11-17-2022

One Week In

Thank you SO much for all of your support for the first week of our fundraiser! Going through a miscarriage has been one of the most difficult experiences of our lives, especially knowing we have a strenuous and expensive road ahead with IVF from now on. We have raised $1500 so far, which is a large dent in our fundraising goal and gives a huge relief to our $8K burden for our first IVF round.

We know that we have some upcoming family support that will take us a big step of the way there as well, so we may be changing our goal soon to reflect that. Right now, our major hope is to raise at least $600 more before Thanksgiving, as that will help us get to a major milestone after family support is added.

This fundraiser has been built on small donations—most donations have been $25 or less, and they’ve made a huge difference. If you have a little something to give—even just $5—a lot of people giving a little bit will go a very long way.

We appreciate you all so much and will be thanking everyone individually very soon. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

11-19-2022

Our Plan

Well, we just doubled our donations in a two-day span. Wow. We are stunned and honored. Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity thus far!

We met with our reproductive endocrinologist yesterday and made a plan. We are waiting on some testing of our miscarriage tissue to find out any information we can about why we lost our baby, and we will also be doing some additional testing on us to take a deeper dive into our genetic makeup as adults. These aspects don’t change our plan—if anything, any findings would make IVF with genetic testing more necessary than we already know it to be.

Our plan is to head to New York the last week of December and remain there through the first week of January, when Molly will likely have her (first and hopefully only) egg retrieval. Heading there early is necessary because Molly will be monitored every other day with labs and ultrasounds, and she will be taking a large number of injections that will likely be uncomfortable. We will be able to have some nice holiday time with family and friends, see a show or two, and work remotely if need be.

Our clinic requires full cycle payment two weeks in advance. We don’t have definitive dates yet, but we expect that around 12/12, we will owe $7550, plus a $155 per-embryo fee for every embryo that needs to be genetically tested (a number that will vary on a lot of factors, but could be as few as 0 or as many as 30!—though both of these extremes are likely).

We are so happy to have fundraised what we have so far, and we are hopeful and grateful for any further support, as it will help us finance this and other rounds if needed.

Thank you all for being in our corner!

12-11-2022

Two Weeks Away!

Our IVF cycle begins on 12/26! Molly is already on medication to hold her hormones at baseline to prepare for the slew of medications that will begin in two weeks. We will be in New York through the first week of January, and that time will culminate in an egg retrieval. Given past information about Molly’s cycles and current statistics, we expect to get a greater than average quantity of eggs. And that helps us with a good starting point.

We did learn a few weeks ago the reason for our miscarriage, which was an extra chromosome in the egg. This is usually due to advanced maternal age and is a fluke that isn’t likely to be indicative of any particular larger issue, other than the odds of chromosomal abnormality increasing with age. So, egg quality is our battle, and why we need IVF with genetic testing. We might get 20 eggs in one retrieval, and that will help us get what we hope will be anywhere from 1-4 embryos viable for pregnancy. All we need is one, but having a few means we don’t have to do additional retrievals or have these additional costs.

We greatly appreciate all of the support we have received—it’s truly meant the world to us. We just need a little bit more support to get us to the point that we won’t need any further support going forward. If you’re compelled to give a little more, we would love that, and of course are hoping for more first-time gifts too. Thank you all so very much! We could not do this without you.

Molly and Barry

12-18-2022

Thank you! We’ve met our goal!

We did it!!!!! Thanks to everyone who donated ?❤️?

We received 116 total donations, $6600 total (minus some fees the fundraising platform took out from some donations).

This will cover most of our prepayment for the first cycle, freeing up our finances to cover the per-embryo cost that will hit in January, an out of network anesthesiologist fee (aren’t they all? lol), travel expenses, any unplanned fees, and a second round of the whole thing if needed.

If you are still wanting to donate to offset the fundraising platform fees, just Venmo me @thelifeinpink. And thanks to those of you who’ve given after the fact to offset platform fees!

Can’t wait to meet our baby 🙂

Thanks for everything,
Molly and Barry