Notice the title is New Addition, not New Edition...I won't be putting this to music even though Mr. Telephone Man was a great song back in the day. Makes me want to break out the record player now...but I digress... :-)
Sarah and I found out some much anticipated news on Saturday...we will have a new addition to our family in about 9 months! Some of you who've known me since way back when...since the Mr. Telephone Man era are probably sitting there staring at the screen in complete shock. Some of you may not know a single thing about this whole process and are probably thinking "how in the world are two women going to have a baby together...isn't that physically impossible???" Well things have changed since New Edition and a lot more is possible these days. And I am thankful for that every day!
Sarah and I have been trying to get pregnant since October of 2009. We have run a hundred searches on California Cryobank trying to find the perfect donor. We finally picked our donor and prepared for Insemination 101. Our first experience was not such a great one...as we thought we would save a little money by trying to do it at home. Well at $685 a pop plus $175 for shipping for a small little vial of baby daddy, home insemination is not the smartest decision we've ever made. But at least we have the funny memories to tell. Sarah's description of that one is much more interesting than mine since she had to do all the hard work. :-)
Since our "do it yourself" method didn't work out so well, we decided the next time we would use a medically trained professional in the field of fertility. But the second time didn't go quite as planned either. The donor we had chosen was apparently a very popular gentleman and by the time we decided to order another vial, the cryobank didn't have any left and he had retired from the system...which meant they weren't going to be getting anymore from him. So we found another donor and started this process again. Turns out this ovulation thing is tricky. Unfortunately, our very important shipment didn't arrive in time for us to inseminate in March of 2010. So he got to spend a long, cold month in the freezer at Arkansas Fertility Clinic awaiting my next ovulation. We tried again in April, but were still unsuccessful.
As the old saying goes - third time's a charm. It took us 9 long months to save up enough money to try this again. I guess the Lord was preparing us for the next 9 months of our lives because on January 29th, we inseminated for the 3rd time. On Saturday, February 12th, we found out it would be the last time we would have to do this. After I took the test, I was waiting for one of the lines to get darker than the other because that's how the ovulation results work. Sarah had to tell me I was pregnant. :-) We were both overwhelmed with joy and excitement!!!
It's official...I went to the doctor today - February 14, 2011 - Valentine's Day! This is becoming my favorite holiday! Great things always happen to me on this day. Sarah sent me flowers for the first time on Valentine's Day 3 years ago. And now we are having a baby together. God blessed me by putting Sarah and Jaylee in my life and surrounding us with great family and wonderful friends! And now He finds us both worthy enough to give us another beautiful gift...another child.
Christy
Monday, February 14, 2011
Let the journey begin...
Our journey actually began several years ago, but now we are embarking on a brand new journey together. On January 29th, I was woken up by a very panicked woman. Christy was ovulating, which is something we've been tracking for two years. I had only been asleep for a couple of hours so I was quite taken aback by her excitement. I jumped out of bed and we headed to Arkansas Fertility Clinic so that Christy could be inseminated...for the third time. But this time was different.
We attempted the first insemination at home. Disclaimer: Don't Try This At Home. We had been tracking her ovulation for several months. I read all the articles and did all the research. I thought I was prepared (my first mistake). After selecting the right donor, we ordered the sperm and had it shipped to the house when we knew she would be ovulating. A vial containing 0.5cc of sperm arrived in a 22 pound tank of dry ice. On insemination day, I felt like a mad scientist. I had to wear gloves and goggles just to remove the vial from the tank. As I opened the tank, the dry ice caused smoked to come billowing out of the tank. I had to run to the kitchen with a little bitty vial of sperm in my hand to give it a 10 minute 98 degree water bath. I will spare you the rest of the details but let’s just say that it only got worse from there. There were so many opportunities for human error and I'm pretty sure I made every one of them.
We decided it would be best to leave the science up to the doctors. We found a great doctor at Arkansas Fertility Clinic and began to prepare for insemination number two, which also proved to be more of a challenge than expected. There were blood tests, ultrasounds, and many doctors’ appointments. The vial didn't arrive according to schedule, which caused a lot of stress for both of us. Christy was online every five minutes trying to track the package. We were worried that she would ovulate before the vial arrived...which she did. We had to wait another month to inseminate. Once everything was in place and we were ready for insemination, it was quite impossible for either of us to relax. For some reason, it just didn’t go as planned. Obviously, God knew it just wasn’t the right time.
We waited almost nine months before we decided it was time to try again. This is a fairly expensive process and quite honestly we needed time to save money for another insemination. I was also in the process of getting a new job and we wanted to wait for things to settle down a bit before we tried again. We have several close people around us that love us and support us (in more ways than one). Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly, which brings us back to January 29th.
When we arrived at the clinic, both Christy and I had a very good feeling about this insemination. The stresses that were there before were completely eliminated. There was a peace over both of us and we entered the clinic very optimistically. The insemination wasn’t any different from the last one, scientifically speaking, but it was quite different spiritually.
I began asking Christy to take a pregnancy test about a week later, which is obviously too early but I have an issue with anticipation. I finally convinced Christy to take a test Saturday the 12th, two days before schedule. The instructions tell you to wait three minutes before reading the results, but you could see the double lines almost immediately. Christy had to reread the instructions before she would believe the results. The emotions that we experienced in that moment are indescribable.
So this begins our journey; or at least our current journey together. We are extremely excited and look forward to keeping you all posted so that you can travel through this journey with us.
Sarah
We attempted the first insemination at home. Disclaimer: Don't Try This At Home. We had been tracking her ovulation for several months. I read all the articles and did all the research. I thought I was prepared (my first mistake). After selecting the right donor, we ordered the sperm and had it shipped to the house when we knew she would be ovulating. A vial containing 0.5cc of sperm arrived in a 22 pound tank of dry ice. On insemination day, I felt like a mad scientist. I had to wear gloves and goggles just to remove the vial from the tank. As I opened the tank, the dry ice caused smoked to come billowing out of the tank. I had to run to the kitchen with a little bitty vial of sperm in my hand to give it a 10 minute 98 degree water bath. I will spare you the rest of the details but let’s just say that it only got worse from there. There were so many opportunities for human error and I'm pretty sure I made every one of them.
We decided it would be best to leave the science up to the doctors. We found a great doctor at Arkansas Fertility Clinic and began to prepare for insemination number two, which also proved to be more of a challenge than expected. There were blood tests, ultrasounds, and many doctors’ appointments. The vial didn't arrive according to schedule, which caused a lot of stress for both of us. Christy was online every five minutes trying to track the package. We were worried that she would ovulate before the vial arrived...which she did. We had to wait another month to inseminate. Once everything was in place and we were ready for insemination, it was quite impossible for either of us to relax. For some reason, it just didn’t go as planned. Obviously, God knew it just wasn’t the right time.
We waited almost nine months before we decided it was time to try again. This is a fairly expensive process and quite honestly we needed time to save money for another insemination. I was also in the process of getting a new job and we wanted to wait for things to settle down a bit before we tried again. We have several close people around us that love us and support us (in more ways than one). Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly, which brings us back to January 29th.
When we arrived at the clinic, both Christy and I had a very good feeling about this insemination. The stresses that were there before were completely eliminated. There was a peace over both of us and we entered the clinic very optimistically. The insemination wasn’t any different from the last one, scientifically speaking, but it was quite different spiritually.
I began asking Christy to take a pregnancy test about a week later, which is obviously too early but I have an issue with anticipation. I finally convinced Christy to take a test Saturday the 12th, two days before schedule. The instructions tell you to wait three minutes before reading the results, but you could see the double lines almost immediately. Christy had to reread the instructions before she would believe the results. The emotions that we experienced in that moment are indescribable.
So this begins our journey; or at least our current journey together. We are extremely excited and look forward to keeping you all posted so that you can travel through this journey with us.
Sarah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)