Building Our Family, Piece by Piece

A puzzle fundraising idea for IVF families

By: Erica Ferraro

My husband and I embarked on our IVF journey with hopeful hearts, believing it would be a manageable process: an egg retrieval, embryo creation, and a transfer, all leading to the joyous news of pregnancy in just a few months. We felt fortunate to have some insurance coverage, and we knew we were not alone in our dreams of building a family.

To take our first step, I underwent a necessary endometriosis laparoscopy surgery. Though a year has passed, we haven’t yet received the news we long for, but we remain positive and resilient. Along the way, we faced significant financial challenges, depleting our family savings and taking on a loan for donor eggs.

To raise additional funds, my husband and I decided to take up part-time jobs coaching youth sports teams. We also bravely reached out to our community for support, knowing that there were others who genuinely cared about our journey. We came up with a heartwarming idea to fundraise for our IVF through selling puzzle pieces that would eventually form a beautiful artwork for our future baby’s nursery.

Using the Canva app, I created a post to share our fundraiser on social media. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with friends and family showing immense support. We carefully kept track of each generous contribution on an Excel spreadsheet, cherishing every name and the number of puzzle pieces they bought.

The love and support we received were truly humbling, teaching us that it’s okay to ask for help when going through such a challenging medical condition. The puzzle fundraiser turned out to be a beautiful success, with around 500 pieces sold over four months, greatly easing the burden of our donor egg loan.

With the funds raised, we used Canva.com again to find a blank 500-piece puzzle image and typed the corresponding names over the pieces. We printed and framed the puzzle poster through their site. You could also order a blank puzzle, write names on the back of the pieces, use puzzle glue to stick them together as one image and frame it yourself. The Canva idea worked best for us, as putting together a 500-piece puzzle was cumbersome and time-consuming. But this could be a fun activity if you and your partner like to put puzzles together!

Our puzzle now hangs, framed, in our miracle baby’s nursery and was proudly displayed at our baby shower. Throughout this journey, we were amazed that many other IVF warriors also generously supported us. We marked their contributions with a pineapple icon next to their name to acknowledge their own battles. It truly reflects the profound bond among those in the IVF community—a club of resilience and compassion.