Backstory - IVF Part 1

When Jonathan was about a year and a half old, my heart started aching for another baby. I wanted Jonathan to have a brother or sister. I wanted the kids to grow up close in age so they could play sports together and go to school together and be best of friends.

We heard about a potential out-of-state adoption and I started getting my hopes up. The mom was working with a pastor's wife that a friend connected us to. From the beginning it wasn't a guaranteed thing at all. The pastor's wife was very up front with us about where this mom was and that she really wasn't ready for adoption. Even though that gave time for the Holy Spirit to prepare my heart for the loss, it was still hard to get the news that it was official. Please don't misunderstand me, I absolutely believe that it was her right to want to keep her baby. I wasn't upset with the mom. At that point, I was more frustrated with the adoption process and knowing that I had to wait for someone to give up a baby that I longed for so desperately before we could have another child.

Mike and I began talking and praying about the fertility options. We had heard back on my nephew that his form of muscular distrophy was not hereditary. So, we started the appointments. After more testing, they thought there was a 60-80% chance that we could conceive through fertility treatments. I found a program that allowed us to have up to six attempts for one price and if we were not able to have a baby, we would receive back a significant portion of the money we paid to get in the program. So, in August of 2010, we began the IVF journey. It was an exciting, scary thing all at once. I will never forget when my first box of medicine arrived. Suddenly I realized that all of those injections had to go in my body and it was overwhelming.

We survived through all the injections, the surgery to remove the eggs, the procedure to put them back and the waiting began. Then I got the phone call I will never forget: I was pregnant! A week later, the morning sickness began. Then at 6.5 weeks we had the sonogram to see if one or two babies had attached. I'll never forget the words, "I'm not seeing what I should be seeing." Twins had attached, but were already gone. We went home to grieve the loss of the babies we had already loved so much.

The miscarriage was natural and not brutal physically, but mentally very difficult. We had committed to the journey though and after recovering, began looking at what came next.