Help us start a family

Hi there, and thanks for stopping by :) My name is Nick, and my wife is Deb

"What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be."

We never imagined that we would relate to this quote as heavily as it actually does for us. We thought that we would maybe have a few surprised that caught us off-guard but we would be able to easily work around them to get to whatever goal was being road-blocked.  Well, nothing has ever prepared us for this.  You never think that it could ever happen to you "“ it would always be someone else, or happen to a friend or a friend's neighbour "“ always someone else, never us though.

We have been trying to start a family for the past 7 years.  Casually, no rush, but always anticipating a surprise at the end of the month.  Nothing.  So we started trying a little more seriously.  Charting and taking ovulation tests, etc. We said to ourselves, if nothing happens by January 2012, let's make an appointment to see what's going on.   After a short round of tests and an appointment with a fertility specialist, urologist and endocrinologist we had an answer; they found a prolactinoma in me.  A prolactinoma is a benign tumour that sits on top of the pituitary gland and prevents testosterone from being produced.  I've probably has this since puberty and therefore prevented normal testosterone production for much of my adult life.  Because of that, my sperm count is so low that the chances of a natural and spontaneous conception are very, very low.  Our only option of having children is to undergo IVF.

We have started this page in the hopes of raising enough money for 1 round of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF).  Perhaps you're asking why we need IVF.  Did we wait until we were too old? No, we're quite young; I'm 32, and my wife is 31.  We have been married for almost 10 years and we don't have any other children from previous relationships.  Deb is healthy and doesn't seem to have any underlying fertility problems according to the round of tests she went through.

Asking for money for this procedure was a difficult decision.  We don't know how else we would be able to afford this.  We aren't selfish people.  We know that we might have to undergo more than one round of IVF, however we just want to be able start this procedure before it might be too late for us.  When you are growing up and thinking about your future life you might say, "I want a big house, a good job,  a dog, and 2 or 3 kids!"  Well, we both have realized that the picture you paint for yourself might have to go through some serious changes.  All we want is the chance at having one healthy child, nothing more.