At the third annual Willow Gala in Brooklyn Monday night, Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodón and his wife, infertility advocate Ashley Rodón, celebrated a milestone close to their hearts.
The gala, held at Skylight at The Refinery in Williamsburg, raised more than $1 million for couples navigating the financial and emotional toll of infertility and pregnancy loss. The Rodóns’ efforts have now helped 57 families afford fertility treatments, with three babies born and 14 more on the way.
For them, the work is deeply personal.
The couple got married in their mid-20s and were excited to grow their family, but along the way, they experienced two miscarriages.
“It’s not talked about enough,” Carlos told The Post. “You don’t realize, especially at a young age, how many people struggled with infertility. You don’t understand how hard it is to make a child.”
Before they were set to start IVF in an effort to minimize their chance of another miscarriage, they learned Ashley was pregnant with their daughter, Willow.
They were overjoyed. But the experience had also exposed them to a side of trying to have a baby that they hadn’t anticipated: the grief, isolation and hopelessness that can come with infertility and pregnancy loss and the staggering cost of trying to overcome it.
A single cycle of fertility treatments in the US can cost as much as $30,000. And when insurance doesn’t cover it, IVF can be out of reach for families who can’t absorb that expense. Coverage for fertility services remains limited in both private insurance and Medicaid.
The Rodóns remembered how much their own journey had cost, from fertility care to holistic specialists. They began wondering how other couples who had been in their shoes could afford to even get started.
This questioning led the couple to launch the Carlos Rodón Foundation in 2024 and create the Willow Grant, named after their first child. The grants provide up to $10,000 to help pay for medical care, including IVF and other family-building costs.
But the Rodóns’ experience has also shaped how they think about what families need beyond a check. Ashley underscored that while every person’s struggle with infertility is unique, there is also a special “camaraderie” that comes with the journey.
The third Willow Grant baby, Cayson, is one who especially resonates with Ashley and Carlos because he was born to their friends, Taylor and Travis (no, not that Taylor and Travis). For several years, the couple went through ectopic pregnancies, failed IUIs and five failed rounds of IVF. With the help of the grant, the two were able to have their son.
They spoke openly about their journey at the gala, as did Kaila and Christian, the couple who welcomed the first Willow Grant baby, Stetson, and brought him to the event.
“Getting to meet him and see them, it just sparks the fire in our soul,” Ashley told The Post.
Currently, 34 Willow Grant families are in treatment.
For Ashley, seeing those families move through a process she knows firsthand has also made the limitations of the country’s fertility care system harder to ignore.
Working with families through the foundation has also opened Ashley’s eyes to how complicated and limited fertility insurance coverage can be. She hadn’t fully understood the barriers families face when trying to get fertility treatments covered.
Now, she said, the experience has made clear both where the foundation can help and where broader changes are needed.
“For some reason, we are still battling with insurance as an elective thing, and it’s not an elective thing to be struggling with infertility,” she told The Post. “There hasn’t really been a needle push, and that’s really what we want to see come about.”
And the financial strain isn’t the only burden the couple wants to address.
Infertility can take a toll on the mental health of both partners and increase the likelihood of divorce, according to a 2024 study. For many couples, the experience can also be profoundly isolating.
Carlos knows how easy it is to misunderstand that experience until you’re living it.
“You think it’s easy to make a baby because that’s what we’re taught,” said Carlos.
Now, Ashley wants people to think about reproductive health before they’re even forced to face a fertility problem and suggests incorporating the subject into health education and healthcare at an earlier age.
“Being proactive instead of reactive is really the key,” she said.
“The same way you take care of a lot of other parts of your body, your reproductive health is important if you want to be in control of your choices,” she said.
