Family Stories  Tieanna and Christopher My husband and I met in Florida through a mutual friend. We decided to start trying for a baby as soon as we started dating as we were into our thirties, plus I am a military service member and time apart seemed longer than time together. We got married merely weeks before I had to …

Family Stories  Sam and Phil We have been together for 20 life-changing years, delighted to be married for 17 of them and aching to build our family for the last 12 to share our love of children, family and traditions. Unfortunately, our path to parenthood has not been one without strife. Time after time we were wrought with unforeseen family …

Family Stories  Theresa and Peter Hello! Our names are Peter and Theresa. We are so grateful to be awarded the Family Building Grant. We met at a bar that no longer exists in Evanston, Illinois. Introduced through a mutual friend, the way we began dating was slightly different and comical in some sense. Fast forward five years and we were …

Family Stories  Penelope and Robert Penelope and Robert were fortunate to meet later in life and after a few years, they decided they wanted to start a family together. Unfortunately, previous fertility planning decisions caused a roadblock, and their project would now require a bit of help. Luckily, they found wonderful doctors that revealed the fascinating and miraculous world of …

Family Stories  Megan and Bob Ever since I (Megan) was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming two things: a nurse and a mother. My entire nursing career thus far has been dedicated to the care of women and children. While I have had success meeting my professional nursing career goals, I have not been successful in fulfilling my second …

Family Stories  Jamie and Richard We have been struggling to get pregnant for several years. After going through three years of unsuccessful intrauterine insemination (IUI) procedures, it was clear we needed to go down a different path if we wanted to become pregnant. It took some time to mourn the idea that we were not going to be able to …

Family Stories  Erin and Joe Our plan of having a family started when we were married in 2016. Last summer, after years of trying to conceive, we found out I was pregnant. We were over the moon! Unfortunately, we lost our dream. After the miscarriage, we sought out fertility specialists. The doctors explained to us we are part of the …

Family Stories  Crystal and Sydney My wife and I have been together for 13 years and married for seven. We have always discussed having children and knew it was something that we truly wanted. In early 2021, we finally felt ready and stable enough in life with a house, vehicles, and stability in our careers (myself as a firefighter/first responder …

Family Stories  Ashley and Jacob Three years ago, my husband and I were blissfully unaware of the concept of infertility and the journey it encompasses. When we found out we were pregnant for the first time in August 2019, it never occurred to us that we would never get to hold our tiny baby. We would never get to hear …

Family Stories  Ana and Aurelian In the fall of 2020, we celebrated six years together and decided we were ready to become parents. After multiple tries, our doctor advised us to try in vitro fertilization (IVF). Because of the expenses, we were not ready financially. We discussed our options with our doctor and that is how we received this opportunity. …

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  Dani and Matt When Dani (pictured to the right) was seven weeks old, she began having difficulty breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Upon arrival, a team of doctors and nurses immediately started working on Dani who was in complete cardiac collapse. Dani spent three and a half weeks in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit fighting for …

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 …

Family Stories  Kimberly When I was young and people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always replied “a Mom.” I always thought that I would meet the person I was supposed to be with, get married and have a decent size family. I knew I wanted to be a Mom way before I knew what …

Family Stories  Priyanka and Rupendra I met Ru when he came to visit his family in Nepal, after the earthquake, which affected most of Kathmandu. Later, we were married in a family ceremony in Nepal and I moved to Lisle, Illinois to join him. Both of us have always dreamt of having children together. However, it has been very challenging …

Family Stories  Claudette and Darren We met 12 years ago on Match.com, which was pre -Facebook, -Zoom and -What’s App. It was a long-distance romance, with Darren living in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States, nine years ago, when we were married. Being in our late thirties, we knew growing a family may take a bit …

Family Stories  Katie and Sean Katie is a carrier of Alport syndrome, a hereditary disease related to a mutation on the X chromosome. The disease causes hearing loss, cataracts, and kidney failure, and although it is inevitable that the symptoms will develop, it is impossible to know when. This disease has had a major impact on Katie’s life; her father …

Family Stories  Brittany and Matt While they had often discussed the possibility of adoption, Brittany and Matt’s journey really started this past March when they decided they were ready to start their family. Due to a flareup with Brittany‘s ulcerative colitis, the doctor told Brittany that it was not a safe time for her to become pregnant. Having given prior …

Family Stories  Sabrina and Daniel My husband and I have been together for ten years this January. Half of those years have been spent trying, without success, to have a family of our own. We were diagnosed with unexplained infertility earlier this year. The realization that not only were we unlikely to conceive on our own, but also that our …

Family Stories  Allison and David Our fertility journey began over six years ago, after trying to get pregnant on our own for over a year. We received the devastating news that David was sterile, and we would never be able to conceive on our own. We sat down and discussed our options, and decided that we wanted to pursue embryo adoption, to give …

Family Stories  Sarah and Sean Sean and I got married 9–almost 10–years ago. We always knew that we wanted to start a family, the only question that came up was when. We started trying about six months into our marriage, hoping for a child. When nothing was happening, the frustration began to grow. We watched family members and friends begin …

Family Stories  Emily and Mike We live in Chicago and have always wanted a family. But in 2017, Mike was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a form of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Mike began an immunotherapy and chemotherapy regimen which meant we would have to stop trying to conceive naturally. In 2018, we began working with Dr. Jennifer Hirshfeld-Cytron at the Fertility …

Family Stories  Chaka and Christian I am one of five in my family and the oldest at that…my father is an Army veteran and we had the privilege to grow up all over the world. Because my father was gone a lot, I had to help my mother take care of my four siblings. When we moved back to the …

Family Stories  Christina and Benjamin We met in Houston in 2012, when we were both in graduate school. Music brought us together and has been at the center of our lives. Christina is a professional pianist, and Ben is a composer and pianist. We both adore children and have worked extensively with them as music teachers. We each come from …

Family Stories  David and Matt Our family journey began in January 2018 when we were introduced by text from a mutual friend. We knew from early on we were a great fit for one another and were engaged six months after those first texts were exchanged. We compliment each other with our differences, and are united by our shared beliefs …

Family Stories  Michelle and Thomas My wife and I have been trying for six years and we both have been diagnosed with infertility. We have been through depression, anxiety, frustration, and loneliness. My wife and I love volunteering and giving back to the community. We volunteer with our local forest preserve. We also volunteer at a center that helps low income …