“It was a huge relief to know that there’s this resource for interfaith families.”
—Hilary & Kyle, Priya family

Hilary and Kyle found JFS and Priya, a resource for Jewish individuals and families who are struggling on their path to parenthood, during one of the hardest moments of their lives.  

Their story may sound like others you’ve heard: They met, fell in love, got married, and wanted to start a family. After a year of trying to conceive, Hilary became pregnant, and they were overjoyed. But that’s when their story starts to go down a different path.  

“We learned that our baby had an incredibly rare chromosomal micro-deletion. We consulted with genetic specialists and read every journal article we could find – everything indicated our baby would have a very difficult life, with multiple medical conditions and intellectual deficits,” Hilary said. “We decided to terminate the pregnancy. It was devastating. On top of that, we found out through testing that each of our future pregnancies would have a 50% chance of inheriting that mutation.”   

Despite their pain, Hilary and Kyle knew they weren’t ready to give up on growing their family. They were worried about another unsuccessful pregnancy and researched alternative options. That’s when they learned about Priya. Housed at JFS and run by program director Molly Hess, Priya became a support system for Hilary and Kyle that they couldn’t find elsewhere.  

“If feels like you’re not supposed to talk about infertility openly; our friends didn’t know how to respond. Knowing that there are resources like JFS and Priya that can offer you support and connections – just learning about them can be rewarding and uplifting. It makes such a big difference to know you’re not alone.” Kyle said.  

Through Priya, Hilary and Kyle found financial support, education, and acceptance with Molly. Together they investigated ways to build their family and have found a new path forward. They’ve recently received donated embryos, with the embryo transfer funded in part by Priya, and are ready to try again.  

“Our health insurance doesn’t provide infertility coverage, so having someone there with financial support is huge,” Kyle said. “People who haven’t gone through this before don’t understand that in addition to the emotional toll, there is a crazy, draining financial side of things.”   

Each year Priya provides emotional support, resource connection, spiritual guidance, and financial assistance with fertility treatments and/or adoption to local Jewish individuals looking to grow their family. In 2022, the JFS program supported the births of seven babies and provided six local families with financial assistance totaling more than $15,000. The service is there for anyone who identifies as Jewish, though the part of their work to provide emotional support and break the stigma of infertility extends to anyone, regardless of religion or faith.  

“I was a little hesitant reaching out to Priya because Kyle isn’t Jewish. But after talking to Molly, I felt like it was the best decision for us.” She told us, ‘Whatever Judaism looks like to you – synagogue every week or just celebrating Hanukkah – that’s what we want for your child.’ That was a huge relief, to know that there’s this resource for interfaith families and that JFS’s philosophy was just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll support you,” Hilary said.  

Priya is just one of the many services JFS offers that serve our community. For over 120 years, our programs have supported thousands of our Kansas City neighbors, regardless of faith, age, culture, or identity. But we couldn’t do this without the generous support of people like you.  

Will you help people like Hilary and Kyle, as well as the over 10,000 individuals who JFS supports each year? Your donation today means we can serve even more of our community tomorrow 

Your contribution right now means we can continue to serve our neighbors with infertility support as well as fresh food and financial assistance, mental health services, emotional and spiritual support, and connections through community events. Thank you for your continued trust in JFS, and for being part of our community working to ‘repair our world, one person, one family at a time.’