Bring Hope to Jeff & Chelsea’s Fertility Journey

This is something I can’t believe we are asking to do. We never thought it would come to this. But it is our last resort, and we have to take the leap.

Hi, we’re the Williams family. If you’ve been around us, you would know that we are fun, loving, and caring parents to one special little boy who holds our hearts. What you may not know is our struggle with infertility.

We never imagined that starting a family would be such a challenging journey. Jeff and I were married in 2015 and, shortly after, decided that it was time to start our family and that maybe Cosmo needed someone to play with. After several years of trying, we successfully conceived our one and only son, Elias, who just turned 4 in May. He is the light of our life, the rock on which our family stands, and one amazing kid who carries all of the best traits of both Jeff and me.

After Elias was born, we were ready to try again fairly quickly because we knew that conceiving Elias took some time. After one year with no luck, we decided to reach out to a reproductive endocrinologist to see what our options were. We thought since we were able to naturally conceive Elias, maybe my body just needed a little help. Our doctor agreed and started me on medications. The treatment was grueling—emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially.

It wasn’t until June 2022, after four rounds of medications, that Jeff and I were successful in conceiving our little girl, Iris. We were excited and tried very hard to keep it a secret, but we had told our closest family members early on that we were expecting. Unfortunately, during an ultrasound appointment on August 25th, 2022, we were told that Iris wasn’t growing well and that her heart rate was too slow. We still held out hope that our little girl would defeat the odds. To our devastation, Iris did not survive, and she was born sleeping on September 4th, 2022.

Our hearts were broken. But we kept going. After only 6 weeks, we started our treatments again. This time adding more medications, injections, and more invasive testing. At one point, we were paying nearly $7,000 per month to cover our costs. We started feeling the financial strain and there weren’t any more hours that I could work during the week to try to make up the difference. With no cost being covered by our insurance, I had to take up a second job and started to travel far away from home.

In May of 2023, after over a year of treatments and nearly $70,000, our doctor told us that IVF was our only option. Sadly, that became the end of our road. We were spent, in more ways than just financially. Losing Iris left a devastating hole in our hearts. We needed to grieve our loss, heal the emotional damage that was left, and try to make the most out of our living son’s life. This last year and a half has been eye-opening, challenging, and humbling. We never stopped trying, and we prayed every month for a miracle.

Despite all of our challenges, our dream of giving Elias a sibling remains strong. In lieu of Iris's birthday, we’ve decided to start our fertility treatments again. We’ve explored various options, and with your support, we hope to pursue the necessary infertility treatments that could help us realize our dream of completing our family. We’re reaching out to our community, friends, and loved ones to ask for help in covering the costs of medications, genetic testing, and the IVF procedure, etc. We are hoping to be able to have our IVF transfer completed sometime in January or February. Any contribution, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to holding another little one in our arms.

Thank you for being part of our journey.