Campaign Story

Hello! My name is Tyler, and my wife is Amelia. I am a fire chief and also work with the US Forest Service on resource management and wildland fire response. Amelia is a teacher at a K-8 school that does backpacking, skiing, camping, and river trips with their students. We also run a small farm where we raise goats, sheep, alpacas, and grow vegetables in northern New Mexico.
In 2018, we discovered that Amelia had three aneurysms in her splenic artery. We knew that in order to have children, we would have to address the aneurysms which we did through a surgery in spring of 2021. Since then, we have been on a rollercoaster of some specialists saying that it would be safe for Amelia to become pregnant while others have said no. Ultimately, our doctors have decided that it would be very unsafe for Amelia to carry a pregnancy, and that if she were to develop aneurysms during a pregnancy, that would risk a 98% fatality rate.
After wrestling with the very difficult reality of all of this, we began to start saving for IVF and surrogacy as our path to have children. Unfortunately, in November 2022, I was in a gasoline explosion that left me in the hospital with third-degree burns on 30% of my body. While I am recovering well, and I am steadily getting back to work, the financial burden of my accident and pursuing IVF and surrogacy has been challenging.
We are so very fortunate to have received so much family and community support, even having a cousin of mine lined up to be our gestational carrier! We feel so loved and cared for by those around us.
We are hoping to find some additional financial support to help us in this journey. It has been full of challenges, but we are so excited to expand our family and to have a child. Thank you for considering helping us!