Campaign Story

Hi, my name is Samantha and my wife is Emily. We met a little over a year ago. Shortly after Emily and her son, Dylan, moved in with me from Pennsylvania to Delaware. We got married in August 2023 and have now decided to expand our family.

In work full time as a nurse doing overnight shifts. Emily is currently a student, set to graduate in August 2024 from a computer programming school.

After some thought, I recently decided I wanted to attempt to carry a biological child, since Dylan is not biological to me and any child that Emily carries down the road would also not be. While I would love any child that is considered “mine” the same, I do want to experience pregnancy at least once. The unfortunate side of this is that with my Endometriosis and other issues with my reproductive organs, I’m requiring treatment with a fertility specialist to conceive. That is partially why we are creating this fundraiser, to offset costs that insurance does not cover. The cost of appointments per cycle is about $255.00 and the cost of medications per cycle is estimated between $100.00-$400.00. This would be a total of $355.00-$655.00 per cycle for appointments and medications.

The other aspect of our fundraiser that will be assisting us, is purchasing vials of donor sperm. As an LGBTQ+ couple, we obviously do not have sperm of our own to use. We have chosen to use Seattle Sperm Bank, which will ship our donor sperm right to our physician. We have chosen a donor with similar traits to Dylan, so they can look somewhat similar as siblings. The cost of an IUI (intrauterine insemination) sperm vial is $1,195.00 along with a shipping fee of $255.00. This totals to $1,440.00 per vial shipped (More if we order 3 at a time, which is preferred with our physician).

With that being said, each cycle is totaling to between $1,795.00 to $2,095. We are going to do a few cycles of IUI and if that does not work, move on to IVF treatment, which would be an even larger financial commitment, hence how we came to the difficult decision to ask for help raising finances to help offset what insurance is not covering. While there is no obligation for anyone to help us with this, we do appreciate anyone who is able to help in any amount.

Side note: any unused funds after pregnancy is achieved will go towards buying a few more sperm samples. It will also be paying for annual storage with our physician for when we are ready to expand our family again. Emily will carry in the future and we plan to use the same donor.