Laura & Katherine’s IVF Journey To Parenthood

Dearest friends, family and supporters,

I’m Laura and the beautiful dark haired one is my wife Katherine (Kat).

We have been in each other’s lives for 13 years, together for 6 and very happily married for 3 years!

We began our journey to becoming parents two years ago. Our hearts were broken when we lost our first pregnancy at 9 weeks and again, more recently, with a chemical pregnancy very early on.

Up until now, our donor was a close family member of Kats (I’ll be carrying). Genetically, that baby would have been the perfect little combination of the both of us, but it seems God has other plans.

Now, due to geographical distance (he lives in California where Kat is originally from and where we used to live) and the fact that we have since relocated back to the UK (where I am originally from) and the additional financial obstacle that distance presents, we have found ourselves forced to look at alternative options.

We recently paid privately to be fast track re-referred back to the NHS for fertility funding, since the harsh rules regarding same sex couples was overturned last year… or so we were led to believe.

That dream was quickly squashed with us being told we must still fund 6 rounds of (failed IUI) before being considered for funded IVF. It turns out, only 4 local authorities in the UK are honoring the new allowances made for same sex couples!

In addition, since my wife is currently in the UK on a spousal visa, this eliminates her from all NHS funding (despite us paying thousands of pounds in a healthcare surcharge as a condition of her visa application)!

At this point, we have exhausted all we can and this is our final desperate chance at becoming parents… something we want more than anything in the world. Since my wife is of Native American heritage, finding a suitable donor in the North West of England has proven quite impossible as you can imagine.

Reciprocal IVF (where I would carry Kats fertilized egg) now has a starting price tag of £18,000. Short of us finding a suitable donor… this is it.

Your kindness and generosity is appreciated more than we could ever say.

To our dear friends, family and supporters, thank you for your donations towards our rainbow baby. Thank you for your ongoing

love, prayers and encouragement.

We look forward to the day we can share our little one with the world.

with love, Laura & Katherine