dad, along with all of our savings made up the rest that we needed.
In July of 2010 we started our journey. After many, many shots, a sperm retrieval, egg retrieval and embryo implant, we found out that we were pregnant! We were so excited because our dream had come true. And then after 9 short months and 24 hours of hard labor, on April 9th 2011, LouEllen Gale Harvel was born. She weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. She was the most beautiful baby we had ever seen. She looked just like her Dad, which I am thankful for.
I can’t imagine what Keith felt when he looked at his daughter for the very first time. After so many years of thinking that having a child of his own was impossible, he was given a miracle. Keith has had a hard life due to his Cystic Fibrosis and lung transplant. He tells me everyday that he is so thankful to have me and LouEllen in his life. He says we make life worth living!
During our journey we never gave up hope. We want to thank: God, Dr. Silber, Dr. Pineda, their staff, everyone that gave us money, and all of the prayers. If it weren’t for all of these people, LouEllen wouldn’t be here today. She is our miracle!
LouEllen is now 6 months old. She just cut two teeth, rolls all over the place and laughs all the time. It is amazing at how fast she is changing. She brings up so much joy and turns any bad day into a good day.
We hope to go through one more round of IVF with Dr. Silber this winter. We pray that we are able to give LouEllen a little brother or sister.
Infertile patients cannot afford to wait for treatment while their eggs get older.
Dr. Sherman Silber, Infertility Center of St. Louis, is offering video consultations for patients who need to plan now for their treatment while stay-at-home orders are in place. He is talking to and evaluating patients in their home to comply with social distancing measures.
Dr. Silber is discovering that patients actually prefer this method of telemedicine consultation over the conventional office visit. Patients have conveyed that “it is so much more convenient and less stressful” to have a telemedicine personal consultation than to take a day off from work to travel to the doctor’s office and sit with other nervous patients in the waiting room.
The COVID-19 pandemic is thus changing much of the way we will do things in the future, and for the better. “Our patients are surprisingly much happier with this approach. Of course, at some point we need to perform hands on treatment. But with this new manner of seeing patients, we can come to the right diagnosis and treatment plan for most patients more efficiently, quickly, and painlessly, with no loss of personal one-on-one communication.” This is a very welcome new era of telemedicine that has been forced on us by the current difficult times.
