A Special Easter Announcement

If you're here via Facebook, you already may have heard, but we're pregnant! But this is a little bit more complicated story than the usual boy meets girl, they get married and then have kids. 

As most of you know, four years ago we lost our little boy when my appendix ruptured during my 12th week of pregnancy. (You can read more about that here.) Since then, our journey towards parenthood has been a series of mountains and valleys, though to be honest, I feel like there were far more valleys than mountains.

We tried on our own for a year; we tried taking oral infertility drugs for a while.  Finally we went to another doctor who understood my history better and said that the only way we would ever conceive is through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).  We didn't know if this was the right step, seemed too extreme for us at the time.  So we decided to adopt.

We went to some meetings but my heart was never there.  I yearned to bear a child.  It took me almost a year to be honest with myself and tell Adam that I just needed to try IVF.  I needed to know for sure before we started any concrete adoption process.  Adam completely understood and really wanted to have a pregnant wife "waddling around the house" at least once. 

So in January 2011 we started IVF.  The doctors were very optimistic. We were both very young, our tests looked good, seemed like I just needed a little help getting the egg to the right place.  We started the medications, retrieved the eggs and the doctors were happy.  But none of the 14 retrieved eggs fertilized.  Big fat fail. 

We met with the doctors afterwards, in March, and they seemed stumped.  Of course if we were to do it again, they would change this or that. But we had used up our insurance money for the year ($10,000 of infertility coverage) and knew that Adam was searching for a new job that would most likely not cover anything.

And we felt that this was a sign to be done.  To have things go SO poorly was devastating. I fell into a depression and eventually we decided to take two years and do nothing. No infertility treatments, no adoption, no fostering.  We needed a break from the heartache.

So we enjoyed the summer, Adam got his new job and we moved to Davenport.

Then one mid-December evening, I got a call from my doctor at the IVF clinic.  He told me that they found out that the maintenance staff removed an air filter in the lab earlier that year, and never told the clinic staff.  My doctor said he had no way of knowing if this caused the fertilization issue, but in case it was their fault, they were offering me a free cycle.

Needless to say, we accepted, went through the process (with not a day to spare, my last appointment was the day before we left for New Orleans) and are pregnant! I am almost 13 weeks along and the baby is doing well.  I am due October 16!

A year ago I thought I would never get the opportunity to bear a child, but of course God had other plans. :)