Our crowdfunding campaign has picked up some steam after a couple of network television interviews about the project with our producer C.S. John.

If you want to help the project move forward, here is the link to our campaign.  It has a little over two weeks left before it shuts down.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/on-infertile-ground–5/x/425000

To view one of the recent television interviews with C.S. John, go to the follower link:

(there is a false start to the recording, so you have to go to about 1:10 in the video for the story to start)

http://globalnews.ca/video/571769/fertility-treatments

We have a nice poem that our Producer wrote about his infertility experiences… it was featured in an Expressions of Infertility art competition recently.

"Too Brittle for Hope"

Once I was a teacup

Hope of new life steeped within me,

Warm and homey.

Shiny porcelain, painted bright.

Partying amidst the cups and saucers

Of a set, out in the world.

When did I put myself away

In the back of the hutch,

Out of sight.

Disappointment riddling me,

With a million tiny fractures.

Jagged edged and leaking.

An empty vessel stained by loss

Too brittle for hope,

The heady, steaming brew of life,

Has long since drained away.

One more tiny blow and I shatter.

Never again whole.

-  C.S. John

http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf16243

It was a full four page story titled "Thirty-Seven and Counting".  Click on the image below to go to the story.  As a bit of advice, don't go read the comments… as always the internet trolls have written ignorant uninformed things regarding the topic.

On the bad news side, our crowdfunding campaign has met with limited success and we are working hard to come up with additional funding to complete the filming.  Lots of great emails and comments from folks who enjoyed watching our short trailer video and lots of folks saying that they can't wait to see the final product… but only a handful aside from friends and family who went the extra step of donating a few dollars to help the effort move along.  

If you are a blogger, or are interested in helping to spread the word through your own social media channels… it would be greatly appreciated.  The link to give folks is http://oninfertileground.com/video/  By clicking on the "trailer" link from that page you go to our IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign where people can make donations of as little as $1.

We are confident that eventually we can raise the money and complete the film, it just may take significantly longer to do so than originally anticipated.  We had hoped for about 10% of our budget to come from crowdfunding, with so many people affected even a few dollars from a tiny fraction of folks would have reached our goal.

The Ottawa Fertility Centre has created a great event and competition called "Expressions of Infertility", and they are soliciting entries of artwork from those dealing with our issues.

If you are a poet, painter, or photographer and want to express yourself… the deadline is approaching fast!

For more details go to their webpage:

http://www.expressionsofinfertility.com/

IVF Cube was thoroughly professional and treated our subject couple very well.  We will hold back the results of their treatment for you to see in the film, but it was documented very well and we had great access to the entire facility and laboratory.

We have posted some behind the scenes photos on our Facebook page:

PHOTOS

We will be going to Prague in the Czech Republic to follow a couple undergoing a donor egg IVF procedure.  In Canada egg donation is very rare due to legislative restrictions (sperm donation is OK…. go figure), so many couples head out of the country for their procedures.

We have connected with a great Czech crew, and all the pieces seem to be falling into place to complete the segment.  One thing we have certainly discovered is that Prague is going to be a stunning place to shoot in!

We will share the links to our Czech crew once we have permission from them to do so.  

A huge thanks to IVF CUBE clinic in Prague who is not only permitting us to film in their location, they are also doing the procedure for free for our subject couple.  We very much appreciate their support and their desire to see a project very close to their hearts be completed and seen by audiences around the world.

We are very pleased to announce that Ferring Canada has provided generous support to our project.  It is largely through their efforts and support that we were able to complete our trailer video and the first phase of filming of our project.

Well, after a lot of planning, begging, and logistics… our trailer video is finally ready!

http://www.indiegogo.com/infertileground

As always, there are things that can have gone better and new ideas that crop up for improvement… but overall it has been fairly well received.

The week leading up to releasing it was fraught with panic.  I have been involved in a lot of film and other projects, but this is the first time in a LONG time that it has been my own creative vision.  I had forgotten how truly terrifying it is to put something you created out there for the world to see and judge.  It is certain that not everyone will be happy, and that some people will be downright mean… you feel very exposed to the world, so you have to try to prepare yourself for those responses.

It is especially difficult in this case because it is a serious subject that I have a very personal and intimate attachment to.  It feels like a part of my soul is out there, even if I am not onscreen like the brave folks who volunteered to help us out by telling their stories.

I wanted to share some of the background of filming this video, as we consider others in the infertility community as partners in this endeavour.

The baby shown in the video was born through IVF… actually we had two babies on set that day and they were both IVF babies.

All of the people onscreen and many of the crew have been touched personally by infertility.  The medical staff at Genesis Fertility clinic (where we filmed part of the video) have made helping others create families into their life’s work.  It was humbling to interview them (there are several more interviews that will be in the full feature), and seeing how dedicated they were to their profession and helping others.

We filmed another segment at our own house.  While I was out organizing and filming for a day, my wife was at home decorating a room as a nursery to act as a “set” for the opening scene.  When I got home, I walked into the room and immediately started crying uncontrollably.  It looked so real and homey, and it was like I had walked into my dreams of how I wanted my life to be… like if I walked back out to the living room, my wife would be there playing with our baby.  Still being unsuccessful after so many years of trying to start a family, and knowing that we may never get to have that nursery for real was simply too much for my exhausted state to handle.

I sat there in our pretend nursery for a long time, asking myself if I could really do this project.  I have been reasonably resilient throughout our ordeal, but at that moment I felt brittle and fragile… like one little tap on my shoulder, or if I even breathed too deeply, I would shatter me into a million pieces that could never be put together.  Our own pain is still so raw and open, in that moment, surrounding myself with “all things infertility” for the next two years seemed an impossible task.

The actual filming day at our house involved a lot of tears and I managed to largely escape into the work of filming.  I am happy with the end result, but I know that moment in the ‘nursery’ is going to stay with me for a long time.

We have been feverishly working away on ACTUALLY FILMING!  After several months of planning and the boring business typed stuff, it was time to get behind a camera and get things rolling.

Our first few filming days were just amazing… we got actual procedures (like an embryo transfer), some interviews, and some other footage.  It is amazing to hear these people tell their stories, and really energizes us to keep going on the project.

We should have a short teaser/trailer video ready before Canadian Infertility Awareness Week, which starts May 20th.  It will be posted in our video section, so keep an eye out.