Hi Everyone!
My name is Bekka and I am reaching out to raise funds for two of my favorite people – Caitlin and Dylan. Caitlin is my big sister and Dylan is my brother-in-law. They have been trying to start a family for over 2 years unsuccessfully and have begun the IVF process. Anyone who has taken this journey understands the emotional, physical and financial stress it causes. Which is why I am starting this fundraiser to see if their community of family and friends can help relieve a little of the financial burden.
Below is their story/a message from Caitlin and Dylan:
We’re Dylan and Caitlin Russell – currently parents to two fur babies but have dreams of growing our family and becoming parents to a baby of our own.
We were married in October of 2022 and shortly after decided to try to start our family. What should’ve been a fun and exciting process turned into defeat after months of negative tests. In 2024, we began the process of testing for infertility and were told we had a 2-3% chance of conceiving naturally. Our hope was to try a few rounds of IUI but unfortunately with our lab results, we were not candidates and were told our only real option was IVF.
In February 2025, as we prepared to begin the IVF process, we were surprised with a positive pregnancy test and thought by some miracle we had been able to conceive naturally! Just a few weeks into the pregnancy I began to experience cramping and spotting and it was confirmed we were miscarrying.
After giving ourselves some time, we are now ready to begin the IVF process and to finally start our family! The process is intensive and expensive. Below is the timeline we will be on and the costs associated.
6/3: begin hormone injections (2x/day for 8-15 days) with monitoring appointments at the clinic every other day
6/10-16: window for the final trigger shot
6/12-18: window for egg retrieval
Mid-July we’d learn our Embryo Transfer date and begin the medication leading up to it
Insurance covers through the diagnosis of infertility but once IVF begins there will not be coverage. Between medications, monitoring appointments, ultrasounds, blood draws, an egg retrieval, and embryo transfer we will be looking at right around $29,000 in bills, which is a scary number as you prepare for a delivery and to bring home a baby.
It’s an odd feeling to ask for help for something that feels like it should be able to happen so naturally but after lots of debating we’ve come to the realization that we just can’t do it completely on our own. Any amount gets us closer to our dream of having a family!
Thank you for reading this far and for supporting our story!