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[[link removed]]Hello,

Over the last few months, my wife Amy and I have been on the most incredible roller coaster ride. We’ve been all over the state of Maine, holding well over 30 town halls and meeting countless Mainers ready to defeat Susan Collins.

But in the background, we’ve also been working on something else. Something we’ve been trying to do for a couple of years. And that is to start a family.

And so, I am actually writing you right now from Norway (the country, not the wonderful town in Maine) because we are undergoing IVF treatment.

After becoming serious about trying to become pregnant and have a child, we went through five rounds of IUI, the typical first step when trying to intervene with infertility.

Each month, we would go into the doctor’s, Amy would take the hormones, go through the IUI procedure, and we would come home hopeful, nervous, and excited. But IUI was not successful for us.

And so, at our age, the next big leap was IVF. We researched and talked to our doctors, our family, and our friends, and we pretty quickly realized just how expensive IVF was going to be…

We were told it would cost $25,000 for just the first attempt here in New England.

We tried going through the VA, where I get all of my medical care as a disabled combat veteran. But because they determined the infertility was not something with just my body, they wouldn’t cover it. (Something, which, by the way, we’re going to need to talk about when I get to the U.S. Senate, because it actually does take two people to make a baby…)

We talked to Amy’s doctor, and when she told us that she had patients who had gone to Norway – that we could get a first round of IVF for just $5,500 – we jumped at the opportunity. Even accounting for plane tickets, it didn’t even come close to the astronomical cost here in the United States.

And the whole process with the Norwegian clinic has been astounding. Just to give you an idea: When we were looking at doing IVF here in New England, we had to pay a $500 non-refundable fee to schedule a 15-minute Zoom call six months in the future for our intake exam. When Amy emailed the clinic in Norway on a Monday, we had an hour-long intake that same Thursday. And when we asked how much we owed them, the surgeon looked at us genuinely puzzled: “Why would you pay us for this?”

Amy and I realize that this isn’t a topic many people typically talk about publicly, let alone when you’re running for the U.S. Senate. But as I’ve watched the woman I love – the woman who I want to start a family with – go through this experience and as I’ve seen her strength despite how this impacts her… I just have so much respect for her and every woman who experiences infertility. And so Amy and I decided together that it was important that we talk publicly and transparently about where we are and what we’re going through.

Community is an incredibly integral part of our lives, and we hope that sharing our story might offer others some hope who are maybe going through a similar situation. Our story of infertility is just another example among many stories. We know we aren’t the only people struggling with this. And we don’t want anyone else to feel alone in it either.

We’ve been so lucky to have the support of so many people as we do this. Our families. Our friends. The medical team here in Norway. Our campaign staff and volunteers who are holding down the fort and continuing to build the movement while we do this.

But this journey has also been a reminder of just how flawed our healthcare system is in America. For Amy and me, this Senate campaign is a way of making sure that other people won’t have to go through the exact same things we’ve had to and navigate an insane system that puts profits before people. The concept of insurance companies not covering infertility treatment is exactly why we need universal health care.

And so Amy and I are in Norway for the next 10 days. But we’ll be back. And when we are, we are more ready than ever to get back into the fight for Medicare for All and an end to healthcare profiteering.

So many people come up to us on the campaign trail and open their hearts and lives by sharing their stories with us. Thank you for letting us share our story with you.

In solidarity,

Graham Platner

DONATE [[link removed]] Paid for by Graham for MaineGraham for Maine
PO Box 570
Ellsworth, ME 04605
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