Help Max and Star Achieve Their Family Dream

Hello, I’m Max and I’m Star, and we are two creative and talented nerds living and working in Los Angeles, and we have some life updates to share:

Our Fertility Journey

Since we got married in 2022, we have been trying to start a family. Star was diagnosed with fibroids and as a result, we were told IVF would be our best bet to start our family. We went through two rounds of egg retrieval procedures and ended up with 2 genetically tested normal embryos. Both boys! Exciting! We’ve been documenting the whole process on Star’s YT channel here - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cHPO6tPqkKF3LLFefbBwoaKoePiLj-e&si=I2VXCJBZLKERYfSD

After that, Star went through an abdominal myomectomy and they removed 15 (!) fibroids. This is considered “a lot” of fibroids. After waiting to heal from that procedure we unfortunately discovered that her uterine lining didn’t seem to be recovering after the surgery. Our fertility doctors said that if we could get her lining to at least 7mm we could at least attempt 1 transfer to see if Star could get pregnant.

After trying acupuncture, taking a ridiculous amount of supplements, cutting out caffeine, sugars, and anything that the fertility community recommended we try, we were able to get her lining to that 7mm, but just barely so. Unfortunately, the embryo transfer wasn’t successful.

After this we were faced with the problem of either trying again with our last embryo and risking losing that one too, or trying another egg retrieval to see if we could gain more chances. So we took out another loan and opted to try and get more embryos. Luckily, we were able to get 1 more embryo (another boy!), leaving us with 2 chances again.

HOWEVER, now 4 more fibroids (albeit small ones) have grown back which is probably the main reason her lining wasn’t getting where it needed to be. Although we are working with our insurance to possibly get one of them removed, our doctors gave us the cold truth that Star’s odds of being able to carry a successful pregnancy just aren’t likely because of how quickly the fibroids are returning. They were genuinely surprised by how fast the fibroids were coming back. It would also be medically risky for her to carry even if the transfer was successful as well. This is obviously devastating to hear, but there is hope yet.

Our fertility clinic, who has been so supportive and helpful, gave us one final suggestion, taking us down a path that could potentially lead to our best chance at bringing us into that future family we so desired: SURROGACY.

The Goal

Surrogacy is a process by which the intended parents rely on a gestational surrogate to carry our embryo to full term. The process is overseen by an agency that provides a variety of services, including screening, matching, counseling, case management, and referrals. They act as a liaison between the doctors and nurses and the surrogate and ourselves, making sure that we and the surrogate are supported throughout the entire pregnancy.

Keeping all of that in mind, surrogacy is not cheap, and runs on average around 150-200k. We found an agency who would work with us for closer to $140k.

Definitely not something that we can just get a loan or a grant for (believe us we’ve tried) and not a small sum to try and save. We are managing to survive in LA as a teacher and a video editor but even so, the price tag on starting a family in 2024 or the near future is STEEP.

With help from family and our remaining savings we’ve gotten part of the way there, but we need help with the remaining $80k.

Star took on an extra job and is working on selling more of her artwork, Max is taking on contract work and looking for extra opportunities.

Thank You

Our hearts go out to you, our families, our friends, the community at large. You have all helped us so much and yet here we stand, looking to do a very difficult thing to help us achieve our dream of growing our family.