IVF Hope: A Path to Parenthood for Us

Hi!

We are Taylor and Larry Stephenson. We met online in October of 2022 and hit it off right away. We found that we had a lot in common- including the fact that our mothers have the same first and middle name, birth month and both were Special Education teachers! We also discovered that we both love children and were hoping to start a family soon after getting married in February 2024. We knew family and friends who had struggled with infertility. We assumed that it might take us longer to get pregnant since Taylor has numerous autoimmune issues. In fact, Taylor’s mom had spent years trying to get pregnant before adopting Taylor and her brother.

As a young girl, I loved being "Mommy" to my dolls and stuffed animals. I enjoyed babysitting for many families in our neighborhood during my teenage years. My love of children was turned into a career as I have spent the last 6 years teaching Special Needs Preschool at a nearby public school.

Larry, on the other hand, discovered his nurturing side helping his family take care of his special needs younger sister. Becoming a firefighter/EMT 9 years ago was a great career fit for Larry as it allows him to rescue and care for those in need in our community.

Larry and I tried to get pregnant without medical intervention for many months before being referred to a fertility specialist by my OB-GYN. After many blood tests, exams, and 3 very early miscarriages we were told that I had a low AMH count and our best option to get pregnant is IVF. I am currently on short term leave from my teaching position as I am also working with numerous doctors including a cardiologist to get my autoimmune and POTS flares under control. These conditions are not necessarily related to my infertility.

We hope that this GoFundMe helps raise awareness on how expensive treatments can be for couples who struggle with infertility. We knew IVF was expensive, but we never imagined the prices we have been quoted. We are humbly asking for your help, but most importantly your prayers as we start this stressful, emotional, but beautiful journey. If you know us at all, you know how hard it is for us to ask for help. We know how hard things are financially on everyone right now, which makes this even harder to ask but a SINGLE round of IVF for us is costing us 14,000 dollars. Unfortunately, this does NOT include medication (4-6 thousand dollars), anesthesia (700 dollars), PGTA testing (1,995 dollars), embryo storage (80 dollars per month), the transfer (5,500 dollars), etc. Both of our insurances do not cover any treatment for IVF. Some states require health insurance policies to cover IVF, but unfortunately Georgia is not one of those states. Please join us in praying that this round of IVF will produce many viable eggs as some will not fertilize and some will not multiply enough to be implanted, so that we do not have to pay for another round of IVF. We know that even though we are using medical intervention to conceive, God is the author of life. Our children will be born in His timing and not ours. We would be so grateful to have any financial assistance in paying for IVF so that our dream of starting a family can come true. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for considering donating to our IVF GoFundMe as we seek to grow our family.

Sincerely,

Taylor and Larry Stephenson