My partner Dave and I have been together for 11 years.
We met through music. Dave is a musician who plays in several bands, including a jug band (with an actual jug and a washtub bass), and I am a music lover.
We started attempting to grow our family in 2016, to fulfill lifelong goals of becoming parents. After two miscarriages, our beautiful son William was born in March of 2018. He was born very premature (26 weeks) and very ill (1 pound 1 ounce), but he survived the 16 weeks in the NICU.
William was funny, curious, smart and very sweet. He loved playing in our backyard and swimming with his friends at our local YMCA. He loved making up imaginary stories with his toys and would tell us he was “busy playing.” He loved the Muppets, especially Gonzo, rainbows and spending time with our extended family.
He would often say around the dinner table “this is so nice that we are all together.” We had four amazing years with him before he died suddenly in June 2022 from a rare complication of a condition he was born with we didn’t know about until after his death.
We so desperately want to have a sibling for William, and for us. Our deep desire for parenting a child didn’t cease because William is no longer with us. We are still learning how to parent him, but it is different than it was, with him not physically here. We still have so much love ready to give our next child.
Because of the pregnancy complications I had when I was pregnant with William, as well as my mental health conditions, I am no longer able to carry a pregnancy.
I had severe preeclampsia that developed before 20 weeks, affecting my health and William’s, resulting in severe intrauterine growth restriction (for William) and leaving me with a predisposition for heart disease. David and William share a genetic difference we found through genetic testing at Sick Kids Hospital, thus the need for IVF.
We have been incredibly lucky to have someone offer to be our surrogate and the biggest hurdle we have now is financial. We have both been precariously employed for as long as we have been together. Immediately after Will died, I was able to go on ODSP for my anxiety disorder, and Dave was on Employment Insurance, as he had been laid off for the summer months.
I am now working almost full time hours at a dental office doing administration and social media management, which I love. Dave works contract teaching at Trent University. It is very unpredictable and each contract is just for a single four month term. He teaches in Canadian Studies, History and Politics and he loves his job too.
Some of our hobbies are playing, listening and dancing to music, hiking the trails around Peterborough with our dog Jasper, and spending time in nature in our beautiful backyard gardens. We have a small area for veggies and have a number of perennial native flower beds.
We also love having a family snuggle watching a movie. We love going to the farmer’s market and meeting up with our friends at local parks. Will and Dave used to do a weekly program through our Family Resource Centre called Roots of Discovery which involved going to a local park and exploring. Will always came home absolutely covered in mud, tired and happy.
We can’t wait to do all of those things with our next child.
The Fertility Friends Foundation and Not My Tummy grant has provided us with a sense of relief about the costs of fertility treatments. We really feel the strength of support that has come along with this grant.
To know that we have so many people rooting for us on this journey helps us feel less alone.
For more information about our registered charity and fertility grants.