So, clear back in my Life Update from April 2nd
I talked about our decision to wait for possible funding for IVF. I cannot believe that it has been about 5
months since that point. I guess time
flies when you are busy sleeping off mono ;)
Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about how that process
has been for us...
The program is word of mouth only and they try to
keep it quiet so when I started asking questions about it I wasn't told very
much. They basically told me that if I
wanted to really know about the process, I had to start it. This was a bit frustrating to me because I am
a serious planner. I like to know what
to expect and when to expect it. (I'm sure you are all surprised)
We started the process pretty quickly after that post. I had to go in and get additional blood work
done and send in three years of taxes before we could even get an appointment
to get our application. Once at the
appointment, we found out that this program is privately funded. We never get to meet the people that fund the
program, they are just known as ‘the committee’. The committee is made up of those giving us
such an amazing financial gift as well as doctors. The doctors help them to pick the best
candidates. She explained to us that we
would need to fill out the application (several pages and a lot of highly
personal information) as well as have 5 letters of recommendation for
non-familiar sources. After all of that
was received, it would be sent to the committee for review. Once they review it, they will let us know if
we were approved to continue in the process.
If we were approved to continue, we would then need to complete several
background checks as well as a home study.
This would be sent back to the committee for final approval.
Chris and I were so excited that we went home we sent an email
to 10 of our friends (this is a big shout out to those of you that helped us
with this!) with the referral letter and asked them to please complete it
within the next week. We figured that even
if half of the people we asked did it, we’d have them all turned in within the
week. Then we stayed up until almost 2
AM getting the whole application filled out.
The next day Chris walked our completed application into Natalie's office (our contact). A week after that, we got this email back:
“I do have all your letters. Amazing!I will send your application to the committee and let you know when I hear something.”
Then we waited… I
emailed Natalie at least 3 times wanting an update. Of course she couldn't give me one. But when I opened my email on May 29th,
I found this letter...
We were thrilled and couldn't wait to keep the process going. Our next step was to call the social worker they contracted with to have a home study done. We were advised to wait a few days to call the social worker because they mailed him our letter and it would take him a few days to get our information. We set our appointment for our home study at his earliest availability which was June 11. (That also happens to be my mother-in-law’s birthday as well as my sisters J) The home study process could have been a whole other blog post. It was stressful and I was sick. Nonetheless we survived it. We even survived the pages and pages of difficult to answer questions about our childhood, adult relationships, and what our faults would have as parents.
We sent everything to the social worker (along with some
background checks we had to have completed) and received word from him on July
6th that everything had been submitted everything to our contact. I emailed Natalie a week later to see if she
had received it and I got this email:
"I am out of the office and will return July 29th. If urgent, please contact..."
I was VERY hopeful that she had turned everything in before she left for vacation but she hadn't. I heard from her on August 2nd letting me know she had received the home study report and that she had sent everything to the committee. I was grateful it was finally being reviewed but we had been hoping to start IVF in September. With how long the committee had taken to review our preliminary approval, I was doubtful that we'd be able to start that quick. So I settled into my 'I'm not going to be hopeful about this' attitude.
Two days ago we received this letter…
I am happy to announce that we will be starting IVF next
month!
Love,
Shanda
