Alex and Amanda Moneli are pictured with their daughter Mila. In this photo, the couple was pregnant with their daughter Nora, who was born on Jan. 31, 2022.
Submitted photo
CLARKS SUMMIT — Alex and Amanda Moneli are enjoying family life with their two children, Mila, 2, and Nora, born early this year.
Both are graduates of Abington Heights, who have lived out of the area and returned to start their family in the place they have always called “home.”
But the couple’s journey to enjoying a family of four was not without challenges.
When the couple married in 2016, they waited a year to settle in before trying to start their family.
Both were surprised when they didn’t get pregnant.
Moneli points out that she had always wanted to be a mother.
As a school psychologist, her job is to help children, and she loves it.
So the couple decided to seek fertility treatment, which was at times a bit frustrating, but ultimately successful.
And now, Moneli, who pointed out that it was recently National Fertility Awareness Week, wants to help remove the stigma attached to families that have come together after struggling with infertility.
Building a family
Moneli said many people think that getting pregnant is automatic.
“When you get married, people always ask you when you’re going to have a baby,” she said.
When that doesn’t happen as planned, couples are often reluctant to tell their story.
But Moneli points out that telling the story opens the door for others to tell their own story and encourages couples to consider infertility treatment.
Monelis got married in 2016, and waited a year before deciding to try having a baby.
Moneli explained that she has a condition called “diminished ovarian reserve,” which prevents her from getting pregnant without medical assistance.
In 2018, the couple decided to be proactive and seek infertility treatment.
Fertility specialists first started with less invasive procedures, but when those were unsuccessful, doctors moved on to more intense measures.
In 2018, after transferring to Shady Grove Fertility Clinic, the couple began “in vitro fertilization,” a complex series of procedures in which eggs are retrieved from a woman’s ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab.
Moneli said IVF presents its own challenges. Not all eggs are successfully fertilized and not all are able to be implanted.
So, it is possible to start with 12 eggs, and end up with one viable embryo, she said.
Ultimately, Moneli had her daughter, Mila, on Dec. 31, 2019, and another daughter, Nora, on Jan. 31 of this year.
Unlike other IVF patients, Moneli never miscarried.
Still she said the process was a difficult one, with hopes raised and then dashed, over and over.
“At times it was heartbreaking,” she said.
Moneli hopes to get the word out that fertility treatments are a viable way to build a family.
Unfortunately, she said, most insurance companies don’t cover the procedures, which range up to $20,000 for each round.
She hopes that insurance companies will acknowledge the importance of infertility treatment and begin covering the cost, or at least part of the cost.
