About This Site

Who We Are

We are the Finlay’s.

Andrew is a high school teacher and Evalee is a stay at home mom for their wonderful two year old daughter Maggie, and also works part time as a barista.

We are regular volunteers for the YMCA with their program to help women and children from second stage shelters, as well as for both the Calgary and Canmore folk festivals.

We have both had involvement with children for most of our lives, be it through working as a camp councillor or volunteering for children’s events. Together we have always hoped to have several children of our own.

Our Story

We met in September of 2007 and were married August 15th 2008. We decided right away that we wanted to start a family and when Maggie came along shortly after we were married it felt as if our prayers had been answered and that having a family would be easy. 

Not long after Maggie’s first birthday we discovered we were once again pregnant. This pregnancy however was not meant to be and at 16 weeks gestation we lost our little boy.  This was devastating.

Several months later we decided to try again only to find that this time it wasn’t as easy as it was before. We soon came to find out that because Evalee is a Fragile X carrier, she was now starting to go into Premature Ovarian Failure, sometimes known as premature menopause. So at 31, she was being told that she might not have much time left to have children.  Yet another devastating blow.  To top it off, it was discovered that we have male factor infertility as well. 

After several failed IUI (Intrauterine insemination) cycles it is thought that IVF (in vitro fertilization) with PGD (Pre implantation genetic diagnosis) might be the only option left for us, and we desperately want Maggie to have a sibling.

 We recently had a friend who needed to raise $50,000 for An experience of a lifetime on Class Afloat. She had this crazy idea to ask for help and created a website. That has inspired us to give it a try as well.

Why We Need Your Generous Donations

Because of the recent surprise diagnosis of Evalee going into Premature Ovarian Failure at the age of 31, we don’t have a lot of time. Unlike most couples that are able to set a goal to save the money to do a procedure like IVF in a year or two, we only have a few months to raise the funds. If we were to wait much longer than that our dreams of having another child with Evalee’s eggs would be gone.

An IVF with PGD costs up to $23 000 including the drug costs and based on statistics from The Regional Fertility Program of Calgary, this gives you an average of 54.7% chance of pregnancy. If it doesn’t work, you need to try again. This enormous cost is not covered by Alberta Health or either of our health plans. Add in the fact that we recently bought a home (and the accompanying mortgage payments) and we do not have the equity to get a loan for the procedure. There is a charitable organization through the fertility clinic that helps couples fund this procedure. We are not extremely hopeful as we feel that with already having one child we are not primary candidates.  

This leaves us with the need to raise the $23,000 in three months. While we have loving and supportive families, they do not have that kind of money. This is where you come in…