How has RGI and Samantha’s Gift of Hope changed your lives?

Jack would not exist without RGI and Samantha’s Gift of Hope.  Without them, our weird, goofy little man would not be in our lives.  There is no quantifying how much our lives have changed, and there is not quantifying how grateful we are.  

What advice would you give to couples who are considering IVF?

To do their research and talk to a lot of people. It is totally fair to be apprehensive and its a huge, stressful commitment.  We have no regrets about going this route, but it takes its told.  Make sure that you are prepared and understand (as best you can) what this will be like.

Now that you have been through it, what would you say to others seeking help?

I would say that it is perfectly OK to be done.  Its OK to say enough is enough.  But it is also OK to say that you still have hope and you still want to try.  Sometimes we felt so foolish to keep having hope.  But we couldn’t turn it off and couldn’t get over our desire to bring a child into the world.  Like Emily Dickinson said about hope – “And never stops – at all -”.

What made you and your partner decide to seek help for infertility?

Ryan and I were married in 2011 and began attempting to grow our family in 2012.  Within a year we knew something was wrong and started to reach out to doctors.

How was your experience with the 100% Guaranteed Plan?

I think that the 100% Guaranteed Plan helped us to keep going when we wanted to quit.  Left to our own devices, I think we would have stopped after our first round only yielded one embryo (and an unsuccessful transfer). We kept looking at the odds sheet that Dr. Nash gave us and kept saying “one of these is going to work”.