Ashley and Sean Hammond's Long Road to Baby H

Ashley and Sean Hammond married on June 10, 2017. Three months into newlywed life, they were handed a different plan than the one they had imagined: a ruptured tumor at the base of Sean's spine, emergency surgery, and a diagnosis of Ewing Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer. Eight years later, they are still holding onto the same hope they carried into that first year of marriage. They want to meet their baby.

A journey that started with hard choices

Before Sean began eight months of chemotherapy and radiation, his oncologist warned that treatment could cause infertility. They froze sperm samples. It was a quiet, practical act of faith in a future they could not yet see.

By April 2018, treatment was complete and everything looked great. On their doctors' advice, they waited a year before trying to conceive. When months passed without a pregnancy, Ashley feared the warning had come true. A referral to a fertility specialist confirmed it: Sean's analysis came back with zero sperm.

Then 2020 arrived, and like so many families, they lost a year to the pandemic. Ashley's own fertility workup began in August 2021 and uncovered uterine polyps, which required surgery before any treatment could begin. Two IUIs followed. Both failed.

Four embryos, two transfers, and a needed pause

In July 2022, after finally reaching a point where they could afford it, they began IVF. Ashley's retrieval produced 10 eggs and 4 embryos. The first transfer in August did not take. The second transfer in November, using their last two embryos, ended in a chemical pregnancy that Ashley describes as even more heartbreaking.

They stopped. They traveled. They spent time together, something cancer treatment, recovery, and back to back fertility procedures had never left room for. When they were ready, they chose a new path forward: IUI with donor sperm. In February 2025, Ashley got pregnant. That joy, too, ended quickly in another chemical pregnancy.

Most recently, Sean has had to go through chemotherapy and radiation again. He is doing well and nearing the end of his treatments, and the couple is beginning to plan for fertility treatment once more.

Why the cost lands so hard

Family building outside the typical path is expensive, and the expense rarely arrives once. It arrives in rounds: a surgery, a cycle, a transfer, a pause, and then starting again. For families who have also carried the cost of serious illness, the math can feel impossible even when the hope does not. Ashley and Sean put it plainly in their own words: this is always such an unexpected expense.

That is where a community makes a difference. Many small gifts, given by people who simply believe this family deserves their shot, add up to a real step forward.

How you can help

Ashley and Sean are asking with real humility. They acknowledge that people carry burdens of their own, and they have said that if giving is not possible right now, sharing their story matters too.

Please take a moment to read their fundraiser in their own words and chip in whatever you can. Every contribution, no matter the size, moves them closer to baby Hammond.