Campaign Story

Travis and I have been trying to have a child for almost 1 1/2 years, since September 2022. I’m not gonna get into the birds and the bees, but in the world of people who have difficulty trying to conceive, we’ve been doing everything “right” — we’ve done all the tracking, the testing, changes to lifestyle, and supplements…never to see those two pink lines of a pregnancy test.

We met with a fertility specialist in July 2023, and completed all sorts of diagnostic testing to find the cause of our infertility. Rachel has a mild form of PCOS with intermittent anovulatory cycles and short luteal phases. Travis is dealing with male factor infertility, likely due to a varicocele which insurance is refusing to cover the procedure to fix — and we would rather put our out-of-pocket medical expense money directly into an infertility treatment which is more likely to result in a child. With these diagnoses in hand, it was told to us that our only option is IVF. Unfortunately, we live in a state where insurance is not mandated to provide any infertility treatment coverage and we will have to pay completely out-of-pocket. Our current quote for IVF with genetic testing of the embryo is roughly $30,000 for a single cycle — which is likely to work but not guaranteed to do so.

Travis and I are in the process of considering our options and preparing for our first IVF cycle — to include possibly traveling for slightly cheaper treatment, applying for grants, writing to our senator and representatives to vote in favor of a proposed bill that would require insurance to provide some sort of coverage for IVF…and just to continue to save money for us to spend out of pocket if all else fails. We were initially all set to start IVF this summer, though we have put that plan on pause as some of the grants we’ve applied to don’t choose recipients until then and the cost was about $15,000 more than we were expecting.

Infertility has been the most difficult obstacle we have ever faced — it is all consuming to every facet of our life, it is the heartbreak that happens month after month, and it is — until today — the silent war we’ve been fighting alone. If you find it in your heart to donate to our fundraiser to help us with the last bit of saving, we would be eternally grateful. If not, just being part of our support system is such a huge blessing to both Travis and I.