Fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a mother!

Fort Bragg, Ca (US)
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Created 2 years ago
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Surrogacy

Fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a mother!

by Stefanie Forrester

Rated 0 out of 5
  • $70,000.00

    Fundraiser Goal
  • $1,070.00

    Funds Raised
  • 0

    Days to go
$1,070.00 raised of $70,000.00 Goal
The campaign is successful.
Fort Bragg, Ca (US)

Stefanie Forrester is organizing this fundraiser.

Campaign Story

Dear friends and family,

I am humbly and reluctantly reaching out to you at the insistence of my fertility medical team. 

As several of you know, I have struggled with infertility for nearly a decade and it has resulted in extraordinary emotional and financial loss.

My first attempts to conceive a child contributed to the breakdown of my marriage. During my divorce proceedings, I chose to freeze my eggs so that I may realize my dream of having a family in the future. 

Recently, I pursued treatment to have those eggs thawed, fertilized and biopsied to optimize chance of pregnancy. 

Unfortunately, my last remaining embryo failed after weeks of fertility treatment including morning and evening hormone injections, morning Lovenox injections, nightly suppositories, multiple oral medications and endless weight gain! I am now faced with extraordinary costs associated with started all over from scratch. 

The next step is to do another stimulation cycle. Now that I am 40, we have to add in growth hormone and CoQ10 to improve the quality of eggs due to my advanced age. If my body responds appropriately, we harvest the eggs and fertilize using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a procedure where they inject each egg with a single sperm to improve odds of fertilization. The eggs that fertilize are left to grow over 5 days. The embryos that reach blastocyst stage are biopsied to check for chromosomal abnormality. 

My last cycle started with 14 eggs. Only 13 survived the thawing process. Of the thirteen, six fertilized and only three became blastocysts. Only one of the blastocysts ended up being chromosomally normal. 

Unnerving is the understatement of the century and guess what…SSRIs have potential to cause birth defects so it’s best to go without. So…cross your fingers your relationship survives, your patients at work survive and that you end up with a bundle of joy you can afford to raise! ?

Anyhow, we’re back at it and my medical team has informed me that we can try my uterus again if I end up with 3 or 4 chromosomally normal embryos…but if I only have 1 or 2, I will need a surrogate. 

Surrogate fees are extraordinary ranging from $100,000 – $175,000+. I have exhausted my resources trying to pursue my dream of having a family including taking out fertility loans and withdrawing from my 401k. I’ve submitted grant applications to Baby Quest Foundation and Gifts of Parenthood and hope for good news in the next 3-4 weeks with news of an award to help with treatment costs.

I have been asked to reach out to friends and family to ask if anyone knows of any potential surrogates. Eliminating the agency fees and finding someone with medical insurance that covers surrogacy treatment will help to significantly lower the cost of a gestational carrier and will help to make this a viable option for me. 

Well…I dug down deep and summoned the courage to share my story and I’m so glad I did! Not only was I incredibly humbled by the outpouring of support I received from friends and family but today, with the help of a very good friend, I met our surrogate!!!!!!! She’s a lovely, strong and independent single mother of 3 and she’s committed to carry our child.

Over the next several weeks we’ll all be undergoing extensive medical testing and I’ll be doing another IVF cycle to create embryos. Our surrogate will be thoroughly screened and we’re cautiously optimistic that everything aligns and this extraordinary and selfless woman will help me realize my dream of becoming a mother!

As I mentioned before, the fees associated with IVF and with surrogacy are frequently prohibitive and we’ve been encouraged to tap into every resource we have available to us.

So, we’re reaching out to any and all who may want to support us along this journey as we raise money to cover our surrogacy expenses.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story!

Name Donation Date
Meghan O’Hara $50.00 April 21, 2022
Melanie Hoblet $100.00 April 21, 2022
Dianna Mertle $100.00 April 12, 2022
Julie Jensen $50.00 April 11, 2022
Kimberly Schueler $250.00 April 10, 2022
Sara Cassidy $50.00 April 10, 2022
Erin DeMartini $50.00 April 10, 2022
Sarah Deeb $20.00 April 10, 2022
Jessie Hockett $100.00 April 10, 2022
Caitlin Morse $100.00 April 10, 2022
Kara Righi $200.00 April 10, 2022