Campaign Story

My name is Kylie and my husband, Dillon and I have been trying to conceive for over a year now. At the 6-month mark I began to worry that something was wrong as 3 of my sister in laws had become pregnant, while we were still trying every month. After my labs had come back relatively normal, we decided to do a semen analysis on my husband which showed Azoospermia (no sperm found). Our world came crashing down. We were so devastated- still are.

We have since seen a urologist who believes my husband does not have a Vas Deferens. Whether this be due to a genetic abnormality, or some other reason, we will need to do more testing to figure out why, and if this will affect our future baby. Additionally, this only leaves us with the option of IVF, and hoping he has sperm to be found. If there is no sperm found, we will have to use a sperm donor to conceive through IVF.

Funds raised will go towards the costs of building our family. This will include surgery to extract semen from Dillon, genetic testing on him and ultrasounds for him, in addition to any other recommended tested we have yet to know about. All egg retrieval & embryo transfer procedures, medications, ultrasound monitoring, bloodwork, pre-implantation genetic testing for me. And the last resort, sperm donation.

We want this baby so bad. We have nieces and nephews popping up all around us who we adore endlessly. The stress and emotion of not being able to participate in this amazing, wholesome part of life is crushing. I have wanted to be a mom my entire life, and Dillon is going to be an incredible dad. In addition to family building costs, we are both in therapy processing our ongoing grief and ways to proceed forward as a team. Our dream of buying a house has gone as any money saved will likely be going to ongoing to fertility treatments. As a new, young married couple, this is the last thing we would have hoped to deal with at the start of our lives.

A little more about us- my husband is a project manager at a small engineering company here in Maine. I am a nurse at an outpatient Pediatric clinic and also a nurse at an OBGYN office. I am surrounded by babies and pregnant women all day long. I love my job so much and have always wanted to pursue this area as well as lactation, post-partum care, etc. As you can imagine, the stress and uncertainty of our future of having a baby has made my job extremely hard. It feels like a loss of purpose. And what used to be a passion, has become an open wound and a loss in itself.

We cannot wait for this all to be behind us but are acutely aware this will likely be a wound in some ways for the rest of our lives. Not having to worry as much about financial costs to build our family is going to relieve so much stress so we can focus on our relationship and taking the next step as mom and dad, to raise a healthy, secure and happy baby. Any donation is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for reading about us.