Courtney & Mark
Hi, my name is Courtney and my husband’s name is Mark. Our story about how we struggled to become a family of five is lengthy. It is full of triumph and heart break, but mostly love. Mark and I were married in 2009 and very shortly after decided we were ready to start our family. It took us a full year to get pregnant the first time, but with no intervention we gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Peyton in July of 2011. After that we thought our journey to grow our family would be easy, but boy were we wrong! Mark and I struggled for many years after attempting to conceive a second child. We tried medications, surgeries and every natural method available before we turned to IVF in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our first round of IVF was exciting. We had so much hope, however out of 23 eggs retrieved, we were left with just one embryo that didn’t even survive until transfer day. To say we were broken is an understatement. We felt like giving up and moving on with our family of three, but deep down I knew I could never let go. I couldn’t allow my son to grow up without a sibling. We needed to fight. Shortly after our failed cycle we decided to go back for a second round of IVF, which yet again failed. It seemed my eggs were defective and we would not be able to have any more children. We spent time grieving this loss and trying to accept that our fate was to be a family of three. It was a painful and dark chapter in my life. Thankfully, a doctor approached us to discuss a donor embryo program in the Czech Republic. We were so excited at the chance to continue this battle and to hopefully give our son a sibling. We contacted Gennet right away and were extremely impressed by their programming and staff. After we had researched and spoken with The doctors from Gennet the decision was made, we were going to Prague! In May of 2015 we flew there to begin our next attempt to grow our family. We were greeted by so many kind faces and absolutely cherished our time in Prague! We stayed for 5 days and when we returned home we found out we were finally pregnant! We were so excited! Two amazing donors gave us an opportunity to become parents for the second time and we will forever be grateful! In December of 2016 our beautiful little Harper came into our world so full of fire and love. She has brought so much love and sparkle to our lives. When Harper turned two we decided we really wanted to go back to Prague again to try for a third child, so off we went for a second round! We ran into some complications this time but decided to go back a third time which we were successful with. In August of 2020 our precious little Lennon completed our family. She is our calm and beautiful little soul! She is the most easy-going loveable baby I know and she has made our family whole! No words could ever explain how grateful we are for the donors who chose to give a part of who they are to complete our world, these two little girls and their amazing big brother are our everything. We could not be happier about the journey we walked, the paths we’ve crossed, and the tears and fight we’ve put forward to get to the most amazing end we could have imagined! So to our four donors who stepped up and donated, thank you! From the bottom of our souls, thank you! And to anyone else who has donated, we thank you! Without you we would never be whole, we would have never been complete.
Courtney & Mark
