Help the Mathers have a Baby

Friends, 

Thank you so very much to all who have supported us. We are in awe of your generosity. In our previous post, I said that I felt weird about a GoFundMe, but a good friend sent me an encouraging message about it.

As we’re moving forward with starting fertility/IVF treatments again, we’re already hitting some roadblocks. Because it’s been three years, I have to undergo testing again, which I completely understand, but it’s a cost we weren’t expecting. Basically what we raised with coasters will go towards testing and and an ERA (mock transfer). 

We’re also having an issue with getting our embryos from Arlington to Seattle. Both clinics have policies that butt up against each other, and we’re the ones that will have to pay the price. 

We are blessed to still have 6 healthy embryos, but we also have 3 abnormal embryos. We’re not sure why they’re abnormal. The clinic in Seattle will not accept abnormal embryos, but the clinic in Arlington will not separate the embryos. Neither clinic will budge. So we either have to fly back to DC to do transfers, or we have to ship our embryos to a lab that’s willing to separate them, and then ship them on to Seattle. It was already going to cost us $1,200 (money we had already set aside) to ship them between clinics, so this would probably double the cost, since most of the cost of shipment is actually ensuring that they’re properly secured to be shipped.

We’re still looking into all of our options, but this has caused an utter breakdown of how unfair all of this is. I know life isn’t fair, but the fertility industry is cutthroat.

It’s not fair that because we had to wait so long to save up some money that now we have to shell out more money to pay for more tests, because we had to wait so long. It’s not fair that industries that make millions of dollars are making it nearly impossible to afford to move our embryos (our babies). It’s not fair at how unattainable fertility treatments are. I’m tired of how unfair this process is. 

I’ve truly wondered and discerned if we should even continue on in this process, because of how many roadblocks we’ve come across, but I’ve learned that these roadblocks are very common for a lot of people. It’s not fair how many roadblocks there are for so many people. 

Taylor and I cannot keep starting and stopping this process. It’s just going to cost more money that we don’t have. 

So many of our friends and family have already donated, and we are thankful, so please do not feel obligated to donate again. We would be grateful to anyone who feels so moved donate, and please feel free to share this post. 

Thank you, and bless each and every one of you.

Love, 

Ashley & Taylor