Seeds of Success: The Kannengieszer Family

In late 2016, Tiffany Kannengieszer and her husband Daniel were ready for parenthood, but were finding difficulty getting pregnant. They had tried to conceive on their own for six months without success when Tiffany decided that it was time to seek help. She commuted daily to work from Philadelphia to Delaware and found out about RADfertility via a Google search.

“I felt like everyone around me was able to get pregnant. It made me feel even worse,” she says, reflecting back to her struggles to conceive while friends and coworkers were able to get pregnant, easily.

Not knowing much about infertility, she made the assumption that IVF was a one-size-fits-all approach to fertility challenges and was surprised by RADfertility’s individualized approach. She says, “I learned that there are so many steps that go into determining the best treatment for each individual person…I felt like every step was taken to find out what was going on and what we needed to do for us individually.”

Getting Started

When describing her first office visit, Tiffany says, “My husband and I were at the first appointment and we really didn’t know what to expect, but Dr. Barbara McGuirk was extremely positive and I felt like her office exuded that positivity.”

Instead of going straight into fertility treatments, Dr. McGuirk suggested that they try out a few things on their own to rule out other possibilities, such as a diet change.

“We left our first appointment feeling hopeful and in good hands,” she says of that first visit.

After trying out Dr. McGuirk’s suggestions, the Kannengieszers started out fertility treatments with two rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI). It was at this time that they discovered that Daniel had a varicocele vein that impacted his fertility. “Our previous doctor didn’t find this problem and didn’t see what RADfertility saw,” Tiffany explains.

Finding Support

As a result of Daniel’s tests and two unsuccessful IUI attempts, Dr. McGuirk and the Kannengieszers decided to transition their care to Dr. Feinberg to begin the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process. Tiffany explains that this was a difficult time for a number of reasons. For one, the medicine she took for the egg retrieval made her very emotional. Not only did she have these emotions and the stress of IVF, but she had no one to talk to.

“All of my friends were younger and couldn’t really sympathize with what I was going through. They were supportive but it’s different when you have someone who has actually gone through it to commiserate with,” she says.

Eventually, she found the support she needed in a high school friend’s family member. Tiffany explains, “Her brother’s wife was going through IVF – and that was the only person I knew. Having someone share their story with me helped so much. It gave me hope and it was nice to have a sense of community as well.”

RADfertility Came Through in a Pinch

After Tiffany’s first IVF transfer was unsuccessful, she was disappointed but ready to try again. However, life decided to throw her a curveball. “I had gotten a job in Philadelphia so we were leaving insurance that covered 75% of the IVF for insurance with zero coverage,” she explains.

This meant that the couple only had time for one more embryo transfer. Fortunately, RADfertility’s team was sympathetic and quickly squeezed the couple in before losing insurance coverage.

“I felt like they were moving mountains so we could at least have that one last chance and that’s the one that ended up being positive. It really felt like everything worked out like it was supposed to,” Tiffany says.

The Kannengieszers welcomed their son, Harrison, into the world in May 2018. She says of her son, “He has such a personality now. It’s great to see him be funny and we love his sense of humor. This has been my favorite stage so far because he’s developing his own personality.”

Trying Again

In August of 2019, Tiffany and Daniel decided to continue growing their family and returned to RADfertility to meet with Dr. Feinberg. With six frozen embryos remaining from their first IVF cycle, the couple was ready to aim for a late 2019 transfer.

That fall, Tiffany underwent routine blood work and exams to prepare for a FET, and shortly before Thanksgiving, they transferred a single embryo. Two weeks later the couple received the good news that Tiffany was pregnant, however shortly after, she experienced a miscarriage.

“It was definitely the hardest thing we’ve been through on this journey,” Tiffany shared. “We’ve been so grateful to have such a great support system. I am also appreciative that it was Rhonda who was at that appointment since she has been with us from day one.”

Tiffany and Daniel remain encouraged to grow their family and plan to try again in the summer of 2020.

RADfertility and a Sisterhood

Tiffany explains that the easiest part of the entire process for her was putting her trust in the physicians at RADfertility. She says, “I didn’t have to worry about if they were making the best choices for me because I have seen how many steps we had gone through before that to make sure it was the right course of action for my husband and I and not just, ‘this is what everybody does next.'”

When asked about RADfertility, she says, “It’s a place you go when you feel like you are out of options… But everyone is positive and supportive and that makes the situation a little bit easier.”

She also found a fellow former RADfertility IVF patient at her new job. “One of the teachers I work with was actually a RADfertility patient and I didn’t meet her until after I had my positive round of IVF. Having her to talk to was so helpful, I feel like it’s a sisterhood of infertility,” she says.

Tiffany says that the most important thing to remember when going through infertility is, “You kind of have to let go. I like control in most situations and with infertility, you have to relinquish control. You don’t get to choose the outcomes of what is going on… It’s something you have to roll with what is given to you.”

Photography provided by Lucy Baber Photography, lucybaberphotography.com