Family Stories
Michelle and Mike
Hi! We are Michelle and Mike, and we have been together for six years (married for three and a half years). We spent much time and money on dating websites, and then ended up meeting in person! Michelle was dancing for a DJ company (a second job) at Mike's cousin's Bat Mitzvah, and we have been together ever since! Michelle is a school counselor in Chicago Public Schools, and Mike has his own business doing financial planning. Mike has two daughters from a previous marriage (one in high school and one in college).
Hi! We are Michelle and Mike, and we have been together for six years (married for three and a half years). We spent much time and money on dating websites, and then ended up meeting in person! Michelle was dancing for a DJ company (a second job) at Mike's cousin's Bat Mitzvah, and we have been together ever since! Michelle is a school counselor in Chicago Public Schools, and Mike has his own business doing financial planning. Mike has two daughters from a previous marriage (one in high school and one in college).We got married in 2017 and started trying to create our own family in 2018. After about a year of no success, we decided to start our journey with a fertility doctor. We started with IUIs and have done six in total. Two of the IUIs resulted in pregnancies, but one resulted in a miscarriage at eight weeks and the other resulted in a biochemical pregnancy. From there, our IVF journey began. Our first cycle was cancelled because Michelle wasn't responding to the medications as she should have, and COVID hit right after that (which put us at a standstill).
Since we have been able to return to our treatments, we have done three egg retrievals. From those three egg retrievals, we have one normal embryo frozen. We are hoping for two children, and our hopes have been decreasing more and more. We haven't done a transfer yet because we have been hoping to bank as many embryos as we can (which has clearly been a struggle). We got an insurance surprise when we realized that our plan wasn't explained properly. We have four IVF cycles covered in our lifetime, but we found out that egg retrievals and transfers are counted as separate cycles when they are not done as fresh transfers. Much to our surprise, we had a bit of a freak out. Our doctor told us about this grant, and we applied right away! We are so grateful to be the recipients and be given much more of a chance to achieve our dream.
Michelle and Mike are recipients of the Path to Parenthood Grant from the Jewish United Fund - Chicago. In May 2022, they were thrilled to welcome their twins, Shylah and Braelyn to the world!