Hi, we're the Bentley's! We've been married for five and a half years and we live in Rochester, MN with our cat and Siberian husky. Our desire has always been to grow our family by conceiving naturally but found out in 2019 that this wasn't going to come easy for us. After a series of tests, we were directed to a fertility specialist and began this process right at the beginning of 2020. The first step in our journey was IUI (Intrauterine insemination) but this was postponed due to the pandemic and we had to wait until June to pick it back up. The first two rounds were unsuccessful but in August we finally received the positive pregnancy test we had been praying for. Shortly after, our hopes of finally having a baby were crushed when we found out the pregnancy was a miscarriage. The clinic allowed us to attempt three more IUIs but none of these were successful.

The next recommendation from our doctor was IVF (In vitro fertilization) but due to our insurance, our out of pocket expenses were going to be at least $30,000 up front. Because of this, we had to wait until 2022 to switch to a new insurance plan that would help cover the high cost of this procedure. Even with this new insurance, we only have $15,000 of coverage for a lifetime. One round of IVF costs around $30,000 and $4,000 of this is just to cover medications which need to be paid out of pocket. In addition, the first round has about a 50% chance of working. If our first attempt is unsuccessful, we will need to pay off the full balance of the first round before proceeding to a second transfer.

Our first round of IVF will be starting later this month we and hope to have a successful first transfer as well as bank embryos for future transfers. We are asking our family and friends to consider donating to cover the cost of this first transfer, storage of our frozen embryos, and any necessary future transfers. The cost of this journey is not only a financial burden but also a physical and emotional one. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin this next step in our journey.