Help Joe & Katrina Complete Their Family

Hello, my name is Joe and the goal of this fundraiser is to help my amazing wife Katrina become the wonderful mother I know she was destined to be. I am a very stubborn person and have trouble asking for help so this was very hard for me as a husband to admit defeat and start. Please see our story below.

Katrina and I got married in September of 2020 so naturally this is when we attempted to have kids. After trying naturally for about a year and getting no results we decided it was time to see a fertility specialist. After some testing, they said both of us are healthy and should have no issue getting pregnant. We did one round of insemination in the beginning of 2022, but it did not take so the fertility specialist decided it was time to try IVF. For those that don't know IVF is a process where they retrieve the female eggs and male sperm, combining them manually to fertilize. We only received 3 embryos from this process which is very low. The first embryo was implanted in October of 2022. We got the blood results back that showed it had worked but when my wife went for her next check-up, they had told us there was no heartbeat and we lost the baby. The last 2 embryos did not stick which meant we had to do the process all over again. My wife did another egg retrieval in March of 2023, but we learned that only 1 embryo formed. Since the retrieval process takes months due to hormone level tracking, the fertility specialist wanted to try another retrieval before any embryo is transferred which is where we are currently at as of October 24, 2023. We have used up our lifetime insurance coverage so everything else moving forward is 100% out of pocket. Not only have we spent tens of thousands of dollars and used up any savings we had, we recently dipped into our home equity loan to pay for PGA testing and Cryopreservation/biopsy of the embryo. For some insight, each round of IVF costs about $30,000. My wife and I have talked and we both agree that if this doesn't work we will adopt but in order to adopt we need the money from our home equity loan since the adoption process is also costly. I know there are many things to fundraise for and this does not take precedence over anything but those who know my wife Katrina know how important parenthood is to her and how much she deserves it. Thank you to those who have been supporting us during this time and those who will in the future.