Exciting Gorman News!

To close out 2020, we want to share some exciting Gorman news!

If you know me or my story, you may know that I was diagnosed with stage 3 ER/PR+ breast cancer in 2018. The news was shocking and devastating. And it came at a time when my husband, Matt, and I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to start our family. The diagnosis brought fear, anxiety, grief, and chaos to our lives, but most impactfully, the loss of so many hopes, dreams, and expectations.  We thought it also meant the loss of giving birth to a child of our own. You see, we had visited a fertility specialist just a few weeks prior who had given us promising options for IVF. Then, only 2 weeks before we were set to begin fertility treatments, I received my cancer diagnosis.What we didn’t know at the time, God was just setting us up for the greater story that He wanted to write! We made the choice to keep the IVF appointment two weeks later, feeling it was best to share our devastating news with the doctor in person. We expected to be met with sad condolences. Instead, we were offered hope when the doctor shared that his training had actually been at the Mayo clinic with young women diagnosed with cancer at an early age and wanted to do IVF to freeze their embryos and have a chance at a family later in life! As a result, prior to starting my cancer treatments, we were able to proceed with the first half of IVF and harvest 34 eggs. 8 of them became healthy, viable embryos (I’m already an octomom!)

Following IVF, we immediately turned our focus and attention to battling the Big “C”, as I underwent a double mastectomy, aggressive chemo, radiation, and several surgeries. While that was the darkest and most difficult 18 months of my entire life, I am excited to say that I am currently cancer-free! God worked incredible miracles during that time and He now is taking a season of pain and using it for His purpose. Matt and I have re-entered “normal” life and even more exciting, we have found ourselves dreaming about the future again. Healthy and back on our feet, we are ready to return to those frozen embryos that have been so patiently waiting for us to finish this fight.

But there’s a catch – my breast cancer was estrogen & progesterone positive, meaning those hormones are actually what causes my cancer to grow. Unfortunately, that means it is not safe for me to become pregnant. Doing so, along with the required IVF treatments, would release increased estrogen into my body, making way for a heightened risk of cancer returning and metastasizing. This is why we need to receive the help of a surrogate in order to bring our embryos into the world. We’ve spoken with an agency and they have shared that the minimum cost to expect is $75,000, assuming there are no surprises or issues along the way. Insert deer-in-the-headlights-eyes here!

As a result, Matt and I are committing ourselves to a season of prayer in this area, and we’d be humbled and honored if you would join us. I am convinced that one of the only reasons I was able to make it through cancer was because of the prayers from you, our friends and family, and we believe He can do it again! Here are our specific requests;

• We continue to seek His will and trust in His timing
• His provision for a surrogate
• His blessing and protection over that future surrogate and the positive influence we could have in her life
• His financial provision
• This story to be for His glory

Thank you for praying with us. Jesus is the WayMaker and we pray in faith that He will make a way! We can’t wait for the day when we can share with our future child their special story of life and just how many people were involved in bringing him or her into the world!