Branon Baby Fertility Fund

Hello! My name is Lisa Branon and I married my best friend Matt Branon just over 3 years ago. We are both originally from Missouri, but live in South Carolina now. I work as an Athletic Trainer and Matt is a high school social studies teacher and baseball coach. I have a wonderful step-son named Ryne (we call him Ryno) who lives in Missouri and will be 11 years old in just a couple of weeks! Although Matt and I were eager to start expanding the Branon family immediately, we knew we had another important task to accomplish first, and that was trying to get full custody of Ryno. Ryno lives with us in SC during the summers and we go up to MO to visit him as much as we possibly can, but Ryno became very comfortable in SC and started calling our place "home". He let us, as well as his friends and all of our family know that he wanted to live down here all of the time. Our focus became accomplishing this goal and we spent over the last year and a half building our case as to why our home in SC was the best option for Ryno. This was very draining on us financially, but we knew that we were doing the right thing for our family. I took out a loan and we got 2 credit cards through our bank that we maxxed out quickly. We struggled and lived paycheck to paycheck all the while paying out thousands of dollars a month on attorney's fees, but felt confident that we were going to win. Unfortantely, the court system in MO saw things differently and we did not win our case. $44,000 spent to be told that we now have to pay child support and get less time with our son. This was a huge blow for us and even more frustrating was that during this entire process we had been trying to get pregnant with no luck. 

Being left in such a huge financial hole, I became depressed feeling that we would never be able to look into fertility because we couldn't afford it. We are both 37 years old and I have been getting anxious that I am running out of time.  My family history also has shown menapause occurring earlier in life than alot of other women, and that really has me scared that I will lose out on my opportunity of having a child of my own. Although still barely keeping our heads above water financially, we decided to seek help from a fertility specialist. All kinds of tests were done and I was diagnosed as "unexplained infertility". Although I am employed at a hospital, infertility isn't covered under my insurance plan. We did 2 cycles of insemination (out of pocket cost of $1,600.00) with no luck. More tests have been done ($625.00) and it was decided that our best option for conceiving would be invitro fertilization. The breakdown of expenses for invitro include approximately $3,000 for medications, $3,200 for physicians fees, $3,650 for the lab fees for the actual procedure, approximately $900 for cryopreservation and storage of any additional eggs, and $200 for the semen analysis which all have to be paid up front before the process can even begin.