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