Help Support Meghan and Patrick's Fertility Journey

It can be hard to balance gratitude and grief.

It’s hard to explain the feeling of having your heart shattered into tiny, jagged pieces while somehow still carrying it inside your chest.

It’s hard to stop and whisper a quiet thank you to the sky when you’re holding your partner’s hand, or watching his son — your son — race proudly across a basketball court or ballfield.

Patrick and I are so lucky to have found each other in this life.

Our lives looked very different before we met. His included a young marriage and three beautiful children, followed by devastating injuries. Mine included a dream career — despite a few hiccups — that took me across the country, and years of loneliness.

We were lucky to find each other. And I was even luckier to convince him to consider starting over, even as his youngest was on the cusp of high school and Patrick was finally approaching the end of diapers, late nights and concession-stand duty.

But the father Patrick is, and the children he has raised, are a huge part of why I love him.

I’ve also spent most of my adult life working with or for other people’s children — as an AmeriCorps tutor, an academic advisor and an education reporter writing about how we, as a society, can and must do right by our children.

I always imagined that, someday, I would get the chance to do that work in a different way: to become a mother myself.

But time waits for no one.

In January 2026, Patrick underwent a vasectomy reversal, and we began trying to conceive. His doctor had warned us that, after so many years and at his age, our chances might be lower than we hoped.

What we didn’t know was that my ovarian reserve — essentially, the number of eggs I have "left in my basket" — looked more like that of someone a decade older than me.

Suddenly, the clock we thought we had was moving much faster.

So here we are: planning a wedding, raising a teenager, and trying to begin a fertility journey before we have to give up hope of having a child together.

The path ahead may include additional consultations, medications, IUI and, ultimately, IVF. Those treatments come with costs that are difficult for us to take on alone.

We’re asking for your help because we’re not ready to give up yet.

Your support will help us pay for the consultations, medications and fertility treatments we need to give this dream a chance. Every donation, no matter the amount, brings us one step closer to the possibility of welcoming a child of our own.

We are already incredibly grateful for the family we have. We’re simply hoping to make room for one more.

Thank you for reading our story, for sharing it, for donating if you’re able, and for helping us hold onto hope.