Our journey together began in 2006, while in high school. We were two teenagers who fell in love and dreamt about having a large family. It has been our dream since we were kids ourselves. After many years of dating, we were married in 2016 and have been blessed with two children. Being parents is our greatest blessing. A few …
We very luckily met in 2013 through some mutual friends, and happily married in May of 2016. As individuals, we are both very family oriented, and that priority has strengthened as a couple. We quickly knew we wanted to build a family of our own, and understood we would need some help along the way. Weighing all the family building …
Family Stories Shimra and Jonathan We got married five years ago. We had and continue to dream of building a family together. When we began trying, we never expected that our journey for a child would span over multiple years. After a year into our journey, our frustration started to grow. Friends and family were having children and something just …
Family Stories Lyndsey and Michael Growing up as an only child, it has always been my dream to have at least two kids. I was fortunate to get pregnant with my daughter on our first try (with my ex-husband). I had an easy pregnancy, labor and delivery, and my daughter is healthy and happy. After going through a divorce, I …
Family Stories Stephanie and Ezra As a queer couple who does not have sperm in our relationship, we have encountered a significant amount of medical, psychological, and spiritual barriers to starting our family building journey. Miraculously, the first time we tried to get pregnant (via IUI), Stephanie conceived. It truly felt like a basheret (meant-to-be) moment. Sadly, Stephanie miscarried at …
Family Stories Tessa and Josh We have been planning our family since three months into our relationship. Discussions about how many kids we would have and what to name them were happening before we had ever even spent our first holiday together! While we did broach the topic of adoption (if need be), we never imagined we’d be having the …
Family Stories Zhi and Casey We met each other in 2012 as I was exiting the United States Marine Corps after 13 years of service. We started dating and blossomed into marriage. We both always wanted to have kids and have been trying since marriage. However, we had no luck and came to find out I had low sperm count …
Family Stories Lexie and Jonathan My husband, Jon, and I are high school sweethearts. We have been married for five years now, however our first couple years of marriage we were dealing with fighting off cancer. Jon was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in September of 2015. We were engaged during this time but we were not going to stop cancer …
Family Stories Jena and Molly Our journey together began in 2016 when we met through a dating app. It didn’t take us long to meet in person and we quickly became friends. After just being friends for several months, we stopped fighting the inevitable and began dating in 2017. Like most couples, we began discussing our future, and thankfully we …
Family Stories Dana and Sam We married in 2017 and knew that we wanted to start our family as soon as possible. When two years spent trying had passed without any success, we scheduled an appointment with a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist. That first evaluation would help diagnose Dana with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and Hypothyroidism. Finally, we had some …
Family Stories Lauren and Sean Sean and I met over 20 years ago and are high school sweethearts; we bonded over our love of music and art. We always talked about starting a family – we knew we wanted to be parents and were excited at the idea of getting married and starting our own. We wanted to wait until …
Family Stories Cecilia and Manuel Our journey began in 2017 when I unexpectedly became pregnant. We were ecstatic at the thought of becoming parents. Everything seemed to be going well but, a little over two months after finding out I was pregnant my doctor realized that my HCG levels were higher that expected and decided to send me to do …
Family Stories Kimya and Darryl Growing up, I was the oldest grandchild in our home. I grew up in a big family home—grandparents, mother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. I am my mother’s only child. At one my point, my aunt and cousins moved away and that moment I knew I would have more than one child. My mom passed away …
Family Stories Victoria and Dumitru On October 13, 2021 we celebrated our 11th anniversary together, my husband’s 30th birthday, and our 3rd year of infertility. We started to actively try in October 2018 and bought a house in May 2019 hoping to fill it with children. After a year passed, we were very confused that we are not pregnant yet …
Family Stories Kayla and Evan Kayla and Evan started their journey to create a family in October 2018. Soon after, Kayla had to have surgery to remove ovarian cysts. During the surgery, it was confirmed that Kayla has endometriosis throughout her abdomen. Although it can be more difficult to get pregnant, they decided to keep trying naturally. The dream of …
Family Stories Meetu and Aditya Aditya and I both grew up in Mumbai, a big city in India. Being from different areas in Mumbai, we did not know each other growing up. Being a bright/naughty kid in school with a keen interest in science/engineering, Aditya came to the United States to pursue his undergraduate studies. Aditya belongs to a close …
Family Stories Danielle and Steve When we began discussing marriage and then children, it was very difficult to say to Steve that I was unable to get pregnant without medical intervention. At five years old I was diagnosed with Turner Syndrome, and at the age of twelve told that I would not conceive children without fertility treatments. At the time …
Family Stories Ashley and Tareq Ever since Ashley and I have been together, we would talk about our future together. Every dream started with building a family. Several months into dating, Ashley informed me about her rare genetic disease—Fabry. This is a hereditary disease related to the mutation of the X chromosome, meaning whether we had a son or a …
Family Stories Danielle and Anthony Anthony and I are high school sweethearts, who met in English class our sophomore year. We continued our relationship into adulthood and went on to eventually attend the same college. We were both saddened by the news that I had been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer at the age of 22. A few years …