Early on (on our first date) Adam & I talked about wanting to have kids, and we both talked about how important that journey in life was to us. We met in April of 2022, Adam proposed in November of 2022 and we got married in April of 2023 - when you know, you just know! We talked about waiting 1 year after getting married so we could enjoy our time together because who really thinks or plans on being one of those people who struggle? Boy... if we had only known what we know now, we never would have waited LOL. What we are wanting our family to look like: We currently have one fur baby - a 4-5 year old rescue dogo named Gigi who we absolutely adore and dote on. She is the laziest thing alive, unless we are going for our nightly walk in which case she has ALL the energy! We would love to have 2 kids, but if we are only blessed with 1 we would be beyond grateful! We want to create a life of curiosity, adventure and to foster creativity so our child can experience the best of our childhoods, while learning how to be a good human in the world. We have 2 very supportive families - My parents (Elizabeth) live 2 miles down the road, and we send Gigi to nana papa day care any days that we both have to be at work (she loves it, and they love it!). I also have a younger sister who is married to the man of her dreams and they have a 4 year old son - who is the light of all of our worlds. He is REALLY into building things, outdoor adventures, cars or anything with engines, and one of his favorite shows right now is Handyman Hal - He even had a Handyman Hal themed 4th birthday. He comes to work with me on Saturdays, eats a chocolate croissant, and watches Handyman Hal on "EE's laptop". Adam has a brother with 2 teens (Hailey is 15 and Damien is 18) doing all the teen things - learning to drive, high school, heading off to college. Although we don't get to see them quite as much (because of all the teen things) we do make the most of the time we do get to spend together. Adams mom lives in Arizona, but we get to see her about twice a year for a week or two at a time, and we talk to her all the time on the phone. How we will use the funds: This would pay for an IVF egg retrieval round (and if financially feasible a FET cycle) - along with monitoring, medications (if possible) and PGT-A testing What this would mean to us: This is simple - it would mean the world. We would get the opportunity to finally be parents in a world where all the statistics are working against us. Our journey so far: We have been on this infertility journey for a little over 2 years and have tried almost all the things - herbal teas, acupuncture, what feels like thousands of supplements, numerous tests, an HSG, 2 saline sonograms, 9 medicated/monitored, hundreds of inito test strips testing hormones daily, we tried a KEGG, did temperature monitoring daily, changed our entire lifestyle to be more active/healthier/with a better diet, and did a round of IVF egg retrieval. This journey (as anyone who has navigated it knows) is full up extreme ups and downs with a lot of waiting and grief in between. During our IVF round - we had ALL the emotions, lots of happy and sad tears. We went into it with DOR and male factor infertility, along with being old LOL. We were so excited when we started because we had 6 follicles - and in all of the monitoring, I had only ever had at most 4 on day 2.... We took this to be a good sign! We had a semi aggressive protocol in hopes that it would help - and on our first monitoring appointment it looked like we had gone down to 4 folicles growing. We were sad but hopeful. On the second monitoring appointment, we still had 4, but 2 were much bigger than the other 2. Our doctor was great, and helped us set realistic expectations. We were still sad, but hopeful. We went into the egg retrieval hoping for all 4 - and we ended up with 7 eggs! Of those 7, 6 were mature and all 6 fertilized. We were over the moon and so grateful for the chance of 6. On day 7, we ended up with 1 5BA blastocyst that is being sent off for PGT testing, and at the time of writing this we are waiting to hear back on if it is chomosminaly normal. We know the odds are not exactly in our favor due to age, but we are hopeful. We are just beyond grateful that we have gotten the chance to try so many different things, because we know that isn't always an option for some people. We are grateful for the support of our families, because having people in your corner cheer you on, and support you in your grief is HUGE. We are grateful we were able to do a round of IVF because we know that so financially burdensome, that it also isn't realistic for most. We are grateful for our past RE, who did so much testing and was with us for all our medicated cycles. And we are SUPER grateful for our current RE who is doing our IVF journey with us. Thank you for reading our Long winded story