LOCAL Houston | The City Guide APRIL 2016 | Page 54

family
PERSONAL ASPIRATIONS
By Beth Levine

For many the road to having a baby is a difficult one. It was for T.J. Farnsworth and his
wife Margaret. A self-made entrepreneur with a background in oncology centers, T.J. was
no stranger to the business side of medicine, but still found himself unprepared for the impersonal world of fertility, a world both he and his wife felt should be purely personal. In speaking with
T.J. and Margaret, their deep emotional connection to one another is palpable. This is a couple
deeply in love, whose journey to having children (they have two beautiful children now) forged
them together in a commitment, to not just change the fertility experience for other couples, but
to change the fertility world itself.
Margaret and T.J. ended up getting pregnant on their honeymoon, but, eight weeks into their
pregnancy during a routine ultrasound check-up, were given the devastating news their baby had
no heartbeat. They continued to try on their own for two years before making the decision to
commit to IVF, and again were met with heartbreak. Listening to T.J. and Margaret is an emotional experience, T.J. taking the strong line to comfort his wife, while Margaret takes deep
breaths sharing intimately personal details in the hopes that her story will help others not just
live, but flourish through their shared experiences. An experience that is common, yet somehow
not discussed openly, as fertility issues are a hard subject, one of intense pain and sometimes
even shame that can end up leaving a couple feeling isolated and alone. This is why T.J. and
Margaret started Aspire Fertility (www.aspirefertility.com)...so that couples would know they
are not alone in this struggle, and that this time...it will be different.
How is Aspire different? After an IVF cycle, Margaret and T.J. underwent further testing to reveal
a chromosomal abnormality that might have caused their difficulty, and were offered PreImplantation Genetic Diagnostics (PGD) to identify more viable embryos moving forward...resulting in their baby boy Wyatt. While their story is a success, Margaret and T.J. found themselves
faced with many questions and frustrations.
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• Had they known about the PGD testing before hand or any other testing
for that matter, they would have done it
• Frantic calls to get prescriptions filled over technicalities, which would have
defaulted the whole process.
• Devastating news being met with ambivalence.
• The lack of counseling (both emotionally and financially) to couples; the
essential importance of a support system and being hopeful.
• Anxiety and despair caused by lack of communication between the IVF
centers and their OBGYNs.
• Being able to actually see the lab and spe Z