Pete and Ansley’s Baby Fund

Watkinsville, GA (US)
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Created 2 years ago
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Fertility Treatments

Pete and Ansley’s Baby Fund

by Laura Ansley Ervin

Rated 0 out of 5
  • $10,000.00

    Fundraiser Goal
  • $2,095.00

    Funds Raised
  • 0

    Days to go
$2,095.00 raised of $10,000.00 Goal
The campaign is successful.
Watkinsville, GA (US)

Laura Ansley Ervin is organizing this fundraiser.

Campaign Story

Hi! We are Pete and Ansley Ervin, and we are trying to have a baby.

We met and fell in love in 2014. On our first date we went to the library, got dinner on the square in Covington, Georgia, and had ice cream at Scoops afterwards. Ever since then, we’ve barely spent any time apart. We started our careers, married in October ‘15, bought a house, and a car, all with having a family in mind.

Pete is athletic and has always seen himself sharing his love of sports with our kids. Anytime our neighbor’s grandkids are over he (along with our dog, Tolkien) is outside with them, chasing, catching, and throwing a ball, or teaching them how to swing a golf club.

Ansley grew up with several younger siblings, and has always loved babies and children. She is a NICU nurse, and puts her heart and soul into caring for her tiny patients, and their parents, as they navigate life in the NICU.

We both share a love of reading and music (Pete plays the guitar, and Ansley plays the piano) and hope to be able to share our favorite stories and songs with our children one day.

Our first years as a couple weren’t always easy, so we hoped our inability to get pregnant might just come down to stress. Pete’s grandad passed away, Ansley worked night shift for a year to when she started her dream job in the NICU, and her dad passed away. After a year of trying and no baby, Ansley was diagnosed with PCOS. Eventually we realized that our infertility couldn’t just be stress, and we tried all of the things. Clomid, letrozole, trigger shots, opks, tracking basal body temperature, etc. You name it, we tried it. Our doctor suggested we move on to a fertility specialist in Atlanta for IVF, but due to the cost, we chose to wait and see. People like to say, “just relax,” and “it’ll happen when you least expect it,” or “just stop trying and you’ll get pregnant!” but that didn’t work out for us, either.

In Fall 2020, just before our 5th anniversary, we decided to try IUI(intrauterine insemination)with an OB in town. Our new OB suspected Ansley had endometriosis, and did surgery a week later to confirm, and remove it! We were hopeful that we would be pregnant soon afterwards, but,4 IUIs later and still no baby, we decided it was time to consider IVF.

In April 2021 we met with Dr. Slayden of Reproductive Biology Associates, and started all of the required tests and bloodwork. We did one last IUI which, as expected, was not successful. Our first IVF cycle for egg retrieval (September ‘21) was cancelled due to Ansley having several ovarian cysts. We had a successful retrieval in November ‘21, and are grateful to have 6 little Ervin embryos on ice. Each one of these embryos represent the chance to get pregnant. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that an embryo transfer will work. We are hoping and praying to bring one of our little embryos home to Ansley’s uterus in the next several months!

While we are incredibly blessed with good jobs, neither of our employers offer infertility benefits. The procedures themselves are incredibly expensive, and so are the medications Ansley has to take. So expensive that we put off IVF for several years.

One of the things that hurts the most about infertility is having to pay such a high price for just a chance at conceiving- something so many others get to achieve at little to no cost. Additionally, the financial cost is only one aspect. The emotional, mental, and physical costs are significant. It hasn’t been an easy road.

We have been married now for 6 years, and would love nothing more than to be able to have children. Asking for help and support is difficult, and very humbling. However, if you would like to support us as we try to have a baby, please know that we appreciate you more than words can say.

much love, Pete and Ansley (and Tolkien, who will be the best dog a kid could ever have!)

  • 06-04-2022

    Thank you!

    Dear friends and family,

    We are so grateful, really deeply touched by your love and generosity.

    December the 20th I (Ansley) started daily shots in the morning to prepare for a frozen embryo transfer. After a month of morning shots, I added in oral estrogen, estrogen patches, and baby aspirin. February 1st I was finally done with my daily morning shots, but on the 2nd Pete started giving me the dreaded nightly progesterone in oil shots. After all these meds, several sets of bloodwork and a few ultrasounds to make sure my body was ready, we got the green light to bring home one of our embryos!!!

    February the 7th was the big day. Our little snowflake survived her big thaw, and she was placed in my uterus. She had already hatched from her shell before we transferred her, and we settled in for a long wait to see if she would stay with us. We knew that many couples don’t get pregnant with the first embryo transfer, so we were hopeful, but also apprehensive.

    February the 12th, just 5 days after our embryo transfer, we saw our very first positive pregnancy test ever. We are so excited to share that our little embryo stuck with us and we are expecting a baby girl mid October!

    In the beginning it was hard to be excited. We spent so many years with each month bringing disappointment after disappointment. After so many negatives you start to expect bad news, and the good news feels very foreign. We got to see our girl for the first time on March 15th at 7 weeks pregnant. She was just a little alien blob, but her heart was already beating at 156 beats per minute! We just had our anatomy scan on June 2nd at 19 weeks pregnant, and so far our girl is perfect and healthy.

    I started feeling her move about two weeks ago, and her kicks get stronger every day.

    There are hardly words to describe how grateful we are. We don’t take for granted how blessed we are to be pregnant with our first embryo transfer, or to have gotten healthy embryos from our first retrieval.

    Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts, for your support in this incredibly hard chapter of our lives. ?

    Love,
    Pete and Ansley

Name Donation Date
Anonymous $100.00 April 22, 2022
Sarah Rowe $100.00 February 10, 2022
Anonymous $200.00 February 08, 2022
Sherry Carson $100.00 February 07, 2022
Janiece Rowe $100.00 February 06, 2022
Anonymous $500.00 February 06, 2022
Luke and Kristen Cown $100.00 February 06, 2022
Kristen Kennedy $50.00 February 06, 2022
Keri Sorsby $30.00 February 06, 2022
Anonymous $40.00 February 02, 2022
Johana Hernandez $100.00 February 02, 2022
Melissa Robertson $100.00 February 01, 2022
Jennifer Hearh $50.00 January 31, 2022
Carolyn Cown $50.00 January 31, 2022
Linda Azain $100.00 January 31, 2022
Donna Hiter $100.00 January 31, 2022
Taylor Franks $25.00 January 31, 2022
Abigail Kles $100.00 January 31, 2022
Amy Hunnewell $50.00 January 31, 2022
Crystal Thrasher $100.00 January 30, 2022