Thank you for your patience ever since my
cryptic post. Now that our contracts are signed, you get the deets. So get comfy!!
For those of you who have been around for awhile, you know my story. Two years of infertility treatments taught me that my eggs are crap. Thankfully my warm and generous best friend had beautiful ones that she was willing to share with me. The result? This beautiful boy...
Like most lucky infertiles who manage to have a child, I laughed at the nurse who asked me what birth control I planned to use after I had E. I was soooooooo hoping that being pregnant would reset my fertility and whip my shriveled eggs into shape. However, this obviously didn't happen.
Yet at the same time, I wasn't unhappy or desperate for a baby. How could I be? In my arms every night I snuggled my little man to sleep. By day, I would soak up his smiles and read him book after book.
Meanwhile....I had posted my profile over on
Miracles Waiting hoping that I might get lucky and be chosen by a couple who had remaining embryos after their family building. I had done this before after my second failed IVF cycle, but never had any takers. While I had a few couples respond to me, we never seemed to be what they were looking for. We're not ultra-liberal or overly-religious. We certainly don't live close to anyone who might want our kids to know each other as they grow up. However, the biggest stumbling block was that we already had a child. Overall, I didn't discuss this with anyone other than my husband which is rare for me.
We started discussing our other options. Before we got too far into the process, I decided to talk to an OB to discuss the likelihood that I would need a cerclage and bed rest. While my original high risk OB (who delivered E) said I could go on to have another healthy normal pregnancy, I came away from this appointment and felt like it was the
death of my dream.
After that day, I decided to let having another baby go. I started to make my peace with it. I reveled in the beautiful boy that I had the privilege of taking care of everyday. And occasionally...I would visit Miracles Waiting late at night. Weeks passed. I sold and donated the final baby pieces I was holding onto.
Then one day I came across a post of a blog I follow, where the author was discussing choosing a family for their remaining embryos. She was excited and happy to donate them, but was struggling with how to choose from the many wonderful people out there who were waiting. It opened up something in me that I thought I had made my peace with. I was full of
tears and hope again, so I wrote her an email and attached my profile.
Then? Then I felt like a complete jerk. Here this blogger was writing about her struggle and I just added one more person to the flood of emails she got about the profile she had posted. As I had only been reading her blog for a month or two, I wondered if she would hate that I "invaded" her blog space with my request to be considered. More than anything though, I was vulnerable by putting myself out there to be rejected again which made me feel like an even bigger jerk.
A few days later, I got an email from her asking me questions about some things she had read in my blog and in my profile. I was completely shocked that they were even considering us. However, even from just the questions that she asked, I got the feeling that we had a lot of the same core values and perspectives on life. Then she asked for my phone number. When she called she said something like, "do you want to have family in {state}?" I totally didn't get it! Here I was anticipating some follow up questions and BAM, there it was. They chose us. They wanted US.
I cried.
I called my hubby.
Then I dove onto the internet to figure out what we needed to do (so typical).
More to come...xoxo
Update:
Click here for part 2!
