Campaign Story

For those who don’t know us, we are Austin and Briana. Throughout the last 4 years we have seen 5 reproductive specialists and learned Briana has a uterine malformation that is linked to a higher rate of loss with no guarantee of a healthy pregnancy and live birth. We have been told that our greatest and possibly only chance of having a child is through gestational surrogacy. Surrogacy is a lengthy, extensive, and expensive process. There is no easy route to parenthood or one size fits all, but we are not giving up.

However, in order to continue towards our goal, we will need all of the financial help we can get. Every dollar will help us to get that much closer to creating our miracle. This baby has so much love waiting for them and their arrival.

We began attempting to expand our family when Austin returned home from deployment in May 2019. After 6 months of trying and no positive test, we saw our first reproductive specialist where Briana was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). The symptoms for this vary greatly by each individual, for Briana it meant low progesterone, high estrogen, and no ovulation. Due to the Covid outbreak and a military move during 2020 it wasn’t until November that we saw our second reproductive specialist. During this time, we had our first medicated cycle using letrozole, to stimulate follicle growth and Ovidrel injection which was to trigger ovulation. A year and a half into our journey, on Christmas Day of 2020, we had our first positive pregnancy test! We were so excited, and we traveled home days later to tell all of our friends and family. Unfortunately, on February 19th, 2021, at 12 weeks gestation, we had a miscarriage. It is believed that the uterus was unable to grow sufficiently to support the pregnancy.

When we went to the third specialist Briana was diagnosed with Uterine Didelphys. This diagnosis is when a woman has 2 separate uteri instead of just 1. This malformation occurs during utero and is a lifelong diagnosis. For Briana’s case her uterus did not fully join as one unit but instead formed as 2 smaller cavities, each with their own separate cervix and fallopian tube. Not only does this make pregnancy harder to achieve, but it also prevents the uterus from expanding and growing in the traditional manner during pregnancy. After this diagnosis we tried 3 more medicated cycles, but each cycle ended with no success.

Throughout this long and difficult road and after consulting with our fertility specialist, we had a long conversation and decided that surrogacy would be our best chance to expand our family and have a healthy baby. We wish so badly that we could wake up and know nothing of the world of infertility but that is not the case. The choice to choose surrogacy was not an easy choice for us but we have decided it will be best for our family. Briana, if she was to get pregnant, would have a high-risk pregnancy with a high chance of another loss. Surrogacy can help to mitigate the risk of having a high-risk pregnancy and increase our chances of having a healthy baby. Even though we have chosen surrogacy our goal remains the same, we want a baby that is half of each of us. We want to be able to look at our baby and see Briana’s blue eyes and Austin’s bulky, dark eyebrows. A surrogate would carry our biological baby for us, to help it grow and develop, and ultimately help bring it into this world with lower risks and complications.

Surrogacy is unfortunately very expensive and not covered by our health insurance. In order to help us cover the cost of surrogacy, we are aiming to raise $200,000. We understand this is a huge number and a shock to most that surrogacy would cost this much! We’ve received quotes from multiple agencies, and they all gave us an estimate of $150,000-$180,000. This number is calculated by adding up all of the medical expenses such as: a psychological evaluation of the surrogate, embryo transfer, and specialized insurance for the surrogate during pregnancy. This number also includes all of the non-medical costs. Those costs are travel expenses, lawyers for legal contracts for both parties to protect everyone involved, the surrogate’s compensation, and extensive surrogate screening with medical testing. Additional costs that are not included in the $150,000-$180,000 include medications and procedures for the egg retrieval and fertilization of the embryo, genetic testing to ensure the strongest, healthiest embryo will be transferred to increase the chances of a successful embryo transfer and healthy pregnancy.  That brings us to a total of $200,000!

At the end of our surrogacy journey should there be any extra funds, we plan to donate those funds back to another family facing similar financial and infertility burdens to help them expand their family.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our story.