Latest update as of Mar 08, 2025

  • Life Lately - an update

    Quick journey update: Thanks Lillian Moy for pushing me to do this again. I’m doubling this post as an update to where we have been since last September’s conference:

    We sent in our application to MHB - Men Having Babies in November, quick close to the deadline and since then have had a psych evaluation in January for the application. we honestly didn’t know what to expect since we both have never been formally evaluated by a psychologist. We were expecting that it would be quite an intimidating experience, but in reality it was quite cut and dry. We have both watched enough TV shows to be paranoid and not really know what to expect 🤣. It felt very much like a confirmation of our application, questions that essentially were verbally confirmed that can be evaluated that a text application can not psychologically confirm.

    In early February we had a follow up interview with Mandie, the coordinator between the members/applicants and the applicant reviewers. This was more an informal conversation about everything related to the application on top of questions to clarify certain details. WAY less intimidating than a formal paycheck evaluation.

    This application is now undergoing review (or about to) and will have rankings of all applicants by Mid summer and awarding partnerships with organizations that will offer pro-bono services.

    In tandem we’re pursuing a fertility grant that would also help us get to where we need to go (submission is due today March 7th and we submitted last weekend, see the trend? 🤣) this grant application is potentially less likely a winner and we can only apply twice in total ever.

    In the meantime we’re still saving as aggressively as possible, with the rise in inflation and some costs that seem to just pop up (own a home they say!) we’re poking the community to continue to ask for help to give us a chance of starting sooner. We’re getting there, we know it, this year will be the year and we can feel it.

    Thanks in advance

    Jay + Erik

    Life Lately - an update

About this fundraiser

We have chosen to build our family through Surrogacy and are at the beginning of our journey.

We have been planning and saving for the surrogacy process since 2018. We have reached the point where we are in need of help to bridge the gap between our savings and loans. We are currently 35 and 43 as of 2024, and we worry that we won’t get to enjoy to the fullest that raising a child has to offer if we wait any longer.

We have been discussing the idea of children even before we got married, hoping one day we would welcome a child into our lives. Upon the passing of Jay's mom, that desire to welcome a child grew even stronger. The idea of reincarnation and the passing of genetic memory through Jay, gives the hope that Jay's mom could have a better life than the one she was given and then taken away too soon.

We have so much love to give and a great family support system. Our bond with our nieces and nephews only furthers our hopes of one day showering our own child with that same love. The phrase “It takes a village” is embodied by both of our families and we know that they will be there with us every step of the way should we achieve our greatest dream of parenthood.

We have been encouraged by our friends and family who so dearly want to support our journey in having a family of our own, and we couldn’t love them more for wanting this as much as we do. We have created this crowd funding avenue so that our loved ones can support us in our journey.

We are going through New York State Surrogacy Center to help us select the best Surrogate for our journey, and going through CNY Fertility Clinic to help us in our Embryo Creation and Egg Donor process. The process itself is an active, thoughtful and, at times, trying process in the creation of our family.

We deeply appreciate your support and can’t wait for you meet our baby.

Fundraising team

Jay + Erik

Averill Park, NY, USA

Organizer

Erik Ross

Team member