The Long Way There

A $10,000 fertility grant helped us move forward with embryo adoption—but we had just six months to use it, and the embryos weren’t legally ours yet.

In this episode of The Long Way There, we share how we went from grant applications and unexpected good news to our embryo transfer in Colorado. We talk about finding a clinic, coordinating care, navigating medication confusion, and preparing for transfer day—all while learning to hope againafter failed IVF.

We also share the moment during transfer that felt like a reminder of God’s presence, waiting for our pregnancy results together, and what it looked like to support each other through the physical and emotional weight of infertility.

In this episode:• Applying for fertility grants and telling your story• Receiving the $10,000 Hope for Fertility grant• Working within a six-month deadline• Choosing a clinic and coordinating outside monitoring• Preparing for our embryo transfer in Colorado• Faith, the two-week wait, and getting our pregnancy news• Staying connected as a couple through infertility

FERTILITY GRANTS WE APPLIED FOR

These are the grants we applied for during our journey, including the one we received. Check each organization’s website for current eligibility requirements, application dates, and fees.

• Hope for Fertility: the grant we received: https://www.hopeforfertility.org/grant/

HELP SHAPE OUR COUPLES CONVERSATION GUIDE

We’re working on a conversation guide to help couples connect through infertility and everyday life. We’d love to hear which questions, conversations, and kinds of support would be most helpful to you.

Take our couples questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKxrJpdxK3DFki83L0JQ3wduXTNiuUu0K81NA46jxxCfx7cQ/viewform?usp=header

This episode shares our personal experience with infertility, grants, and embryo adoption. We aren’t medical or financial professionals, and every family’s path is different.

If this episode resonates with you, follow The Long Way There, leave a rating or review, or share it with someone who could use a little hope.

Sometimes messy, always real. Let’s do it together.

Our therapist told us the amount of trauma we've faced in six years is enough for couples to get divorced. So how are we still here, and stronger for it?

In our 6th anniversary episode, Brady and I sit down for an honest conversation about what six years of marriage has taught us through infertility, two rounds of IVF, grief, career changes, and finally becoming parents. This is the six-year story through infertility, and what kept us choosing each other.

We talk about the season our marriage became transactional, how we learned to stop expecting each other to read minds, what therapy taught us about the anxiety cycle we kept getting stuck in, and the small daily habit that changed everything. We also share the lesson we keep coming back to: you have to be happy as an individual before you can pour happiness into your marriage.

3 things we wish we'd known sooner:

• Your spouse cannot read your mind. Say the thing.
• What helps you is not always what helps them. Learn their language.
• Ten intentional minutes a day will do more than one big conversation a month.

Whether you're in the middle of infertility, walking through grief, or just want a stronger marriage, we hope our story reminds you that hard seasons can grow you instead of breaking you.

Help me build something for your marriage. I'm creating a couples conversation guide and I want it to actually serve you. Tell me what you need here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKxrJpdxK3DFki83L0JQ3wduXTNiuUu0K81NA46jxxCfx7cQ/viewform?usp=header

After two unsuccessful IVF cycles, embryo adoption became an option we had barely considered. Brady felt ready to explore it. Sara wasn’t there yet.

In this episode of The Long Way There, we share how we learned about embryo adoption, decided whether to try IVF again, and found the donor family who helped us grow our family.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What embryo adoption meant for us after two unsuccessful IVF cycles

• Why Brady and Sara weren’t ready to choose that path at the same time

• Our questions about DNA, pregnancy, faith, and loving a child who wasn’t genetically ours

• Searching through a Facebook group and an agency, including a match where we weren’t chosen

• The message and phone call that connected us with our daughter’s donor family

• The legal, counseling, and clinic steps we hadn’t expected—and how we plan to share our daughter’s story with her

If you’re considering embryo adoption or trying to find a way forward after failed IVF, we hope our story helps you feel less alone.

💬 CONVERSATIONS WE WISH WE HAD

Infertility can bring up conversations you never expected to have as a couple, and sometimes you don’t realize what you needed to talk about until you’re already in the middle of it.

We’re working on something called Conversations We Wish We Had, and we want to make sure we create something that’s actually helpful for couples going through infertility.

If you’ve been through infertility, we’d love your input. Take our quick anonymous survey and help us build it:
👉 https://forms.gle/cQzeZXC74iue5W7z5

After our first IVF cycle ended in miscarriage, we knew we wanted to do things differently. That eventually led us to something we never expected, traveling to Barbados for IVF.

In this episode of The Long Way There, we share what it reallytook to pursue IVF abroad, what treatment looked like once we got there, and what happened when the cycle didn’t end the way we had hoped.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why we chose IVF abroad and how we found the Barbados clinic

• The cost of treatment, fundraising, and the logistics of making it happen
• Ordering IVF medications overseas and shipping sperm internationally

• Traveling with fertility medications and doing injections on the road
• The follicle count and egg retrieval results that left us discouraged
• Waiting for embryo updates while trying to stay hopeful
• The devastating phone call we received on the way home
• What it felt like to come home empty-handed and immediately return to normal life

If you’re considering IVF abroad, navigating diminished ovarian reserve, grieving a failed IVF cycle, or trying to figure out what comes next after treatment doesn’t go the way you hoped, we hope our story gives you a real look at what this road can feel like.

💬 HELP US CREATE SOMETHING FOR COUPLES: We’re creating a free Couples Conversations Guide for couples navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, and the hard seasons of building a family.
Take the anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/niJPRnC2MtfLGnUB9

Sometimes messy. Always real. Let’s do it together.

Resources:

https://www.discountivfmeds.com/

https://www.cryoport.com/

After years of infertility, we finally had our baby. But instead of bringing her home, we spent the next 28 days in the NICU.

In this episode of The Long Way There, we share our NICU journey as first-time parents: the guilt of leaving our baby at the hospital, recovering from a C-section while trying to be present, navigating NICU alarms and milestones, and learning how to feel like parents instead of visitors.

We also talk about the side of NICU life people don’t always see: what dads carry, the pressure of going back to work, setting boundaries with visitors, accepting help, advocating for your baby, and the complicated mix of grief and gratitude.

And after 28 days, we finally got to bring our baby home. But even that moment looked very different than we imagined.

If you’re a NICU parent, former NICU parent, or love someone walking through a NICU stay, we hope our story helps you feel seen and gives you a few things we wish we had known.

💬 HELP US CREATE SOMETHING FOR COUPLES:
We’re creating a free Couples Conversations Guide for couples navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, and the hard seasons of building a family.

Take the anonymous survey here:https://forms.gle/niJPRnC2MtfLGnUB9

Sometimes messy. Always real. Let’s do it together.

Trigger Warning: This episode includes conversations about miscarriage, pregnancy loss, bleeding, and D&C. Please listen when, or if, you feel ready.

In this episode, we share the story of losing Eden after ourfirst IVF pregnancy and the part we weren’t prepared for, grieving the same loss in completely different ways and almost losing each other in the process.

We talk about:

- Our first positive IVF pregnancy

- A scary subchorionic hemorrhage

- Hearing the words “there’s no heartbeat”

- Waiting to miscarry and eventually having a D&C

- How differently we grieved

- The strain miscarriage put on our marriage

- Couples counseling and finding our way back to each other

This is Eden’s story, and a very real look at what pregnancyloss can look like for a couple.

What conversations do you wish you and your partner hadduring infertility? Help shape our free Couples Conversations Guide: https://forms.gle/HvSckxwYgrRUPb6q6

We spent years imagining what it would be like to bring our child along on the adventures we already loved. This weekend, we finally got to do it and the reality included a LOT more stuff, very little sleep, and a 5 a.m. escape from the campground. 😂

In Episode 5 of The Long Way There, we’re talking about our first camping trip with Sedona and why this little overnight trip felt so full circle after infertility and loss.

We talk about the hiking trips that helped us through some of our hardest years, finally getting to bring Sedona along, camping while exclusively pumping, her first hiking trail, our absolutely disastrous night of sleep, and why we somehow booked another camping trip on the way home.

More than anything, this episode is about finally getting to live some of those ordinary moments we spent years hoping for.

💬 CONVERSATIONS WE WISH WE HAD

Infertility can bring up conversations you never expected to have as a couple, and sometimes you don’t realize what you needed to talk about until you’re already in the middle of it.

We’re working on something called Conversations We Wish We Had, and we want to make sure we create something that’s actually helpful for couples going through infertility.

If you’ve been through infertility, we’d love your input. Take our quick anonymous survey and help us build it:

👉 https://forms.gle/cQzeZXC74iue5W7z5

After five years of infertility, we finally have the life we prayed for—but gratitude doesn’t erase the exhaustion, fear, grief, or pressure that can come with becoming new parents.

In Episode 4 of The Long Way There, we step away from the timeline of our infertility journey and share what life looks like for us now as first-time parents raising our preemie daughter.

We talk honestly about returning to work, relying on daycare, overnight feedings, pumping, sleep deprivation, and the difficulty of missing precious time with her. We also share how concerns about the shape of her head led us to keep asking questions, seek additional measurements, and move forward with a corrective helmet.

We also explore the comparison and complicated emotions that can remain after infertility, how parenthood has affected our marriage and priorities, and why we’re learning that grace may matter more than achieving perfect balance.

In this episode:

• Life after infertility and IVF
• Raising a preemie baby and understanding adjusted age
• Returning to work and navigating daycare
• Overnight feedings, pumping, and sleep deprivation
• Advocating for your child when something feels wrong
• Our daughter’s flat spot and corrective helmet
• Comparison, lingering grief, and feeling behind
• Balancing parenthood, marriage, work, and personal needs
• Why five years of waiting felt longer than six months with her

If you are navigating infertility, life after IVF, premature birth, or the overwhelming transition into parenthood, we hope this conversation helps you feel supported and less alone.

What do you wish more people understood about parenthood after infertility?

Sometimes messy. Always real. Let’s do it together.

Follow our journey on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/faithfertilityus/

The experiences shared in this podcast are personal and are not intended as medical advice. Please speak with a qualified healthcare professional about your individual care.

What is a first IVF cycle really like? In this episode, we share our experience with IVF medications and injections, fertility monitoring, egg retrieval, embryo development, genetic results, and our first embryo transfer.

We discuss retrieving five eggs, ending with one embryo, and the questions we wish we had asked before beginning treatment. If you’re preparing for IVF, navigating infertility, or supporting someone through fertility treatment, this episode offers an honest, firsthand perspective.

This episode reflects our personal experience and is not medical advice.

Male infertility is often discussed through test results and treatment plans, but far less often through the guilt, judgment, and isolation men may carry behind them.

In Episode 2 of The Long Way There, Sara and Brady turn the focus to Brady’s side of their story. He shares how years of low testosterone symptoms led to a Kallmann syndrome diagnosis he continued to question, what happened when they learned his hormone treatment affected his fertility, and the emotional weight of believing their struggle to build a family was his fault. Together, they revisit difficult medication changes, the move toward IVF, and the strain infertility placed on both of them.

They also talk honestly about what meaningful support can look like: asking questions, showing up for appointments, sharing the practical load, staying connected as a couple, and reaching out when the journey feels lonely. For men facing male factor infertility, and for the partners who love them, this episode is a reminder that a diagnosis is not a personal failure and no one should have to carry it alone.

Sometimes messy. Always real. Let's do it together!