Help Cover Birth Costs for Stranded US Family In Japan
Donation protected
A traumatizing cancer scare. A pregnant wife with a delivery date for this November. And now she is unable to come back to America.
Hi, I'm Chris Ferguson, an American citizen, and I've been married to my wife (a Japanese citizen) since 2019. In 2020 we had a daughter in America. Despite the pandemic we were having an amazing time with our new family member. And in 2021 my wife, Keiko, happily received her green card! We were firmly committed to a life in America.
But then in 2022, she received horrible news from her doctor in America after doing some tests: they believed she was at imminent risk of a heart attack and that she may have cancer. They immediately scheduled her for surgery to test her bone marrow for cancer.
We felt something was off. We trusted our gut and my wife took a plane back home to check with her doctors in Tokyo, Japan. My daughter and I joined her a week later and after a year of being closely monitored she was cleared: no heart attack, no cancer, no surgery needed. (We cried a lot of happy tears.)
But our family uprooted everything to move to Japan (I paused my degree) while the mother of our child was getting the quick medical care that Japan is great at. But staying beyond 12 months meant that her green card was now invalid. Since 2023, we've waited to return. And now, we finally have an immigration interview in Japan this year.
We had to make the hard choice of getting almost instant medical attention in Japan or endure an unneeded surgery and long anxious waits that Americans are familiar with from our healthcare system.
My wife is now healthy and was even able to get pregnant with our second child. She is due in November. Yay!
But here's why we're struggling:
- Childbirth is an out of pocket expense here in Japan and can run from $4,000 to $10,000.
- Epidurals cost extra and are rarely available (most hospitals don’t offer them). We would like to be able to afford one.
- Our first child nearly needed neonatal intensive care (NICU) and required a week of monitoring for low birth weight, making us especially cautious.
- Even prenatal care is costly (we paid fully for the NIPT test for example).
Though our immigration interview is soon, approval likely won't come before my wife's due date. We really wanted to deliver in America as before, but now we are stuck here. We love Japan but it's not our home as a family.
So we are humbly asking for anyone to help cover these unexpected medical expenses. Our first child's birth was completely covered by our medical insurance in America but we are now looking at a daunting medical bill. Any excess funds will be refunded.
And if you're unable to donate, just sharing this link is super helpful. From our family to yours, thank you for your support.
Organizer
Chris Ferguson
Organizer
San Diego, CA