God is good! We ARE pregnant!
God has a perfect plan
for us. This is not the time-frame that we had planned for us.
Two years ago to the day
was the last time we posted on this blog.
It was our attempt to remind ourselves of truth in the midst of a very tough time in our lives. It was all part of God’s perfect, albeit
painful, plan.
After we had let the
dust settle from losing those last adopted embryos, we tried to figure out what
to do next. We looked into the cost of
domestic or even international adoption, and we weren’t sure. We looked at the foster-to-adopt system, but
we still weren’t sure. We knew we felt called
to parent, and we had all-but-decided that we would not adopt more
embryos. And yet, as we considered all
the different factors that play into a major decision like this, we kept
thinking, “what if we tried one more transfer?”
We hated to make a call based on numbers & statistics, but that’s
what the Lord used to push us to try one more time. Through the whole process, we had heard on numerous
occasions that “1 in 3” embryo transfers are successful. If we really did call it quits after the 2
tries, we didn’t want to have the feeling of, “what if we had tried just one
more time,” in the back of our minds.
One of the reasons we
didn’t want to do another transfer is the physical & emotional toll it took
on Gabby’s body. To prep with daily
shots, medications, vitamins, & tough doctor visits for months to prep her
body for the transfer was exhausting for her.
She had already gone through it twice, and was so tired of it all, with
nothing to show for it. I feared having
her go through all of that again just to get another call at the end saying,
“sorry, you’re not pregnant,” one more time.
But, after praying and
deciding we could handle one more time,
we got back into the process. We
contacted our adoption agency, Nightlight Christian Adoptions (whom we’ve loved
working with), and asked to be put back into the matching process.
We didn’t have to wait
too long this time, and when we heard back from them, we were presented with a
unique situation. They said they had two
embryos for us (which is a little nerve-wracking, considering we had zero
successful pregnancies from the 8 embryos we adopted from our prior
match). Again, thinking of statistics,
you’re not guaranteed that embryos will even survive when they are thawed out
before a transfer. We lost 3 out of the
8 during the thaw, so I was nervous about adopting just these two. The especially unique part was that they were
coming from two different families. Two
different families from two different parts of the country each had one embryo
they were placing for adoption, hoping to give them a chance at life on this
earth. Once we sorted through
everything, I actually got very excited, “WE COULD HAVE TWINS THAT HAVE TOTALLY
DIFFERENT DNA FROM US AND EACH OTHER!”
So we agreed and got all
the proper paperwork in place (say that 10x fast) and began the process to get
Gabby ready AGAIN. We ordered all her
medications AGAIN, gave her shots AGAIN (I was a pro by the end), and went
through all the Doctor visits AGAIN.
Then on April 19th, 2017, we went in for what we knew this
time would be our last attempt at a F(A)ET (Frozen ‘Adopted’ Embryo Transfer).
It’s hard to describe
how we felt going into this transfer. We
were both confident as far as knowing this was what we needed to do. At the very least, we thought, these little
embies will be ushered into heaven now rather than waiting indefinitely to get
a chance at life, if at all. (Neither
family that we adopted from were planning on discarding the embryos, but
sometimes embryos can just sit in freezers for years and years without ever
even getting a chance at a real life.)
At the same time, we also couldn’t help but think of the results of our
last two transfers. It kind of felt
like, “we are resolved to do this…but it probably won’t work.” Lord knows.
The first piece that got
my hopes up a little bit was when they informed us that both embryos had
survived the thaw. If we’re talking
about my begrudged statistics, 100% (2 out of 2) of our embryos had survived
the thaw this time, as opposed to only 63% surviving in the last batch (5 out
of 8). I kept thinking internally,
“Lord, why would you get them both to this point if you weren’t going to do
something big here?”
The next piece that got
my hopes up was the peace we had in our hearts anticipating any scenario. If both of them hold on and result in being
pregnant with twins, then glory to God!
If one of them holds on and we’re pregnant with one, then glory to
God! If neither of them are able to hold
on, and both go to heaven, then glory to God!
We had no idea how to be except just to rest in our Father’s care.
Following the transfer,
we played the waiting game, which had become somewhat familiar to us. Generally, the instructions following a
transfer are: go home, take it easy, and wait to come back in two weeks to get
a blood test to see if it was successful or not. Well, “taking it easy” is easier said than
done. Oh, and did I mention my eager
beaver wife had bought a value pack of pregnancy tests to take starting on day
6 after the transfer? She had decided after our past transfers that it’s easier
to have an ‘idea’ one way or another of what the result will be heading into
the blood test, so that a ‘negative’ doesn’t hit you like a ton of bricks (only
a ½ ton).
A few things I did not
know about embryo transfers and pregnancy tests: it’s recommended to wait about
12 days to take the blood test, because the embryos are sooooo teeny tiny that
it’s rare that you’d pick up anything earlier.
And especially with home pregnancy tests, you might see ‘negatives’
because it can’t read things early on. Gabby
repeatedly mentioned, “You can only get false negatives, you can’t get false
positives,” which means if it reads negative early on, there’s still plenty of
hope. If it reads ‘positive’ early on,
you are straight up pregnant.
I think the first home
test she took (something like day 4) was negative, as we expected. She admitted that was pretty early, and
decided to wait ‘til day 6 to check again.
So she set the stick in the cup o’ urine, and then you’re supposed to
wait two minutes or so. If a second line
appears you’re pregnant. She left the
bathroom and went into our bedroom to pray and ask God that she wouldn’t be
anxious about the whole situation.
Before the two minutes were up, I went into the bathroom just to see if
I could see anything. I SAW A SECOND
LINE. I let out some type of loud,
audible noise. “What is it?!” Gabby
asked. She rushed back in and I showed
her that faint, thin, glorious, pee-influenced line. We couldn’t believe it! Gabby was pregnant.
After nearly two and a
half years from when we first decided to go the route of embryo adoption, God
saw fit to have Gabby get pregnant. Do
you ever have trouble understanding if God is answering your prayers by saying
“no” or “wait”? Sometimes it’s hard to
figure out which one it is. Up until
that point, I thought God was saying “no” to the prayer for Gabby to get
pregnant. Turns out he was saying “wait”
for those 2+ years. I suppose that’s why
I was so surprised that it was finally happening. I think I had somewhat come to grips with
Gabby not getting pregnant, and had tried to focus my contentment, reliance,
and joy on Christ as opposed to her pregnancy.
Whatever God was doing, he sure pulled us especially and uniquely close
to Him and each other in this journey, and we pray it stays that way!
The next question was
this: are there two babies in there or just one? We’d need to wait a little longer to get the
answer to this question, and when we finally did find out that there was just
one little one in there, it was bittersweet.
Obviously we were ecstatic that we were pregnant at all, and at the same
time, we mourned the life of one of our embryos. That little one joined her 8 adopted brothers
and sisters in heaven and we wanted to grieve, but also be thankful. My own imagination created the scenario from
that scene in Inside Out [spoiler] when Bing Bong jumps out of the wagon rocket
so that Joy can get back to Riley. One
of our little embryos knew that only one of them would make it, so they
sacrificed themselves to give the other one a fighting chance. A stretch, I know. I can’t help but think in Pixar sometime.
Through God’s gracious
provision, Gabby’s pregnancy has progressed very nicely. In July we found out we were having a baby
boy, which we revealed by kicking open a plastic football (much to my nephew’s
dismay) filled with blue chalk/smoke. (I
had read the results of the gender test prior, but Gabby was surprised!)
Shortly after that, we
settled on a name: Deacon Arrow Hoover.
The name Deacon, besides some obvious church connotations (we’re both
heavily involved in our church community), can also mean ‘dusty one’ or
‘servant,’ which we hope to train him up to be.
Arrow comes from Psalm 127:4 which says, “Like arrows in the hand of a
warrior are the children of one's youth.” As a little bonus, he will have the
same initials as me! (Donald Allen Hoover, Deacon Arrow Hoover)
So here we are, about a
month out from Deacon’s due date (Jan. 3rd, 2018), and on my Facebook
“On This Day” memories feature, a memory from Dec. 1st, 2015 popped
up. This was the day we had shared that
we weren’t pregnant two years ago, and so I felt compelled to give a write up
and much-needed update about where we are.
We still want your prayers! This
time for a continued healthy pregnancy and that there would be no complications
when Deacon is born soon! To God all
praise and glory!
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