Brandi & Troy's Egg Donor Journey to Miracle Baby

Hi all! We are Brandi and Troy Dolendo, and we are a fun-loving, laughter filled, supporters of the arts, very much in love married couple reaching out for help on this emotional and expensive journey we have embarked on: having a baby with a donor egg.

Some of you might be family, some friends, some we have known for decades, and others we just met. Or maybe you found our page and are meeting us for the first time. No matter how you are in our lives, we are grateful that you have taken the time here to read and understand our journey, and hopefully help us along the way.

We have been trying to have a child for over two years now, though our history goes back over two decades. When things did not happen naturally, even with taking a prescribed drug to help ovulate, we were referred to a clinic and doctor here in Orlando, Florida, who has helped two couples we know build their family through IVF. At our first meeting, he was incredibly positive, said IVF would be a great option for us, and sent us to have our tests and bloodwork done. When we had our follow up meeting with the doctor, he told us the thing that no woman wants to hear: that my eggs were no longer viable and I could very possibly go through menopause 10-15 years earlier than the average woman. He said it was just about 4% of the population that has this. Lucky me, I guess. I had no way of knowing this genetic issue, as I have no contact with my birth mother about her health, and my Grandma passed away when I was 19. So this was a very disappointing surprise that I was truly unprepared for. We were told that the only way we could have a child would be to use a donor egg.

This was a very scary thing to hear and process. It has taken one year of talking, thinking, and counseling to come to terms with the idea, but our love for one another and our desire to build a family has prevailed, and we are making the choice to use a donor egg to hopefully create our rainbow baby. The total cost for the procedure and eggs alone is $24,000.00, (excluding medicine) which our insurance does not cover. We are working many jobs, using our savings, and will take out loans for whatever we can not fundraise. But anything will help.

Let us tell you a little about our love story.

Troy and I met 23 years ago in Osaka, Japan, while performing there for Universal Studios. We instantly had a connection and became best friends. The goal was to stay in Japan for another year, however my contract was cut abruptly short because my Grandmother (who raised me as my Mom) was diagnosed with terminal cancer and only had a few months left to live. I never knew if I would see Troy again.

Fast forward a couple of years. I went into work at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, to perform in a show there called Beetlejuice's Rock and Roll Revue (RIP). I was playing the Bride of Frankenstein, and low and behold, who was there playing Frankenstein? Troy! The spark was instantly back, and we spent the next months hanging out and dating as much as we could. Though we had very strong feelings for one another, we were young, and because we were both in entertainment, we had to focus on our career building while we still had the youth to do so.

Our lives took us in different directions. Troy moved to Las Vegas, and I ended up moving to Europe.

We were both in other relationships, and lost contact (this was before social media haha).

A decade later, after going through COVID, where the entertainment industry was completely shut down, losing basically everything we had, not to mention some terrible breakups, somehow we ended up again in Central Florida. We found each other on Facebook, and talked almost every single night. I invited Troy to be my plus one at my Dads wedding (though I of course messed up the date and time only saw him after the wedding was over). When we saw each other again, it was fireworks. All that joy, love and connection we had so many years ago, came flooding back.

We were engaged a year later, and married the year after that. It was the most beautiful day of our lives. (We added the video of our special day here if you want to experience a snippet of the magic of that day).

God has a plan, and he has proven that to us time and time again. Whatever lessons we had to learn, and growth we had to go through, we were destined to be together. Call it soulmates, twin flames, or just a miracle, we found our way back to the person we could call home.

And now we hope to share that home with a child created through our love.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our story. Albeit the abridged version, I hope it is clear how much love we have for each other, and how much love we have to give our little family.

We will forever be grateful for any help you can spare.

Here a few more fun pictures of who we are ♥️