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 1 Fertility go towards the Day 1 Grant to help individuals or couples who hope to build their families through assisted reproduction. Day 1 believes in selecting applicants who are diverse in terms of ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, relationship status, and medical history.
Vanessa & Dustin’s Testimonial:
Our story starts almost ten years ago as two young singles looking to find love and a life long partner.
Soon after our first date we knew that we would be spending the rest of our lives together. We are celebrating our five year wedding anniversary this June and well before marriage we knew we wanted to start a family.
Our extended families mean everything to us, and we are so thankful to have their support during our five year struggle with infertility.
At first we thought, “well it’s only been a year and we’ve heard it can take awhile for birth control to get out of your system and your body to regulate its cycle”, but then one year turned to two. We started discussions with our family doctor who then referred me to see an OBGYN.
After some testing with the OBGYN they recommended consulting with a fertility specialist.
During our care there, we tried timed medicated intercourse cycles for six months. Unfortunately, I did not ovulate any of those six months. That specialist then gave a diagnosis of PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) and referred us onto another fertility specialist at a clinic in Markham.
Since moving to Markham Fertility Centre, we have felt heard and supported, and we are grateful for their care.
We have since tried three more medicated timed intercourse cycles, IVF leading to three FETs and three IUI cycles. All of the injections, oral medications, internal ultrasounds, blood work, vitamins/ supplements and an hour and a half drive one way to the clinic really start to take a toll mentally and physically.
We were so excited in 2022 when our first frozen embryo transfer was successful and we learned that we were finally pregnant.
After many years of testing for HCG each month, those two blue lines on the pregnancy test were almost indescribable.
The overwhelming joy that it had brought us was all consuming. Everything we had been through was all thrown out the window and in that moment it had all been worth it.
Unfortunately, we miscarried at 5 weeks 6 days, two days after our first ultrasound.
We were devastated. We took some time to grieve and process what had happened. We tried two more times with our frozen embryo transfers with no luck of pregnancy.
We have been unable to afford to do IVF again since we do not have any medical insurance benefit coverage and we cover all costs out of pocket.
Discussions with our doctor led us to try a cheaper alternative which was IUI. We had done 2 high dose medicated IUI’s with no luck, then our third one stuck! We were overjoyed with our rainbow baby that decided to bless us.
Unfortunately, again we miscarried at approximately the same week as the last miscarriage.
Devastation again.
We didn’t know true heart break until we had to go through this journey. Infertility is by far the hardest thing we have gone through, but it has only made us stronger and more supportive of each other in our marriage and how to appreciate every little thing in life.
My husband and I outside of our fertility journey love to spend time with our family & friends including our many nieces and nephews. We have a love for the outdoors, going for walks/bike rides, golfing, gardening and also enjoy playing board games & having movie nights with our friends.
Our doctor has recommended we do IVF again for the best chance of a successful pregnancy.
The Fertility Friends Foundation Grant has given us the opportunity to do another round of IVF without the large stressful financial burden being held over our heads.
We are so thankful and appreciative of the Foundation for their support in hopes of growing our family.
We will be forever grateful for the generosity of Fertility Friends Foundation, Day 1 Fertility & all the amazing support partners.
This is just a chapter in our life and we hope to add many more pages to our story with a happy ending.
For more information about our registered charity and fertility grants.