Meet Our Grant Recipients
Fertility Friends Foundation is excited to introduce you to our grant recipients! Their stories are all unique and they all share the heavy burden of infertility. The Foundation is happy to give them more hope in their journey and an additional chance to realize their dream of becoming parents. Without further ado, meet our grant recipients!
FALL 2024 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Temitayo & Lateef
Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a mother. I imagined the joy of nurturing a child, watching them grow, and building a loving family. However, life had other plans. In 2012, I was diagnosed with PCOS, which meant my journey to motherhood...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Sarah & Arash
Last Thanksgiving, we were reflecting on our blessings while holding onto what felt like an impossible dream—to have our own child at our table the next Thanksgiving. Today, we feel empowered by an entire community standing behind us and our dream. As we step into...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Mariam & Ryan
Hi! We are Mariam and Ryan and have been on this journey for four years. Before moving to Alberta, we were trying to naturally conceive and Mariam was diagnosed with PCOS. We were referred to a fertility clinic and the treatment plan was to try medicated cycles....
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Mariah & Sean
I have dreamed of being a mother ever since I was old enough to understand what pregnancy and birth were. But after multiple long-term relationships and zero pregnancies, I began feeling like something must be off. I was quite young when I got married to my first...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Julie & Rose
Rose & Julie are recipients of Fertility Friends Foundation’s Dr. Shannon Corbett 2SLGBTQ+ Fertility Fund. This fund was created in memory of Dr. Shannon Corbett who was an unwavering beacon of hope, expertise, and support through every patient’s care. Her...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Jessica & Dave
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...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Gloria & Guillermo
Gloria & Guillermo are the proud recipients of the first Day 1 Grant created by Day 1 Fertility. Apart from the $5,000 financial support, the Day 1 Grant offers coaching services to help grant recipients navigate their fertility journey. 10% of proceeds from...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Brooke
Hello, my name is Brooke, and I have loved children for as long as I can remember! In my work as a nurse, primarily in areas with children and babies, I have desperately wanted a child of my own but unfortunately never met the right partner to do it with. As the...
Fall 2024 Grant Recipient – Anne & Kirk
Hi! We are Anne and Kirk from Ontario. We have been together for 6 years and bonded instantly over a shared love of all things geeky. Kirk was named after Captain Kirk from Star Trek TOS, and within a few weeks of meeting we were planning to name our future...
SPRING 2024 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Stephanie & Alex
Hi Fertility Friends Foundation, my name is Stephanie and I am 38 years old. We have been TTC for the last 6 years without success so far, and after two rounds of IVF, a failed FET, and IUIs, we have still not been able to conceive and start our family. My...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Maura & Gerald
The Fertility Friends Foundation grant has provided us peace of mind and renewed optimism in our fertility journey. The grant application process was simple and straightforward. Isabelle’s regular communication throughout the process was greatly appreciated. We...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Kim
My journey to fertility has been an emotional rollercoaster over the past three years. Despite countless efforts, I faced numerous setbacks and disappointments. Each month brought its own wave of hope and heartache, but I never gave up. Recently, I received a...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Krista & Sue
Krista & Sue are recipients of Fertility Friends Foundation’s Dr. Shannon Corbett 2SLGBTQ+ Fertility Fund. This fund was created in memory of Dr. Shannon Corbett who was an unwavering beacon of hope, expertise, and support through every patient’s care. Her...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Lisa & Stuart
We are deeply honored and grateful to be the first recipients in Alberta to receive the Fertility Friends Foundation Grant. To us, this is more than just financial support; it is a symbol of hope and support of the community in our journey to build a family. I...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Krystal & Kevin
Kevin and I have been trying to start our family for over 6 years, and we decided to start trying to conceive right after we got married as I always had a gut instinct that trying to get pregnant would not be easy for me because I have Endometriosis. After trying...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Mishael & Roger
Hi, we are Mishael and Roger. Roger and I got married in 2016 and moved to Canada as first-generation immigrants, aiming to build a better future. We decided to delay having children until we felt stable in our careers in a new country. By 2021, we were filled...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Sarah & Dielle
We are so grateful to Fertility Friends to be chosen as grant recipients. With this grant, the financial burden has been relieved for us, allowing us to focus fully on our emotional and physical needs during this journey. We are so thankful that an organization...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Cassandra & Darryl
It's hard to find the right words to describe our fertility journey. We've always known we wanted to be parents, picturing the joy and love that would fill our home. We dreamed about our future children, imagining their hobbies, holidays, and school days. Never...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Emily & Tamara
Hello! We are Tamara and Emily, a couple from Southern Ontario. We have an extremely cute goldendoodle named Libby and together enjoy camping, hiking, music, sports (Tam enjoys playing and Emily enjoys watching), exploring new places, cooking, spending time with...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Timea & Tom
Hi, we are Tom and Timea! We met in 2019; I was a supply teacher at the high school Tom worked at, filling in for absent teachers all throughout the building, while he worked in the Special Education Department with children with disabilities. The next year,...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Melissa & Kaylan
Kaylan and I have been together for many years and dreamed of starting a family. However, after trying for a long time, we discovered we were facing challenges conceiving a child. After many tests and travelling 4+ hours to seek out support at a fertility clinic,...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Melissa
Hi, my name is Melissa and I have been on this journey for almost 4 years now from the start of my first pregnancy to this point. I’ve had five losses and I’ve had zero live births. My journey started in 2020, I was pregnant with identical twin boys. I was so...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Vanessa & Dustin
Vanessa & Dustin are the proud recipients of the first Day 1 Grant created by Day 1 Fertility. Apart from the $5,000 financial support, the Day 1 Grant offers coaching services to help grant recipients navigate their fertility journey. 10% of proceeds from Day...
Spring 2024 Grant Recipient – Cheyenne & Liam
We’d like to start off by saying how grateful we are to the Fertility Friends Foundation and those that have donated to this amazing charity! We’ve been on this fertility journey for the last 6 years. We have unexplained infertility - something that we never knew...
FALL 2023 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Stacey
Never in a million years would I have expected, nor been prepared to hear the words “You need to try IVF.” Like so many others, I grew up educated on how not to get pregnant. Birth control, condoms, tracking your cycle to avoid your most fertile days… all of this...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Randi & Cleat
It’s not easy to write our entire journey in a concise story for others to read, because it has been such a long road, filled with so much emotion, strength and unwavering hope. It seems impossible to capture it all in a few words, but we will try. We got...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Melanie & Nikolas
Hi, we are Nik and Mel! We want to start off by saying we are so overwhelmed with gratitude that we were chosen as one of the Fall 2023 grant recipients. We cannot thank Fertiity Friends Foundation enough for this grant as it eases the financial burden of...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Laura
I am a single 37 year old woman who has not yet found the right one and doesn't want to delay and risk losing my chance to have a child so I decided to have one on my own. I am a public servant with the Federal Government in Ottawa. I work at home full-time and...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Khrystyne & Jaysun
Khrystyne & Jaysun are receipients of Fertility Friends Foundation's Dr. Shannon Corbett 2SLGBTQ+ Fertility Fund. This fund was created in memory of Dr. Shannon Corbett who was an unwavering beacon of hope, expertise, and support through every patient’s...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Julie & Scott
I struggle for words to truly express the gratitude I have for the Fertility Friends Foundation. I am in awe of their generosity, empathy and compassion for those like me who yearn to become a parent. Ever since my husband and I decided to turn a long distance...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Genevieve
Navigating the complexities of infertility is definitely challenging! You just can’t predict how long that path will be for you! How many bumps you will face… At my first meeting with my doctor, I learned that I had a cyst on my left ovary and another very small...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Esteban & Kelly
Dear Fertility Friends Foundation, We like to compile our story with a mix of gratitude and grief, a story that many times passes through the intersection of hope and despair, while navigating the difficult landscape of infertility. A journey full of its ups and...
Fall 2023 Grant Recipient – Adrien & Matthieu
Adrien and Matthieu are the proud recipients of the first Day 1 Grant created by Day 1 Fertility. Apart from the $5,000 financial support, the Day 1 Grant offers coaching services to help grant recipients navigate their fertility journey. 10% of proceeds from Day...
SPRING 2023 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Georgia & Jerome
I am writing this testimonial with overwhelming gratitude in our hearts to express how truly blessed my wife and I feel to have been chosen as recipients of the Fertility Friends Foundation. The journey we have undertaken to conceive a child has been one filled...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipient, Laura
I am deeply privileged that in my work as a clinical child and adolescent psychologist, those most vulnerable in our society allow me to come into their lives, bear witness to their pain, and walk alongside them on their road to wellness. While it is an honour to...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Yulieth & Manual
To thank Fertility Friends Foundation for this generous grant, we have put a video together to expresss our thoughts towards this grant and to once again thank this Foundation for helping us through our journey.
2023 Spring Grant Recipients, Jessica & Meghan
My personal fertility journey started over 15 years ago. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but as some who’d be in a relationship with a woman, I knew starting a family was going to look a little different. After years of being childless not by choice,...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Nadia & Michael
We are writing to express our deepest gratitude for the generous grant awarded to us by Fertility Friends Foundation. Your support has made a profound impact on our journey towards building a family, and we are incredibly thankful for this opportunity. Receiving...
2023 Spring Grant Recipients, Cerise & Cedric
As a 40-year-old woman, my life is about to change because of the generosity and empathy of the Fertility Friends Foundation. My dream as a young lady growing up was always to have children. From my early twenties, I tried to get pregnant but it never happened....
2023 Spring Grant Recipients, Alexa & Kevin
Alexa and I have been married since 2016, but we have known one another since high school. As friends, we were in each others’ orbits for at least twelve years, until it became obvious that we were in love and were always meant to be together. The thought of...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Dana & Jamal
I lost my husband in February 2022 after a 4 1/2 year battle with brain cancer. Our fertility journey began after he was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor. After emergency brain surgery and pending radiation treatment, we decided to safeguard our plan of...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Alana & Andrew
Hi, our names are Alana and Andrew, we are 28 and 29 years old, and live in New Tecumseth Ontario. We have been married for 3 years but have been together for 10 years. We are both from large European families, and both feel that family is the most important...
Spring 2023 Grant Recipients, Adriana & Carlos
We have been trying to have children for more than 10 years, and our way to try has been physically and mentally exhausting. We have both dreamed of being the parents of a boy or girl and we always imagine what it would be like or how it would look. When we...
FALL 2022 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Shirley & Kristoffer
We knew getting married back in 2015 that we wanted to start a family right away, 3 months after we found out we were pregnant. We were so happy and excited, but that happiness and excitement turned into a devastating reality when we found out it was an ectopic...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Claudia & Sarah
Claudia and I have been together for a total of 5yrs (as of this January). We got married in 2019 and after our wedding we began talking about growing our family and wanting to start the process soon after that. Then covid-19 hit and we had to postpone our plans...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Stella & Marlon
Where do we begin!! Marlon and I met many years ago and have been inseparable ever since. Our core values, ambition, humour and love of the outdoors, family and friends aligned and drew us together and we have been living life to its fullest together ever since....
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Daryl & Richard
My husband and I have been together for 10 years, married going on four, and we’ve been trying to conceive for six and a half. When we decided to start trying, we thought it would happen pretty quickly after I went off my birth control, but a year later, we were...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Nicole & Wayne
When Wayne and I met, we had both been looking to settle down. Our love was romantic and full. We put off having children until we both felt stable in our careers. A few years ago, we stopped 'not' trying to have kids. A year after that, with no pregnancy, we...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Charlie & Emily
We are so thankful and more than grateful to receive a grant from Fertility Friends Foundation. We have been struggling for almost 7 years of secondary infertility. You could just imagine how costly 7 years of treatments can be. Foundations like yours can really...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Jenna & Jason
We are so thankful for the support from Fertility Friends Foundation. It is so hard to put into words how much this will help, hopefully, complete our fertility journey. We were married in 2014 and tried for over a year before we went to our first doctor. We were...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Moyo & Deni
I grew up thinking painful periods were normal and I never thought to seek medical help up until the period pains grew worse over time. In 2018, I was rushed to the ER having excruciating period pain. After a series of tests, I was diagnosed with endometriosis...
Fall 2022 Grant Recipient, Isis
I’ve always wanted to be a mother. When the time was right for me, I wasn’t in a relationship. Sure, I’d dated men who wanted to make that happen for me but these were not men who I wanted to raise my child. And I never wanted to settle. Having met women in their...
SPRING 2022 GRANT RECIPIENTS
Spring 2022 Grant Recipient, Annelies & Matthew
When I went off to post-secondary, I had an intuition that things were not right with my cycle. I went to a family friend, who was a registered nurse, who referred me to the gynecologist. When I went to the first appointment, he said that I would have difficulty...
Spring 2022 Grant Recipient, Julie & Krzysztof
The notion of having a family has been so deeply entrenched in me since early childhood. As an only child and a first-generation immigrant, having a large family has always been a dream of mine. My family is Chinese. They lived through the Cultural Revolution and...
Spring 2022 Grant Recipient, Olivia & Matthew
Our fertility journey started 3 years ago when my husband and I got married and I wasn't getting pregnant after 8 months. I saw my gynecologist and he told me to keep trying as it hadn't been a year yet. One year is the time that a healthy couple usually takes to...
Spring 2022 Grant Recipient, Cameron & Justyn
Our story began just under 9 years ago in September 2013. We had met over breakfast and talked about our dreams, goals, and love for dogs. Since then, we have shared almost every waking moment at each other’s side. We studied together through university, found the...
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Grant Application
Grants are open to individuals or couples who hope to build their family through assisted reproduction. Our committee takes financial hardship seriously and consideration will be given to each grant recipients.