Thursday, July 9, 2015

Just The Beginning

One year ago today, Josh and I headed out to New York to do what would be our fifth and last IVF cycle. It had been a long, emotional and scary five years for us.
We were both exhausted in every way imaginable, we didn't know if we could handle another miscarriage or failed cycle. We left July 9th, egg retrieval was on the 11th and on the 16th we transferred 2 healthy embryos. It was the longest week of our lives!  Fast forward to July 25th (Kaes birthday) Josh and I hadn't told Kae what was going on so we had to stay quiet about it. The phone rang, Josh and I ran outside to hear the news that would change our lives. We had gotten this call 4 other times, 2 of those phone calls were heart shattering and till this day I will never forget that heart dropping feeling when I heard "I am sorry, it was negative," the other 2 calls were "it came back positive BUT your levels are low."
Not this time, there was no "I am sorry or congratulations BUT," there was just YOUR PREGNANT! Josh and I looked at each other,  laughed and then cried. We couldn't believe that we were finally going to have a baby together or little did we know 2!
Fast forward a year and I am now watching our beautiful boys sleep (I wish I could say peacefully) on their monitor.

Now to address the elephant in the room. I was very open before we got pregnant about us using an egg donor but haven't talked about it except with a select few.
 Yes, we did use an egg donor. I have been going back and forth with whether or not I would confirm on my blog that we had actually used one or not, because I felt "why does it matter." But it does matter because I decided a long time ago to bring you on this journey with us and I kind of left you with a cliff hanger for a year. So I will answer the most asked questions about our experience using an egg donor.

We used an anonymous donor, we chose her through our doctors office.
 We have not and will never meet her but we have seen her baby pictures.
She is not the mother of my boys, I AM their mom. She may have given her genetics but without me they wouldn't be here, my body nurtured their little bodies for 8 months and I am the one raising them. If you're talking to us about her please know that she is known to us as our donor not the mom.
I don't look at the boys and see her, I see Josh in Owen (obviously) and I see Kaedence in Finn with my green eyes.
 I do pray for her every night, she gave me the ability to become a mom. She will forever be in my heart and I will be eternally grateful.
Last but not least we have 3 embryos frozen so if we are lucky enough to get pregnant again our boys will have full genetic siblings.

We want to thank everyone for all of your support! We love everyone!