After facing unbelievable heartache and grief in the wake of losing her fiancé, a woman intends to keep his memory alive by having a child with her late partner posthumously, via in-vitro fertilization. Reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, was killed last month while covering a shooting in Orange County, Florida. Lyons' fiancé, Casey Fite, 26, lost her loved one but not her hope for a family.
After Lyons' death, Fite contacted an Orlando-based urologist who could perform a postmortem sperm retrieval, according to Good Morning America. Fite hopes the procedure was successful and that, with a bit of help from science, she and Lyons will still be able to create the family that they dreamed of.
Lyons was gunned down in a series of deadly shootings last month.
Lyons, a Spectrum 13 news reporter, and photojournalist Jesse Walden, 29, were covering a shooting from earlier in the day when they were shot near their car about 4 p.m. February 23. Lyons died and Walden was injured, Good Morning America reported last month. After shooting the men, the suspect allegedly shot and killed a 9-year-old girl, T'yonna Major, and shot and injured the girl's mother.
These shootings occurred just hours after 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin was shot and killed in a car earlier that morning. Keith Melvin Morris, 19, was later identified as a suspect and charged in the shootings.
Lyons and Fite met while working at a television station.
According to Good Morning America, the couple met in 2020 while Fite was a producer and Lyons a reporter at a Gainesville TV station. The pair, who got engaged in November 2022, planned a life together in Orlando and hoped to have at least two children.
"All we did was talk about getting married and having kids," Fite said, adding they had picked out the names Alexa and Elliott for their kids because Lyons wanted to include the initials of his grandparents, A and E. "He always said he wanted [kids] now … this was something him and I talked about constantly."
Lyons' mother was the brainchild behind the sperm retrieval.
Fite explained that she and her future mother-in-law, Beth Lyons, were grieving the loss of their son and fiancé the night he died. Beth Lyons suggested that the two could still have a family. Dylan Lyons, who was one of three children, wanted to be a family man.
"That's all Dylan talked about. Their love was inseparable," Beth Lyons told Good Morning America. "For Casey to pass on his legacy would be just beautiful because they were just two beautiful souls made for each other."
According to his family, Dylan Lyons was a doting uncle and a father figure to his nieces and nephews.
Postmortem sperm retrieval isn't a common practice.
The morning news show, citing a report from the Journal of Fertility and Sterility, reported that the first of this type of sperm retrieval occurred in 1980. The best chance to retrieve healthy and viable sperm is 24 to 36 hours after death. Medical professionals freeze the sperm until the partner of the deceased plans to become pregnant.
Fite isn't ready to attempt IVF quite yet.
Fite explained that she is still deep in the grieving process and does not plan to become pregnant any time soon. She told Good Morning America that she does not believe she is in an emotional or physical state to carry a healthy pregnancy at the moment.
"I know I only have so many chances and I just feel like if I were to do it right now there would be too much stress on it, and I would end up miscarrying, and that's not something I want," Fite said. "Nobody wants [a miscarriage], but it's not like he's here and we can keep trying, so I have to be smart about it."
She has established a GoFundMe account to help offset the high costs of her IVF procedures.
Fite plans to be a single mom.
At this point, Fite says she can't imagine finding another soulmate she will love the way she loved Lyons. Because of that, she intends to raise their child on her own.
"That's the type of love we shared, and we didn't believe that there's anyone else out there for us," she explained. "I have a very supportive family who will help me raise this child."
She and his family hope their baby will inherit his "heart of gold" and good looks.
