Life is Fragile, Life is Precious

Life is Fragile, Life is Precious

 

Jon and I are beyond thrilled to announce we are pregnant with one beautiful, healthy baby!

We are due August 4th, 2017. 

 

I think that I am still in shock that this is happening.  Many of you have been with us since the beginning, when we found out we would not be able to have children of our own.  It devastated us.  Crushed us.  Caused us to go through a grieving process that at times did not seem to have an end.  It has been a long 6 years of us going on our journey to become parents. We tried for 1 year. Went to doctors, had multiple tests, and I even had a surgery.  And ultimately found out that Jon was not able to have children. We grieved for years.  Not sure what we wanted to do.  We pulled away from being involved in church, spending time with friends and family, and spent many nights in, away from the world. 

 

But, though we struggled, the tug to become parents did not release.  We wanted our chance. We needed to try.  Whatever form it took, we wanted to be parents.  We would talk a lot, but were not sure of our path yet.  It wasn't until June 2015, when we held our beautiful niece in our arms for the first time that we committed to deciding what we would pursue before the summer was over.  We decided to apply to the same adoption agency my sister and brother-in-law applied to.  As we were filling out the application there were two options to check-off, domestic adoption or embryo adoption.  This was the first time we had ever heard of embryo adoption. After researching, finding out that I could have a chance at being pregnant, while also going through the beautiful journey of adoption, we knew that was what we wanted.

 

It took 3-4 months to get our home study completed. We visited the National Embryo Donation Center in Tennessee last June.  Went through many miles of paperwork, phone calls and waiting. Coordinated and ran fundraisers. During this time, I had a 2^nd surgery that was minor to prepare for a transfer. Tried to choose a donor family to adopt from over 200 names. Ended up being contacted on Facebook by a beautiful family who we eventually felt dearly connected to and knew they were the family we would like to adopt from. Because they only had 3 embryos, NEDC wanted us to choose another donor family.  When we did, we were so excited for them and felt connected to them as well. Only to find out later that it would not work out with them. More tears. We ended up being matched with another wonderful family and were on our way to hopefully being told our transfer date. In order to do this, we needed to finalize our open adoption contracts and get them notarized. We were finally told our transfer date would be November 16^th!  I went on medication which included giving myself shots in my stomach for the first time. A week before transfer I started the lovely butt shots twice a day and have now since done 62 shots and will have to do about 48 more.  Whoo hoo!

On transfer day we were think we would transfer one possibly two embryos, but ended up transferring 3!  There is a grading system with embryos, 1 was high quality, 1 was ok quality and 1 was low quality. 

Then it was the WAITING PERIOD OF HORRIBLE WAITINGNESS!!!   They told me to wait until the blood test 2 weeks after transfer, but I couldn’t do it.  We actually took our first home test on my dad’s birthday, November 22^nd , and found out we were pregnant.  But home tests can be wrong, so it was still a wait till the blood tests. Then, we needed to do two blood tests 48 hours apart.  The levels needed to double in order to show that I was indeed pregnant. I went from 425 on Monday the 28^th  to 1,139 on Wednesday the 30^th!  I was definitely pregnant!

At that point we didn’t know how many, because there was a possibility with multiples with this type of procedure.  Our ultrasound was this week and we found out we are pregnant with one very healthy baby.  The baby is just the size it should be and we even got to see a heartbeat!!!

All that being said, I cannot begin to even first of all say thank-you for each and every one of you who have supported us to becoming parents.  You have cried with us, you have prayed with us, and you have cheered us on.

Going through all of this and now finding out that I am pregnant, makes me very humbled. Life is fragile, life is precious.  This life inside me is partially in my hands as I do my best to care for it through my health. But the Lord is completely in control.  Anything can happen, but I cling to the faith that has kept me anchored this entire time. I know that this child is strong. This child has already survived so much. This child is a miracle.  Is it possible to be scared out of your mind but at the same time be at peace?  May I just savor every moment, not sit upon the what ifs or maybes, but focus on the promises and the truths.