They didn’t “win” by forcing the plan; they found their family by refusing to quit, staying open, and letting love choose the route. People say a village raises a child; for Matt and Sandy, a whole town was needed just to reach the starting line. They’d talked about adoption from the start, but money was tight, so they first tried to have a baby on their own. After a year and a half of tracking and hoping, they went to the doctor. Tests piled up bloodwork, scans, semen analysis, HSGs, and then came an exploratory surgery. The doctor found endometriosis “everywhere,” even outside the ovaries. Sandy woke to the news, saw Matt, and cried, convinced they would never be parents.
They kept pushing. Another HSG sent Sandy into a grand mal seizure. The next idea was to cut out scar tissue and reattach her tubes, but the doctor said the odds were in the single digits. At 32, they were exhausted, spending more than they made, and slipping into silence. They poured love into Matt’s daughter on their weekends together, while Sandy quietly grieved the thing she felt she couldn’t give her husband. Their relationship rode a roller coaster of anger, hope, and guilt.
As friends announced pregnancies, their families stopped sharing baby news to spare them. Then Sandy’s sister called, weeping, pregnant at 43 without trying. That apology shook Sandy awake. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. Life is complicated and messy and rarely goes to plan. She and Matt took a breath and chose a new path: IVF.
Insurance didn’t cover it. So they both changed jobs to get benefits that would. The 90-day wait dragged on while Sandy edged toward 35 and the label of “geriatric pregnancy.” Once covered, they picked a clinic. The first visit was brisk and cold; the doctor breezed in, gave instructions, and left them with a stack of prescriptions. They learned injections in a night class, then paid nearly $7,000 for meds.
They were up at 5 a.m. for ten days, racing up clinic stairs to land a spot, squeezing in blood draws and ultrasounds before work. Sandy’s belly bruised and swelled. Trigger shot. Retrieval day. She warned the anesthesiologist she gets violently nauseous; he promised anti-nausea meds. She still woke to a wave of sickness and another seizure, with Matt watching, helpless.
Then came the worst part: waiting for embryo calls as the numbers shrank. Because of their ages, they paid another $5,000 for genetic testing. Three embryos made it to testing. All three came back non-viable. The doctor said she was sorry and told them to reach out when they were ready for another round: no counseling, no plan, just a goodbye. Sandy called Matt, then her mom, sobbing that they would never have a baby.
By then, they had spent over $40,000 out of pocket over the year, even with insurance. Stress spiked; Sandy had a third seizure, this time on a plane to Dallas. Soon after, she was laid off. They stopped talking about babies and started rebuilding themselves. Sandy took on a new challenge: a bodybuilding competition. It took a year to lose the IVF weight and find her strength again. She met goals she’d once feared, and they made friends who cheered them on. Life felt good, still missing one piece, but steadier.
In 2019, a job move pulled them out of New Jersey. Six months later, COVID-19 locked everything down and, for the first time, they slowed. They started an adoption home study. Six months to approval. Another six months of waiting. One match fell through. On a morning, they went for fingerprint renewals but forgot all their IDs. Sandy broke down and said she was done. That afternoon, a case landed in their inbox. They read it together. Matt had a good feeling. They said yes.
Hours later, their social worker called: they’d been chosen. The expectant mom in Arizona was in labor: panic and happy tears. By Monday, they were on a plane. What happened next is her story more than theirs, but they can say this: she welcomed them into her home, and they witnessed a peaceful home birth. They became parents to a beautiful baby boy and gained an extended family they still love. Open adoption changed everything. Now they’re hoping to adopt a sibling for their son.
Their path was never straight. It was expensive, scary, and full of stops and starts. But it led them exactly where they were meant to go: to a child, a broader family, and a bigger kind of love than they imagined.
