What is IVF and How I Became a Mother

I just learned of two close friends who are going through fertility treatments and I've been trying to reach out to them as a support and source of information.  I know that this can often be such a personal and private matter, and I'm just opening that they are open to me sharing all that I learned through my own experiences.

The truth is, I'm not a stranger to heartache when it comes to being a mother.

From my first doll carriage, to playing house, to babysitting and teaching Sunday School...I knew.
I knew that I wanted to be a mother.
It was part of my DNA, my destiny.
My dream for my future.

When Paul and I first met, one of the things that endeared us instantly to each other, was our love for children. We were meant to be parents together.

When we first wanted to try to have our own, routine tests led us to devastating information. We would NEVER conceive naturally. Not only that, but we should not bother wasting our time or money with drugs or monitoring or even artificial insemination. In-vitro was our one and only chance to have biological children (about a 50% chance given my age at the time).

After days and nights spent crying, yelling, aching, screaming and wondering "why us", we put together our money and started our journey. While we were terrified to imagine that this may never happen, we were forced to stay positive. Even laughing about all the 'fun' we could have had without birth control all those years!!!  I forced myself not to think of the possibility that I might never know the feeling of a life growing inside me, never be pregnant, never give birth to our child. It felt as if my right as a woman had been taking away.

Any one who knows me would tell you that I don't take no for an answer.
Give me a problem and I won't stop until I find a solution. I love a challenge.
And so it began...

Our journey to parenthood began in January 2003 with morning routines of driving at 7am to our amazing clinic at Bay and Gerrard from Thornhill. Refrigerated meds, needles, and prayers consumed our days and nights. Then another obstacle. Our cycle was going to be cancelled. There were not enough viable eggs. But I stayed strong and believed... and we were patient. We got the call after another blood test and ultrasound to count my eggs... it was a go! The next day, our doctor called us to go to the clinic to "retrieve" my eggs. I had 8 eggs over the minimum size necessary to proceed and I felt like we had just won the lottery!!! Paul was called upon for his "donation" to the process. We left the rest of the job to the lab technicians.

We waited for more news. Four out of 8 had fertilized. That lottery feeling was squashed. Our chances were slim and panic set in.
How could we go through this again?
How could we afford this again?

Our doctor called to say that we needed to rush in earlier than expected. There were only 2 embryos left. We went into the procedure room to have the remaining 2 embryos transferred. We held onto each other and onto the ounce of faith and hope that still remained.  Within 5 minutes, on March 18th, our two potential 'babies' were transferred into my uterus and we prayed they would hang on. Our doctor wished us luck and handed us our amazing petri dish, the first home of our embryos, as a memory of the journey.

I couldn't tell if I was pregnant or not. So many residual side effects from all the fertility drugs made it impossible to tell.  I had a date to go to get a pregnancy blood test at the clinic in two weeks...but I was determined to have my 'surprise' moment. The moment all pregnant women have when they count the blue lines, cry and tell their husbands that they are about to become a father.

I wanted that moment.
That moment was going to be 'normal' after everything that was 'abnormal'.
And I did have that moment.

I took the test and waited for those lines. I will never forget the moment that my dream came true...I was a mother in that moment. I was laughing, shaking and crying all at the same time. I could barely walk downstairs to give Paul the news!

We were parents...at the very beginning. We already loved this little person who had made us believe in miracles. Our prayers had been answered.  Four years later, we started all over again (we had no embryos frozen). Ten thousand dollars later, more prayers were answered and we were blessed again...with twins.

When it is time, we will tell all of our boys of their miraculous and immaculate conceptions. While our precious boys have been created in a very nontraditional way, in a petri dish, with the help of doctors, lab technicians and lots of prayers... they were none the less created out of love.