Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Despite being opposite in just about every way, my mom and I get along very well.  We talk twice a week and see each other every other month or so, but living 8 hours away from one another may help!).  There have only been a few exceptions.

I was 23 and about to start my second year of teaching.  My first year was kind of a mess, so I was determined for year two to be better.  My cousin was getting married in PA the weekend before the first day of school.  I had RSVPd "yes", but the day before realized I had too much left to do to get ready for school to go so I canceled and my mom was pissed!  I sent a nice check to make up for my absence, but my mom was hurt and upset that I wasn't there.  She got over it, but it was tense for a couple days.

Fast forward 7 years to MY wedding.  We were trying to keep to a particular budget and at my mom's suggestion used a family friend as our photographer.  When she dropped the pictures off we noticed that there must have been damage to her lens because there was a blurry dot in the same spot toward the middle of EVERY picture.  I immediately burst into tears.  I wasn't mad, just disappointed.  My mom felt bad so she started to cry.  Nothing could be done about it so we moved on, but it was tense for a couple of hours.

Fast forward 7 more years.  We have shared with several targeted groups about our IVF journey.  Our immediate families, our church community group (3/4 of which have experienced infertility), select college friends (most of whom experienced infertility or loss), and my mom's best friend.  That was how we intended for it to stay until we were ready to announce towards the end of our first trimester.

Saturday morning I got a text from my cousin.  "Hey lady.. Your mom told us last night exciting news .... We will keep you and JT in our prayers and please let us know how your sonogram goes ... Praying for u 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼".  

Uhh, come again?!?  Why was my mom announcing MY pregnancy?  I hadn't explicitly told her not to tell anyone, but assumed it was understood that this was OUR news to share when and how we wanted to!  After processing for a bit I figured she was just excited.  I called and talked to my sister (who lives with my parents) and nonchalantly fished for who all my parents had shared our news with.  Well turns out it was all my aunts and uncles and my cousins on my mom's side.  My sister said everyone was happy and that my cousin's wife had tears in her eyes.  That would have been a great moment to have been a part of...My mom stole our thunder!

My mom must have realized her faux pas because the next day she sent an email apologizing.  I gave her a call ready to put it behind us.  Then she said something that made me ask a few more questions. Turns out she not only told them that we are expecting...but also it was through IVF...with donor eggs.  We are not embarrassed about either of those two things; however, if people have not had any experience with IF it can be really confusing.  I imagine we would have told them eventually, but on our terms.  I guess on the bright side it's one less decision to make as to what those terms are:(.

I started to cry, which led to my mom feeling even worse and she started to cry.  She put my dad on who felt just as bad.  Ultimately nothing can be changed.  It can't be undone.  I still have no earthly idea what they were thinking, but know they were not ill-intended.  After feeling sad and disappointed Sunday night, we realized we just needed to move on.  

We will just need to be very explicit moving forward...

Land mines

Sorry for the MIA status this week!  It has been CRAZY busy with the teachers coming back to school, my own classes starting, back to school night, etc.  Still doing well.  Felt a little yucky/queasy a few morning this week, but not actually sick.

Also it varies as to what food sounds good to me.  The delicious s'mores cake I made for company on Sunday and happily consumed leftovers of Monday and Tuesday has not sounded good at ALL to me yesterday or today.  I will be so glad when we get to the ultrasound next Friday as I would much prefer that kind of assurance that all is well than kind of hoping I was full on puking with morning sickness (gross, right?!?!).

Once upon a time I envisioned JT and I keeping a pregnancy under wraps until we were safely passing the threshold into the second trimester.  However, 6 years and an IVF in, those plans got altered somewhat.  Instead there are about 20 family members and friends who already know and have known just about everything we have known every step of the way.

Our parents get phone calls at each juncture.  Other family members and friends are updated by text or email.  Only my brother randomly got any semblance of a cute announcement:

It is still our intention to hold off announcements to the rest of the world until we are about to cross or crossing into trimester 2.  Which means we/I may have some interesting land mines to dodge between now and the beginning of October.

Last Friday I went out to a birthday dinner for a friend.  Only two of the dozen people present know anything about our IF struggles and they both knew we were doing IVF this summer.  It was not the right setting for sharing with them (there was no way to do it discretely), so I stayed mum.  However, I also drank my Sprite without getting any questions (I was fully prepared to say I was on allergy medicine that I could not mix with booze), so land mind avoided.  

I have avoided carrying items at work which was pretty tricky at times this week given all the back to school deliveries coming and going.  We are also going to my school staff party to night.  It is off campus and BYOB and in the last 6 years I have always BYOB'ed:).   Fingers crossed tonight is a repeat of last Friday and no one notices!

Three for Three

Was looking to be around 1200 today for Beta and came in just over 2000!  We continue this adventure in a positive direction:).

It is nice to know that even though my eggs have passed their expiration date, the oven still works!  Even with all of babbling last week, I failed to mention one of my biggest fears.  I was scared that a negative beta would mean that my body failed us once again.  It would mean that J.T. and Hannah (the name I have given our egg donor) successfully contributed and that I let the team down.  Logically I know that wouldn't have been true and no one would have blamed me, but I am so grateful to be on the other side and to have been able to provide a home that has allowed for life to grow.

Next up is an ultrasound on September 2 when I will be at 7 weeks (I broke down and asked the nurse when she called yesterday), meaning I am currently at 5 weeks.  God's got this though.  He knew I would be anxious so He scheduled the next two weeks to keep me busy:  teachers come back next week, kids the week after that PLUS I start my three fall classes over the next two weeks so I should have plenty to do to keep my mind occupied!

2nd Beta & Weird Math

Good news...125 on Friday became 564 on Monday!  Little friend(s) = growing like (a) weed(s)!

I went in at 8:30 again, so thought we would get a return call at about the same time as we did on Friday.  11:00 turned to 12:00-no call.  I began to get nervous thinking that they needed to talk to the doctor because something was funky.  I called our donor team (they called with the beta on Friday) and left a message saying I was going into a meeting at 1:00 and would be able to step out.  This was technically true, though if push came to shove and the phone rang I would have been out of that room in a flash!  Meeting wrapped up a little after 2:00 and still no call.  We technically have two nursing teams (the donor team and then our regular doctor's team), so I called the other team to see if I would have more luck.

Fortunately, they picked up right away.  When she checked the results weren't in the system yet, but she immediately offered to call the lab (love her!).  When she came back on and gave me results I cried (sitting on the outside steps right beside our administrative building!) and immediately texted J.T.    After processing it all, I am leaning toward cautiously optimistic as J.T. has fully camped out in just plain excited, so one of us has to stay (somewhat) grounded:).

I'm glad beta math is working well because figuring out how pregnant I am math is not so much:).

We begin teaching calendar math in kindergarten.  This is all the math you need to know for tracking the average pregnancy as most women just have to remember the date of the first day of their last period (for those who have not been obsessively tracking their cycles for years I may be overestimating how easy it is), and that date is used to determine the pregnancy timeline (for example I started my last period on July 9, so I am 5 weeks, 2 days pregnant).

Evidently IVF calendar math is more advanced:

J.T. said I should just ask, but where's the fun in that?!?!

I've Never Seen One Do that Before;)

Beta #1 was a success-125!  It wasn't all smooth sailing though.  When I arrived and checked in, the receptionist kindly informed me that I wasn't scheduled until MONDAY-uh, what now?!?!   She said she would go back and double check.  She came back a moment later and said our nurse said it was too early.  Mathematically she may have been correct, but from a sanity perspective and following doctors orders I was right on time!  I stayed remarkably calm if I do say so myself and politely asked if I could speak with the nurse, she said yes but asked me to have a seat.  I was positive they had said the 12th AND J.T. had immediately input the information into our shared Google calendar when they told us and it said August 12th at 8:30 (I was on time!).

This is what I explained to the nurse when she came to get me a few minutes later.  She explained that I could test today, but the number might not quite be at the 50 she had told me we were looking for earlier in the week.  Fine by me!  She said the results normally take about 2 hours and she would probably call between 10:30-11:00.

J.T. had planned to take a half day as the same email that mentioned the 50 said that she would call us with the results in the afternoon.  When I let him know what was happening, he said he would try to get home a little bit earlier.  We had already discussed before I left this morning that if I got a call before he was home I would let it go to voicemail so we could listen together.

I got home at about 9:30 and tried to stay busy.  I took the puppies to the vet, dusted, cleaned bathrooms, did laundry, took the puppies for a walk, ran the dishwasher, picked up sticks from the yard, did a little weeding and STILL had time to kill.  The phone rang at 11:30 (yes, yes I was about to tear my hair out!) and I let it go to voicemail.  Turns out it was J.T. so I called him right back-he was just leaving.  About 5 minutes later the phone rang again-it was our REs office-and with Herculean strength I let it go to voicemail and left my cell phone in the den.  For the next 20 minutes or so I looked through photo albums (it was kind of nice as it something I don't do often enough) until J.T. got home.

We sat down on the couch, huddled together like to little kids in a storm, as we listened to the message:

"Hi Beth, it's S.  Good news-your test came back positive.  Your number is 125 which is a good first number.  It is still very, very early.  We want you to come back in on Monday for your second test.  We are looking for the number to double so are looking for something between 200-250..."

Tears (mostly me!), hugs, and kisses.  That's all I can remember after we listened to the message.   We then called our parents (both our moms and I think my dad all cried).

We are still trying to take things one day at a time, but have been basking in the glow of our excitement ever since.

Thanks be to God who has brought us to this point and will continue to lead us in the days ahead.

Signs of Hope & Promises from Truth

I am feeling SO much better then I did at the beginning of the week!  I feel more at peace and hopeful about what lays ahead:).  I am going to use this post to organize some of the signs of hope I have seen over the last days (and months!).

The first sign actually came in the spring.  From somewhere within I had a sense that we would welcome a child into our home in 2017.  No other details provided:).   I can only imagine that God laid these words on my heart.  During this entire journey I don't recall having any other intuitive experience like this.  In the chaos that has been my thoughts over the last few weeks I had nearly forgotten!

This next one is more practical, but we pay off both of cars in April (if things continue in a positive direction I will be due in April).  Between my previous student loans being in deferment and no more car payments (knock on wood the cars continue to run well after they are paid off!) we will have nearly $1000 of cushion in our budget.  More than enough to cover the needs of a tiny baby or two:).

The next one was shared with be by my mom about two weeks ago.  Her best friends said she had a good feeling about things as someone had just returned to her a high chair she had lent out years ago (her youngest grandchild is almost 7).  She said it is a sign that it will be needed soon and she can now lend it to my mom when we come to visit:).

Then late this morning (after I initially published this post), I got a call from our IVF meds pharmacist in Georgia to see how we were doing with our progesterone inventory.  Thank God they called!  JT had asked me to call them today since we won't have enough to get through the weekend if we get good news tomorrow.  Somehow I forgot!  I think God tried to whisper a reminder when I overheard JT calling his pharmacy about a prescription.  Nope, didn't trigger me to remember.  I think at that point God figured He needed to shout, so just had the pharmacy call me directly:).  They are overnighting 10 doses-phew.  The most optimistic part of me sees this was His way of ensuring we had enough to keep going.  At the very least He helped ensure I didn't let my husband down!

This last "sign" comes from the word of God, so in addition to bringing hope also comes as a promise from truth.  The following comes from the website Strong in Faith:


God does not withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly (Psalms 84:11). In the Bible, every instance of a person that sought God to conceive and birth children eventually had a child.

The scripture states that God is not a respecter of persons and will not show partiality or favoritism. IF God answered these prayers will he not answer yours? 

Yes, I think He will.  If not this time, I have faith it is coming.

Priority Readjustment

I have been so blessed over the last week that God has continued to speak to my heart even when my mind and my emotions have been such a mess.  I am even more thankful that the fog of emotions seems to be dissipating which has allowed for the my thinking to become more clear.

This morning God reminded me of living with joy in Him.  This led me to once again searching for the what joy in Him looks like.  This search led me to John Piper.  Three video segments in, John Piper's message shed light on the fact that I am still holding children as an idol in my heart.

I believe I have (for the most part) given over control of the path to parenthood to God and to J.T.  I have asked God to remove the desire for children from my heart if having children is not His will for my life.  He has not removed the desire, so I am led to believe that having children is a part of His will for me life.  That being said what I have also done to my detriment, over the last few weeks especially, is to place this desire for children above me desire for Him.

He has allowed me to see is that I have one again gotten my priorities out of whack.  Instead of putting each priority in it's proper place (1.  God , everything else comes after that). I seem to have been living under the erroneous set of priorities (1.  Having children  2. myself and my feelings  3.  God).  I have continued to pray, I have continued to read the bible, I have continued to seek God out, but in regard to what was holding my heart it was unfortunately not Him.  These disordered priorities are clear in the distressful thoughts and feelings I have been experiencing (especially over the last few days).

Dear Heavenly Father,
Please remove the idol of having children from my heart.  Please help me to place you back in your proper place as #1.  If it is your will for me to have children, please keep this desire alive but help me put it in the back seat behind You and my marriage.  In your holy and precious name I pray.

Amen