1 year blog-iversary

It's hard to believe that it's already been a full year since starting this blog and embarking on our journey through embryo adoption!

In many ways this year has gone really quickly, but then when I think about all of the things we've experienced (applications, background checks, interviews, matching process, hormone treatments, embryo transfer, 2-week wait, sad news, more waiting, more hormone treatments) it's kind of crazy that it's only been a year.

I would characterize this year, overall, as really good.  Donny and I have both grown closer together and closer to the Lord through this process.  We've had to make a lot of tough decisions, we've had to write some really big checks, and we've been forced to really think hard about our future - all of which has really helped us mature and just grow as people.

We've had a lot of fun this year too! Of course we would have loved to have a baby a long time ago - but this extended time of just Donny and Gabby has been just downright fun!  Since last November I've lost track of the times we've been to Disneyland, we've been to Ducks games, concerts, stayed out late, slept in and we even went to Disney World! We're definitely happy to lose that flexibility and freedom when it means we've added another little human...but I'm so glad God gave those memories in the meantime.

This year also had the obvious low points.  Did I ever tell the story about Donny passing out cold when the doctor's office messed up his blood draw by not finding his vein and then spilling blood in front of him?  It was terrifying (for me) and was definitely a low point (that at least we can laugh at now).  Losing one of our precious embryos in the thaw was something we knew was very possible, but was still hard to hear. Waking up one morning during the two-week wait and finding out that I was bleeding was scary and sad. And of course, the hardest day of the year, April 22 - the phone call telling us we weren't pregnant.

Ultimately, although a lot of this year looked very different than I might have imagined or would have planned it (had I been in control) - it's exactly how God wanted our year to look, and for that reason, I wouldn't change anything.

We're prepping my body for another transfer and are praying that year two of this blog will be full of pregnancy updates! But if that's not the case, if we hit November 6, 2016 and we still don't have a child, I know I can still say that it had been a good year because our God is good and our God is in control and our God promises contentment when we find our peace in Him.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3 ESV)

Insanity, Jonah, and the Will of God (Waiting for My Time to Come)

Hi Everyone,

Well, we haven’t updated the blog in quite awhile because…well…there haven’t been any updates for the blog.  After our first Frozen (Adopted) Embryo Transfer didn’t work, and our three little ‘embies’ went to heaven, the Lord made it clear that we were to take some time off and re-group.  Our Doctor had a successful heart surgery, we were able to visit Walt Disney World (by the Lord’s provision!), and another super busy summer came and went.  So now, here we are, just beginning to prepare for our second attempt at an F(A)ET.  Here are a few things on our hearts:

Have you ever heard that definition of Insanity that goes something like: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? 

(Sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein.  But then again, “The problem with internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy.” – Abraham Lincoln) 

Anyways, Gabby and I are feeling a little like that.  Not like Abraham Lincoln, mind you, but that we’re about to do the same long, tiresome, expensive, emotionally draining process in hopes of different results.  Now, I use the word ‘hope’ a little differently this time around.  For our first transfer, we had lots of good innocent hope.  I mean, we had never had a failed F(A)ET in our lives, so why shouldn’t we be hopeful that it would work?  We had so many people praying for us from all over!  God answers prayer, right?  Well, our transfer did not result in a viable pregnancy (although at least for some period of time, there were 2 living embryos in Gabby's womb).  Therefore, this time around, frankly it's harder to be hopeful that we’re going to get pregnant.  I mean, we’re pretty much doing the same exact thing (although we’re adding one additional hormone called Lupron. It's a shot that Gabby gives herself in the stomach every night for a couple weeks), so it’s hard to think we’ll get a different result.  But here’s the thing, friends.  More and more, God is focusing us on the point of this whole endeavor:

...and the point isn't necessarily to get pregnant.   

What?!  I know, I know.  Track with me.  The point of this whole endeavor is this: to glorify God.  All things are from Him, through Him, and to Him (Rom 11:36), so EVERYTHING should be about His glory.  So while it’s a little harder to be hopeful about actually getting pregnant this time around, (which is still something we’re praying for and asking you to pray for) we’re 100% hopeful (sure) that this is all for God’s glory.  No matter what happens.  He’s already been glorified so much in everything that we've experienced. We've even entertained the thought that us not getting pregnant might end up bringing Him the most glory, and we're preparing our hearts to be content with that. At the very least, we know that was the case for the first attempt!

With that being said, we are still trying to be hopeful this time around.  I mean, we don’t want to approach this next attempt as if Eeyore got married to a nice girl donkey, we’ll call her MarEeyore, and then they experienced infertility, only to learn about Embryo Adoption and get matched with a nice set of donkey embryos, and had an attempt that did not result in pregnancy, only to try again, but Eeyore had the mindset, “Well, it’s probably not going to work anyway.”  By no means!  We do want to approach this 2^nd try with hope! (Gabby wanted to include this picture of her and Eeyore from Walt Disney World at this part in the story)

Ok, I promise this next thing relates: a few days ago, I learned it was the 10^th anniversary of one of my favorite records, “Vhiessu,” by one of my favorite bands, Thrice.  One of the songs on that record is called “Hold Fast Hope,” and it’s about Jonah.  This record and song came back to my mind right around the time we were starting everything for this 2^nd attempt.  And I got to thinking, you know who literally was in the ‘depths’ of despair?  Jonah!  After his disobedience to God, he found himself in a “great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up.”   Then, when God ordains that the lot was cast to Jonah (he still hadn't confessed at this point), He finally “mans ups" a bit and tells them to cast him into the sea.  Instead of dying, as you'd expect during a “great storm,” God appoints a “great fish” to swallow Jonah, and Jonah is stuck in the stomach of this fish three days and three nights.  Ok, I don’t know about you, but if all of this were happening to me, I would expect to die.  Think about it: huge storm, ship about to go down: I’m going to drown.  They’re throwing me overboard into the sea and I JUST GOT SWALLOWED BY A SEA CREATURE.. YEAH, I’M GOING TO BE EATEN.  And yet, at some point in all of this, Jonah truly “mans up” and prays these words:

 I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me.  I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.  For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me.  All Your breakers and billows passed over me.  So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight.  Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’  Water encompassed me to the point of death.  The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head.  I descended to the roots of the mountains.  The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.  While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple.  Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving.  That which I have vowed I will pay.  Salvation is from the LORD.

Wow.  Now, if you’ve read your Bibles, you know that Jonah would continue to have to learn tough lessons.  But at this point, Jonah recognized.  Jonah held fast to hope.  Maybe he didn’t necessarily hold fast to the hope of living through all of this, but he held fast to the hope of God’s sovereignty and glory.  And that’s what we want to do. 

Finally, here’s another reminder.  Gabby and I don’t know the will of God in all of this, and neither do you, our friends and family.  So we invite you to pray and to hope with us that we’d get pregnant!  AND, even though some people are trying to ‘think positive’ and ‘trust’ and ‘be kind’, sometimes it feels a little weird when we hear people say, “Oh, I just KNOW you’re going to get pregnant.”  Cause really, unless you’ve had some divine revelation from the Lord, you don’t know.  We don’t know, either.  That’s ok.  We DO know that God is glorified in all of this, so we invite you to start sending those prayers to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! 

If you’ve read this far, or skipped down below, our current timeline has us doing the actual transfer on or around November 19 or 20.  We really do covet your prayers for this, both that we’d get pregnant, but more importantly that God would be glorified. 

I’ll wrap up this post with another song lyric from one of our most favorite bands as of late, Colony House.  (featuring the sons of the ever-popular Steven Curtis Chapman: Caleb and Will Franklin Chapman) 

“I’ve tried.  I’ve failed. I thought I gave my all, now it’s hard to tell.

Is this the end of this dream I lost, or just an introduction to how much it may cost?

Oh, it seems so complicated, It feels like hope has faded.

When I know it’s just a way that we grow, I cannot control.

I’m still waiting for my time to come.”         

 
 - “Waiting for My Time to Come” by Colony House

Our Plans for Attempting FET #2

Just wanted to share a quick update about our future plans for growing our family...

We talked to our doctor last week to recap our transfer and talk about what went well, what didn't, and his recommendations for moving forward. He said that there are three things he looks at when a transfer doesn't work.

#1 How did the procedure go? Was it painful? Complicated? Hard to get the embryos where they needed to be?
#2 How were my hormone levels? Was my uterus "cooperating"?
#3 How did the embryos look? Did they thaw well?

He said that based on his notes and all the info we have #1 and #2 couldn't have been better. Everything went smoothly, my hormone levels and uterus were right where they needed to be - basically, there's nothing he or we could have done to make that better.

Regarding #3 though - he said the embryos were good, but they weren't great. It's hard to know how they'll look when they're still frozen, so it's really mostly a guessing game as to how they will thaw prior to the transfer.

He's optimistic that with our 5 remaining embryos we have a good shot - but of course, nothing is guaranteed.

He said that since my body responded well to the protocol, we probably won't change anything as far as dosage and types of meds when we try again. As far as when we'll attempt another transfer, he said that he usually recommends waiting about a month in order to let my body get back to "normal."

However, and this is quite interesting timing... our doctor just found out last week that he's going to have heart surgery this coming Tuesday! Apparently he went to the doctor for an unrelated issue, and found out he's got blockage and his doctor wanted to schedule surgery ASAP. Selfishly, this impacts our personal timeline.

My heart (ooh bad pun, not intended) dropped when he told us the news.  He said that his doctor said to plan on being out of work for a couple months because surgery and recovery are rather intensive. Our doctor did say that the other two Reproductive Endocrinologists in his office are happy to cover him and take care of his patients while he's out... but of course, he'd rather that we wait for him.

Donny and I talked and we agree that we really don't want to switch to anyone else at this point.  We love our doctor, he knows our story, he knows us, and we just feel more comfortable waiting for him.

So that's where we are, more waiting. He's expecting to be back in the office around July - but our summers get so busy, we'll probably have to wait until September before we start the whole process again.

Of course, I'm a little disappointed. I want to be pregnant like, NOW. But at the same time, it felt pretty obvious that God wanted us to wait.

I've had about a week now to process the plan, and I'm feeling good about it.  Since we started applying to adopt embryos last September, we've been kind of stuck in this unknown world of waiting...not sure how far in advance to make plans because we didn't know when things would start, how long they would take, how I would feel, etc. So being able to at least generally plan the next three months-ish has been kind of refreshing. I think I'll sign up to run a half marathon in July or August (my last race was 10 months ago!) and we'll keep saving money, having fun together, serving at church and just living out life as the DINKS (dual income no kids) couple that we've been for almost 5 years now.

I doubt I'll have much to post for the next few months - but thank you so much for reading and praying! We plan on picking up again when we have news to report :)

Thank you!

Can I just say thank you so much everybody for all of the love and care and kindness and just general amazing-ness you have show me and Donny over the last few weeks? We are overwhelmed by you all.  Thank you.  So many people (some of you I haven't even met in person or seen in years!) have been contacting us to say that you're praying and it just means the world to us.  PRAYER WORKS! God is teaching us a lot of lessons through our infertility/adoption journey - and taking prayer seriously is one of those unexpected lessons.  People are praying and we feel good - we know those two things are related.  It's been a hard week since we found out that our transfer didn't work - but it's been a week that's also been filled with joy and love and peace. So yes, basically I just want to say we are so grateful to God and to you for loving us!

So what's next?
We're not quite sure yet.  The day we got "the" phone call our nurse said that our doctor wants us to wait about a month to let my body re-regulate.  I stopped all my meds cold turkey that Wednesday afternoon (that was fun) and am back to just being a regular ol' person.

I'm trying to take advantage of all the things I couldn't do when I hoped I was pregnant (coffee, rides at Disneyland, coffee, sushi, coffee, etc...) and have also resumed teaching classes at the gym.  My first real workout back after about 3 weeks of "taking it easy" was challenging, to say the least, but putting energy and focus into exercising has been good for my heart too.

This week's schedule of activities has been pretty light, which has been really good for Donny and I to just be together. After our relationship with the Lord, our relationship with each other as husband and wife is what's most important. If it ends up that we're not called to be parents, we still have Christ (which is all we need) and we'll still have each other (which is an awesome bonus) and we're still called to love, serve and put each other's needs before our own.  We don't ever want to lose sight of that in the crazy world of trying to get pregnant/parenting and we feel very grateful that the Lord has made that easier for us right now.

My Valentine's gift to Donny was 12 travel around the world themed stay-home date nights - so in April we went to Italy! Complete with pasta, pizza, gelato, water color painting and sculpting statues (with play dough). 

We have a phone appointment with our doctor tomorrow afternoon, so I'm assuming we'll get a better sense of the schedule after that.  We're sad about the loss of our embryos, but we're also anxious to try again.

One of our snowflakes didn't survive thawing, so that means that three of our children have now entered heaven.  A friend from my Embryo Adoption support group on Facebook sent me a very sweet message. She too has experienced failed pregnancies and I've taken a lot of comfort in her words in the last few days. She said that even though our hearts break at this loss, knowing that my body was a vessel to finally free these frozen lives to go meet Jesus, has been incredibly encouraging. Our embryos were frozen for 12 years before coming to us and who knows how much longer it would have been before they would have been adopted by another family.  So at the very least, we can rest in the knowledge that instead of being unaware in a petri dish - they're in heaven praising God.  What a blessing!

Again, thank you so much! We feel the affects of your prayers and feel so so loved!

I'll post again when we know more.

Soli Deo Gloria

(by Donny)

We’re not pregnant.  

Our little embryos were unable to hold on and result in pregnancies.  This is a bummer, this is a trial, this is hard, this is God’s perfect will.  

Can I ask something of you, reader?  Would you keep praying?  We’ve felt so, so blessed in hearing about and feeling your prayers over us, and so we would ask that you keep doing that in this time.  Instead of well-intentioned consolation with biblical references (which we’re totally holding onto right now), and/or asking about, “well, what’s next?”, would you simply weep with us (Rom. 12:15) for now?  That would be the best thing you can do.  That’s what The Church does.

If you believe that life begins at conception, then so far, 3 of our little lives have gone to be with Jesus (also assuming you believe that babies who die go to heaven, which I think there is very good reason to believe, but that’s for another topic).  During the thaw process, one went to be with Jesus, and now, two more went to be with Jesus.  (How cool it will be to see them in heaven!?) And so it’s hard, but we trust an amazing God with a perfect will that can often be hard to swallow.  Job said it well, “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

In the midst of this, we still have hope because we have God.  Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have hope in Salvation.  That’s all we need.  As a bonus, we also have each other.  We know that this will work together for our good and God’s glory.

“The road of disappointment runs where unseen mercies wait for us.  And all is well because of God’s great love…Through every failure, every fear, the Lord of comfort draws us near.  And all is well because of God’s great love.”

-From “All is Well” by Steve and Vicki Cook

To God alone be the glory (Soli Deo Gloria).

P.S. In time, we’ll post about “what’s next.”  But for now, we’re going to grieve, regroup, and worship God.

The Weight of the Wait

(Ok, I should start this post by saying Gabby and I don’t necessarily feel a ‘weight’ per se, I just can’t resist a good homonymous alliteration)

Raise your hand if you like waiting.  Ok, if you’re a smarty-pants like me, you may have thought of situations where waiting is favorable, and you can leave those in the comments below if you’d like.  But for the sake of this post, my topic sentence is this: (In general) No one likes to wait.  Gabby and I love to go to Disneyland.  We dislike WAITING in traffic to get to the parks and having to WAIT in line for Casey Jr.  Our Siamese cats love Kitty Din-Din, but they dislike having to WAIT ‘til 9:30pm for their song and dinner routine.  There are rooms designated for WAITING, and these are not places where you relax and kick-back or have a party.

WAITING is hard because it takes patience.  Especially as mankind advances, so many things involve WAITING less and less.  We have “Insta-gram,” which has “instant” in the title, because we need to brag to our friends about what we’re doing RIGHT NOW!  We have “On-Demand” online tv viewing devices, because we have the right to DEMAND when we watch our shows.  Car places try to draw you in with how fast they can change your oil. “15-minute Oil Change,”   “10-minute Oil Change,” “2-minute Oil Change.”  (Which, by the way, doesn’t instill confidence in me that they’re doing a thorough job).

Patience is hard because it infers that we’re NOT IN CONTROL of something.  We have to WAIT for some other factor to play its part, and then we’ll get to do the thing we want to do.

Gabby and I are in one of the most impactful, surreal, and crazy ‘WAITS’ of our lives (especially in our marriage).  As many of you know, yesterday (Friday, April 10th) was our embryo transfer day.  We went to our Doctor’s office, went into a room to WAIT, and then a few hours later we were heading home!  There are two embryos inside Gabby!  The Doctor said something to the effect of, “Alright, we’ll see you in X amount of days/weeks and we’ll see if you’re pregnant.”  Umm, Ok.  We’ll just go WAIT at home to find out, then.  So…here we are.

It’s crazy because after this WAITING period, we may either hear miraculous, happy, and God-glorifying news OR we may get discouraging, trying, and God-glorifying news.  We have no idea what God is going to do, but we do know He will be glorified whatever the case.
So how should we WAIT?  In Psalm 27, David talks about not being afraid because he trusts in the Lord.  It’s a fairly familiar Psalm, including the passages “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  David goes on in the Psalm to talk about all the ways he trusts in the LORD in the face of enemies, danger, and trials in general.  He ends the Psalm in verse 14, “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”  David uses the word “wait” several times around the Psalms, and with it comes the idea of “to expect actively; to look upon with dependence and trust actively, not passively.”  This type of WAITING allows believers to be strong and courageous in the face of trials.  To be clear, these scriptures DO NOT mean, “if you WAIT on the LORD correctly, He’ll answer your prayer the way you want it.”  That’s bad theology.  These scriptures DO promise that whether we get pregnant or not this time, we can find peace, joy, strength, and courage through the grace given to us by God.  We can experience this because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Happy Easter, by the way). 

SO, I come to the part where I let you know what you can do for us, (if you’d like to do anything)
1) KEEP PRAYING.  Keep praying that the embryos would stick!  We’ve been so encouraged by your “likes” on statuses, your comments, and just your prayers in general.  Keep ‘em coming!  There is power in prayer! (to the God of the Bible)

2) WAIT WITH US.  Many of you may have been in situations similar to us.  Perhaps you have WAITED for some type of important news.  One thing that can be a little bit tough is when many, many people ask you, “Any news yet?  Do you know if you’re pregnant yet?”  If you’ve asked this before, don’t worry, but we’re asking that if you see us in these next few weeks, instead of asking “Do you know if you’re pregnant?” a simple “I’m praying for you!” will be worlds more encouraging.  We will share the news with everyone as soon as we’re ready to share it with you guys.  It’s been really special and important for some of these big steps along the way that Gabby and I have time to process it together first before sharing.  It’s been a kind of weird thing to balance, who knew you could bring hundreds of people along your infertility/embryo adoption/pregnancy quest journey, right?

Welp, I think that brings this post to a close.  Thanks for WAITING to read through it all.

- Donny & Gabby

Our Embryos Have Arrived!

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After being frozen in Florida for over 10 years, On Wednesday, March 18 our eight precious embryos arrived at our clinic in Pasadena, CA. It was such a joy and relief to have reached this point in our journey.

We went to our clinic last Thursday for another ultrasound and blood work.  Our doctor said everything looked good and we were ready to start preparing my body for the transfer!

That day I started taking a prenatal vitamin (3x a day!) and a few other vitamin/supplement things they prescribed.  And then on Monday 3/23... the big one...the first shot of estrogen!

Estrogen shots like this need to be administered to a large muscle-y/fatt-y area...which as you can probably guess, is a little hard for me personally to reach. So, the nurse walked Donny and I through the the whole process, showing him what to do. I couldn't help but giggle when they were both kneeling down and studying my backside to show him exactly where to stick the VERY large needle.

Donny hasn't had the most confidence-inducing history with needles and shots, but I could tell he was totally rallying and was ready to do this for me. I was getting a little confused by the "use this one for extracting and this one for sticking" But Donny was totally tracking and I felt confident that he could manage.

But, we also agreed that maybe asking my dad, a hospital nurse for the past 30 years, to administer the first shot so Donny could watch, was a good idea.

So on Monday night, my dad came over with all the confidence of someone who has stuck people with needles literally thousands of times. He looked at all the stuff the pharmacy had sent me and said, "wow that's a big needle!" Thanks dad.

He read all the instructions (which is so typical of him.  Asking my dad for help on homework as a kid was always a last resort because he'd want to read the entire chapter in the text book to fully grasp the subject) and then we got started.

I had felt pretty ok with the idea of the shot until that moment. He started flicking the syringe (I didn't know they actually did that!) and he just kept commenting on how thick the oily liquid was. He was explaining everything to Donny and I'm not even kidding when I say the words "big needle" were used just way too many times.

The big moment finally came, he asked, "ok are you ready" I took some deep "pump up" breaths and said "yes! Let's do this!" and then...it was over.

I laughed, "was that it?" my dad said, yep, you're done.

I hardly felt it at all.  It was literally like a little pin prick.  I asked if he was sure he did it right and again, with all the confidence of someone who has administered thousands of shots he said, "yes, I know I did it right."

Whew! So one more hurdle/fear/anxiety overcome.

I have to do shots every 3 days until the transfer.  So today, Thursday, is shot #2.  I haven't had any noticeable side affects from the first one, so I'm hoping that stays about the same.  I kind of expected to be a sort of raging-hormonal-lunatic during this period - but so far, so good!

Regardless, it's all for the babies!

(I wonder if anyone googles "red head twin babies" more than me?)

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