We always knew conceiving might be challenging for us because my mom had 13 miscarriages. Knowing this prompted us to be proactive when we started trying to conceive. We took a number of tests to ensure we would be able to get pregnant, but our family doctor was unsure of the results. On paper, we’re both healthy, but for some reason we were unable to conceive. Even though we knew there might be bumps in the road to becoming parents, we never expected our journey to be this difficult.
This journey has had significant impacts on our personal, social, financial, and work lives. It has been a challenge to plan around the uncertainty of these procedures.Appointments and procedures can be very early in the morning, lengthy, and difficult to predict when they may be or how many we may have in a given week. We needed to take extended time off work to accommodate the assisted reproductive treatments (ART).
So far we’ve done over 5 IUI cycles and one IVF cycle. We finally got pregnant on our second IVF transfer. We were ecstatic, I remember telling my husband over the phone, meeting him on the street outside of our local library, and running into each others’ arms. We were so happy, it felt like we got there. A few weeks later, we learned the embryo stopped developing. We had a miscarriage. None of the other embryos implanted. IVF has gotten us the closest to our goal of becoming parents.
We’ve made significant financial changes to our lives for ART. The growing costs forced us to ask – How long can we continue? The thing that has kept us going is the hope of becoming parents. The Fertility Friends Foundation grant is a lifeline for us. The cost of transfers and medication make IVF otherwise inaccessible to us. Getting this grant means that we have another shot, another real chance. We are so grateful for this support and this community.
Caring for another being is one of the most powerful acts one can give. Parenting, to us, means not only raising a child, but sharing our experience with them and guiding them through their own. It’s about helping a child find their true self. Bringing a little life into this world is the biggest adventure. We want to bring more love into the world.
These grant recipients benefited from Fertility Friends Foundation’s IVF Cycle Program, which combines a $5,000 FFF fertility grant with additional in-kind IVF services generously provided by one of our partner clinics.