Today is the day before our embryo transfer. It feels like this day could drag on forever. I guess, in a way it has, at least over the last 4 years. The hardest part of the IVF journey is the constant waiting and wondering. It can drive a sane person mad and test the most patient of saints. Up until this day, I hadn't realized the impact of what bringing a child into the world really meant. Our lives will be forever changed. It will no longer be just the three of us.
Its been be 13 years since I've carried a child, but I can still remember what it felt like for my son to move around inside me. Kick my bladder or my lungs, wake me up in the middle of the night with his wiggly butt. At the moment I found it annoying. I knew my days were numbered for getting any amount of decent sleep, so any disturbance to my precious sleep was reason to go crazy. The indigestion, the cravings, the tired achy body...all went away the moment my son was born. I've spent 13 years never believing it could happen again. But here I am, the day before two lives will be placed into my womb to grow and be nutured.
Its a miracle, this gift of life. At first, I was so angry at why God hadn't allowed us to get pregnant right away. I was bitter and resentful at every announcement from my friends of yet another "we're expecting". Tears would well up in my eyes and I swallowed back the large lump that would form in my throat. It wasn't fair, and I didn't know why. Phillip and I were good people. We both wanted a family and knew we would be great parents. Sure our marriage had its fair share of struggles and but doesn't everyone's marriage? I know no perfect marriage, much to the contrary of what people would like us to think. So I knew that it wasn't because of something we did or didn't do. As God got ahold of my heart, we began to whisper to me that I was a chosen one.
I was chosen to go through this miracle of conception from beginning to end. See every facet of life being made and developed. Most people (those with whom I resented) would wake up one morning and realize that a period hasn't come on time, and a pregnancy test later reveals the big news. But my husband and I, we planned this. We've conceived life knowing every single step of the process right down to the number of cells. How many people get to experience that?
Most people would agree they wouldn't want to go through the experience of infertility. But I've looked at this as a gift. I was a chosen one. I would think that each woman who has undergone fertility treatments would agree with me. While during the process, its not exactly fun. Twice daily shots in our stomachs, constant bloodwork and vaginal ultrasounds to check our growing follicles, while we're bloated so much that we already look pregnant. Closely watching the screens in the hopes that our skilled doctors see growth in a follicle that contains the very egg needed to create the life we so desperately want. Our husbands endure semen analysis that don't always yield good results. They too, go through a myriad of emotions (though they try to hold it in) when they discover that they were part of the reason why natural conception hasn't happened. It can be a blow to a man's ego. We as women, have to hold our heads up high, and comfort our husbands just as they confort us.
This journey has brought Phillip and I closer together. It's not that way for everybody. Sometimes it more than some couples can handle. The emotional rollercoaster that we go through can sometimes be unbearable. But for those who endure it, can come away from this experience with a gift. The gift of a beautiful child that was created with love. I can't believe that God chose me. And I'm almost there, I'm a day before realizing that gift. Now I'm realistic that I've still a long road to go, waiting to find out if it worked. If all this work results in the child we've been waiting for. But even if it doesn't, I know God chose me because he knew I was strong, that I could handle anything we could throw my way. I'm ready for it...bring it on.
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