Turns out I’m a very private person, and the idea of writing down my private thoughts where anyone can read them was more daunting than I realized, so I just never asked Matt if he was okay with it. I then promptly forgot all about it, but lately I’ve been feeling the need to officially start it up again. So here goes nothing. I have the tendency to write things down and then forgot about them, so most of the following will just be copied from my journal. Also, just a warning, I’m realizing I don’t care about proper paragraphs or run-on sentences…so my apologies in advance. Haha.

Written sometime between March 30th and April 7th 2022:

I’m bad at numbers, but Matt and I tried to get pregnant for a combined total of around 2 years, maybe longer. I have endometriosis, so I always knew I’d probably have a hard time. The last time we tried, I had surgery for the endo just to clear everything out and give us a better chance. My doctor said that normally after surgery she recommends trying for 6 months before going to a fertility specialist, but with us she said don’t wait longer than 3. Because of how many surgeries I’ve had, my ovaries are about 1/3 the size they should be and I have massive amounts of scar tissue. She was worried that if my endometriosis grew back and I needed more surgery that it could ruin my ovaries to the point I could never have kids. So after 3 months with no luck we went to the Utah Fertility Center to look into IUI (Intrauterine insemination) or IVF (In-vitro Fertilization). I knew it would be expensive, but I kept getting the feeling it was what we were supposed to do.

We met with Doctor Gurtcheff and she said she typically recommends IUI first and trying that for 2 to 3 months and then if that doesn’t work, going to IVF. IUI would cost about $3,000 a try and IVF would be about $10,000-12,000. IUI puts your chances of getting pregnant around 25%, which is the normal rate for non-fertility impaired people. IVF, I think, put it up to somewhere in the 60% range. Even though we had no way to pay for it, we both kept getting the feeling we should just go straight into IVF. We prayed about it and went to the temple and I just kept getting the feeling that it would work out. Anytime I prayed to ask how we would afford it, I essentially got “Don’t worry about it” as an answer. So we didn’t. We just moved forward hoping that we would somehow come up with $12,000.

Everyone I worked with at 2 Chicks and a Toolbelt knew what was going on and my bosses (Michelle and Mina) did what they could to get me as many hours as possible. I use to work as a handyman and have some limited experience laying tile, so Michelle hired me to re-tile her bathroom. I was extremely grateful for her and her willingness to let someone not very experienced come and do something like that in her own house. The last day I was supposed to be going to her house, she asked if I could come around 5pm and if I could make sure Matt was there too. I asked her why and she said, “don’t worry about it”. I pestered her for a bit but she wouldn’t tell me, so finally I told her that Matt would be working and if he didn’t know why he need to be there he couldn’t just leave work. She told me that there were some people who wanted to thank him for his service and that it was very important to them that Matt was there. Naturally this was all very sketchy and I said there was no way Matt would be comfortable with it. Long story short(er), I convinced Matt to show up. I knew Michelle wouldn’t ask him to come to something that would put him in danger, but even I couldn’t figure out what on Earth was going on. As we were waiting for Matt to show up, my coworker Megan and her husband McCade arrived, then Kevin (their business consultant), then Mina. So by now I knew there was something else going on. Matt finally arrived and I went outside to get him. He was not happy about not knowing what it was all for and almost turned around and left, but I convinced him to stay just to find out what was going on

When we walked into the house, everyone was sitting in Michelle’s living room being super quiet. It felt weird. You could tell everyone was waiting for something and Matt and I were the only ones who didn’t know what it was. A few seconds later, two more people showed up and Michelle introduced them as Brandi and Brandon Wood. Mina then explained they wanted to meet us, then decided it would be easier to let them explain why. They told us that they had struggled with infertility and that they had gone through multiple round of IVF and knew how stressful and expensive it was. Because of this, they started a foundation to help people pay for IVF or adoption. Each couple would be given up to $20,000 just based on what was needed. They only work through word of mouth and try to help people who are “deserving”. When they find a couple, they essentially interview people who know them to find out if they’re decent. They found out about us because Mina and Michelle were talking to Kevin about ways they could help us financially and Kevin told them they should talk to Brandi, who happened to work out at the same gym as Mina. When they asked about us and found out that Matt worked for the county, they went to Matt’s old Sergeant because they had bought his old house, which we had helped him move out of. Such a small world. Because we had helped him move, it had given him the opportunity to get to know a little about me and I guess he told them nothing but amazing things about both of us. All the people they talked to had nothing bad to say (bless all of you for that), so they decided to help. It was one of those moments where you know that nothing is an accident. If we hadn’t moved into our house, I would have never driven past 2 Chicks on my way to my other job that I needed to quit. I would have never gotten the very strong thought that I needed to work there, and I would have never met Mina, who met Brandi. None of this would have happened.

When they say IVF would cost $10,000-$12,000 they don’t tell you medication and the transfer cycle fee isn’t included in that price. Between us and the foundation (who couldn’t cover medications), we paid well over $20,000 (My guess based on bills is about $26,000, $14,000 of which was covered by the foundation) for 1 try. It’s been insane and we would have never been able to do it without the Woods. They are incredible people with such good hearts. Regardless of how things turn out, I will be forever grateful to them for giving us the opportunity to at least try.