Our new baby girl

So the end of the pregnancy story is a good one.

We had a baby girl.  My older daughter was ELATED.  I mean, this baby sister was the answer to her seven years of non-stop prayer.  

The baby was born one day before her due date.  She came the way all the rest came.  My water broke.  Labor started.  It moves very, very quickly after that.

Baby girl is happy and healthy and so, so sweet.

We are thrilled.  I am tired.  She is a miracle.

HPT + - really!?! - Low HCG Success Story

I'm pregnant and it turns out that zombie body parts sometimes work.  My zombie uterus has been supporting life for 14 weeks so far.

It was touch and go for a while after the embryo adoption and transfer in May.

One day before my scheduled HCG blood test, I took an HPT.  It was negative.  I cried.  I knew, I just knew that there was no way I could be this far out from our transfer (11 days post transfer, 14 days past ovulation) and get a negative test.

The following day, I took my last HPT.  There was a ghost of a ghost of a line.  I mean, it was so light I stood in the bathroom for a very long time squinting at the stick.  Then I called my DH in.  He was skeptical and rightly so.  We both wanted this baby to live so much that it hurt.  It was easy to conclude the ghost line was more a product of an active imagination than the chemical presence of a miracle baby.

But I felt better.  A line is a line is a line.

So I went to my blood test feeling somewhat hopeful.  That would be the last hope I felt for about a month.

Later that afternoon my doctor called.  It was the doctor, not the nurse.  That's never a good sign.  He was calling to tell me my HCG result was 29.

I bit my lip and pinched the bridge of my nose to keep the tears at bay.  29 was very low.  It was ridiculously low.  I knew what it meant, even though the doctor was nothing but positive.  He said there we'd wait and see what the next numbers were.  But I knew that a 29 meant that this was probably not a viable pregnancy.

Two days later.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  I was at 62 and in agony.

I shut myself inside my bedroom and wept.  Sixty-freeking-two at 17 days post ovulation.  That's a failing pregnancy.  That's a dying baby.  Still, my doctor, who once again called me, said this baby had a 50-50 shot.

My mom and dad were visiting.  My mom went off for a walk when I told her, tears streaming down my face, that her fifth living grandchild was on its way to becoming her 12th miscarried grandchild.  We didn't tell the kids anything during this time.  We just held on and waited for the numbers to drop.  Or rather, that's what I did.

Every time I did an internet search of "low HCG" or "low HCG success stories" I got tale after sad tale of miscarriages and chemical pregnancies.  I found a total of five stories where the moms gave birth to a healthy baby.  There were tens, probably hundreds, of heartbreaking stories.  Babies lost a 4 weeks, 5 weeks, 6 weeks.  Babies lost after what seemed to be a perfect rise in HCG levels.  There was a depressing medical study quoted over and over by savvy net-moms that gave my baby a thirty percent chance of live birth.

DH, who is an eternal pessimist and is currently obsessed with Ebola, was calm and even peaceful while I was falling apart.  He said, "You're planning a funeral for a child who is alive.  You're acting like this pregnancy is already over.  Stop it.  You need to be happy for the gift we have right now.  You're pregnant."  He hugged me and a huge "proud papa" grin spread across his face.  "You're pregnant right now.  Enjoy it!"

He was so right but what a struggle it was to enjoy something I was convinced I was going to lose.  Every few days for two weeks, I went in for blood work.  The numbers slowly climbed but there was never the huge jump I had seen with my first two pregnancies. This baby, this pregnancy, was slow to rise but the rise was steady and doubling as it should.

Finally after two weeks, the doctor stopped the blood work and told me to schedule an ultrasound.  I thought I was 5 weeks and 6 days when I went in, which was just barely, barely far enough along to sometimes see a heartbeat.

It was the Feast of St. Anthony, finder of lost things.  Since he's so good at finding lost things and since me and St. Tony go way back, (for a while had quite a contentious relationship) I asked him to help us find the baby's heartbeat.

I desperately needed to see the heartbeat.

It was ridiculously early to expect that we'd see one.  And when they got the ultrasound on the baby, we realized that seeing a heartbeat was going to be even more difficult than we thought.  The baby measured 5 weeks 4 days.

Probable late implantation, smaller baby, it didn't look good.

But then it all came into focus.

The sonographer sounded awed when he said, "This is the earliest I've ever seen the heartbeat.  It's right there."  He pointed to a flicker on the screen.

DH counted the beats.  120 beats per minute.

The heart was strong.  The baby, the tiny, bitty, smaller than a sesame seed baby, was miraculously alive. A sesame seed, people!  We saw a heart beat inside a baby who was the size of a sesame seed.  God is completely amazing.  So was the guy who did the ultrasound.

Now, I'm 14 weeks.  The morning sickness is gradually getting better.  I'm still easily tired.  I have an inexplicable case of hives that come and go and get worse when my nausea is especially bad.  I crave cream cheese.  I can't tolerate sugar.  Mexican food, my usual stand-by when pregnant, makes me sick.

So yeah, I'm pregnant.  All bets are that it's a girl but we won't find out for sure for a few more weeks.

  

God's will and adopting again

I have mixed feelings about posting.  I know not many people read this blog.  I don't keep it up.  I like my privacy.  My husband likes his too.  But I want to post because I need an outlet and I think my husband's ears are worn out from the sound of my sighing.

We're adopting again.

We're adopting five years too late but we're doing it.  

Right after Dignitas Personae (DP) came out, a priest friend of ours came over to visit and asked us if we had heard the news.  He told us the way the document read, it seemed clear that the church had decided embryo adoption was not permissible.  Thousands of babies would have to exist in "an absurd state" of being frozen until they thawed and then died, forgotten like so many chicken breasts in my microwave.  

I'll never forget it.  Never, as long as I live.  I was standing in my kitchen with a baby (an adopted embryo) in a sling on my left hip and a black plastic spoon in my right hand, dripping Pasta e Fagoli soup back into the pot.  I fought so hard to hold back the tears because I am strong and I don't cry in front of people if I can help it.  

No more babies, I thought as my heart wrung out.  The baby on my hip had two more siblings we had promised to go back for.  We had intended to do it even though we "had our hands full" - until we read DP.

I was heartbroken at the thought of abandoning those babies.

I was heartbroken at the thought that my husband and I had done something that could give scandal. 

The situation was grave.  How to explain this to our children?  How to explain this to others?  How to erase the media we had done promoting embryo adoption?  (It wasn't much but still....)  Until this point I had been cautiously encouraging other Catholic couples to look into embryo adoption.  How did I undo that?

After DP was released in December 2008, my lips were sealed on the issue of embryo adoption.  I wouldn't give scandal and I was ashamed that perhaps I already had.  Three of our adoptions, three of our children, were ill gotten gain.  I was devastated.  

Months passed and comments trickled out.  Janet Smith said embryo adoption wasn't off the table.  Others began to pick up the drumbeat again.  How can those children be left to die?  How can they be consigned to an "absurd fate"?  The USCCB confirmed that DP did NOT close the debate over embryo adoption.  

So for us, the debate began anew but this time, I followed it less intently. I had decided that we were done.  Even if the debate wasn't over, the writing was on the wall.  It was clear from DP that the Church didn't take a kind view of embryo adoption.  The thought that I might do something that could possibly be a mortal sin, give scandal, put my marriage in jeopardy, no, there would be no more embryo adoptions for us.

Walking up the stairs to church three years later, I counted my children.  Four.  Where was the other one?  I looked around.  Four?  I felt like I had simultaneously slammed into a brick wall and had a lobotomy.  Duh!  I only have four children.  Four living children.  What a stupid mistake.  Who does that?  I've heard of forgetting children but not adding to the count.  

For whatever reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that we should have had more children with us that morning.   I wondered why that thought should strike me right as we walked up the stairs into mass.  Odd or maybe providential.  I don't take much stock in "God feelings" but sometimes He does speak that way to us... to me.  Not often, but sometimes.  

My hands trembled when I got home and gave serious thought to another embryo adoption.  The stress was overwhelming.  How could God possibly be calling us to embryo adoption?  But if He was, I knew I needed to listen.    Slowly, I started to test the water.  My husband and I discussed it.  He was all like, "Let's go for it!  Whoo hoo."  Which was completely uncharacteristic of him.  I was all like, "No, not yet."  

I talked to priests, good Catholics that I knew.  I talked to my mom.  I decided again, no.  The risk was too high.  I didn't want to do anything that wouldn't be in line with Church teaching.  I used to feel all high and mighty and proud that I had a Master's in theology but after DP, I was humbled.  I felt like I had gotten it wrong, that I hadn't discerned properly.  It was a stunning blow - as in, I was stunned - not so much that I made an error, I do that all the time.  But that it was so utterly nebulous and yet grave at the same time.  Maybe I was going to hell, maybe I was a hero.  How does one go about discerning something like that?!

Then, out of the blue, we received a phone call from a moral theologian who teaches at a well respected Catholic seminary.  He wanted to talk to us about embryo adoption.  I was dumbfounded.  We chatted for a while and then he casually asked us if we planned to adopt again.  My husband looked at me hopefully.  I cleared my throat and said, "No.  We don't plan to go back."

There was silence on the other end.

Then the man spoke up, his voice tinged with anger.  "It isn't because of DP is it?  Because let me tell you something...." And then he went on to explain the politics behind the document.  He explained that under no uncertain terms had the church ruled on embryo adoption.  He said that the document, as far as embryo adoption was concerned, had done the opposite of what documents are supposed to do.  Rather than clarifying the issue, it muddied it.

I know it sounds cheesy but I honestly felt like I had just talked on the phone with Jesus.  I hate myself for even writing that because it's so gaahhh, stupid sounding.  But it's true.  I felt like I had just talked to Jesus.  

When I got off the phone I wept.  I still cry to this day thinking about it (but only in private).  My babies.  My two precious babies!  It would be okay to go back for them.  I was convinced.  We would go back.  

But opposition persisted because not everyone gets to talk to experts on this issue, not everyone follows the embryo adoption debate very closely, not everyone gets phone calls from Jesus.  

For my part, I was so excited about this news, about the fact that we could go back, that I wanted to shout from the rooftops.  So, I told a few people I was getting to know in our new town.  They were experienced mothers with large families and had been a source of support since I had met them.  Both had read DP.  Both were horrified by our decision to adopt embryos.  I told my mom.  She was worried for us.  They all assumed that we were making an emotional, rebellious decision.  Nothing I could say would convince my two local friends.  My mom was only convinced after she called a priest at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and spoke to him.  

God bless them for caring.  They meant well.  I truly mean that.  But I can't tell you how much I was hurt.  Judgment, a little scorn, pushing to meet with more priests, not accepting or understanding that we now had put over six years of research into this.  And I was vulnerable to it, extremely vulnerable, because, at the corners of my mind I still doubt my ability to discern God's will.    

Time marched on and still, I dragged my heels.  The embryo adoption process is physically exhausting and the ups and downs of discerning what we should do, defending our decision to misinformed friends, had left me emotionally drained. 

Life just kept barreling forward at full speed.  At that time, I had four children, a little farm, was homeschooling and trying to start a school.  Then the school actually started and I was even busier.  And then, suddenly, at the beginning of this school year, I just collapsed under the weight of it all.  

Broken and confused and feeling every ounce of my own fallenness, I knelt for prayer one night and I gave it all to God.  "If this is your will, make it happen.  If it is not, shut it down.  I want to do what is right and only what it right."  And with that the baby steps began.

Our home study was completed.  During my physical, I had a routine mammogram.  It was abnormal.  I might have breast cancer.  My medication had to be stopped until the biopsy results.  I gave it over to God.  The results were negative for cancer.  I resumed the medication.  

When I went in to see the embryo adoption doctor, he discovered that I was post-menopausal.  Okay, maybe this would be the stopping point.  I gave it over to God.  Within two months, I was back on track.  

The mediations to prepare my body for the embryo transfer caused a severe panic attack (thanks to my friends who were on my SOS text that night - sorry for scaring you), weight loss, nausea, migraines, and general anxiety.  I nearly went off of them and quit.  But I gave it over to God and He helped me through.  (So did my husband - props to him!)  

Five years after we had planned to go back for our babies, we are now in the home stretch.  We have completed the adoption process and the babies are part of our family on paper.  Our transfer is scheduled for mid-May.  I will be pregnant one last time.  It's up to God how long that pregnancy will last, but I will get to hold them at least for a little while.  I love them already and I love them so much.

When I look into the blue eyes of their brother, prayers come quickly, for their safety, for their survival, for my own health and ability to carry them to term.  When I look into the brown eyes of their sister, I wonder if they will look like her.  Then I find myself wishing I could have fifty more of them, laughing, joking, fighting, climbing trees, stomping in puddles.   

But just as quickly, sobering thoughts come.  They have been waiting so long.  Their chances are so poor statistically.  We've already been so very, very blessed with four amazing, miraculous children.  Can I dare hope to heaven that God will save these last two?  

Yes.  I hope with all of my heart and soul and very fiber of my being. 

If you find yourself reading this, pray for my babies and the doctor and his staff.  And for me.

Dear God, your will be done.  Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary, Joseph, Scholastica, Benedict, Ambrose, and Athanasius - Pray for us.

EA part 2

After the alcohol wash, the only uncomfortable part of the procedure remaining was the pressing of the full bladder with the ultrasound device. Thankfully it didn't last for long.

In our previous three embryo adoption transfers it took an excruciating amount of time for the doctor to thread the catheter and for them to find the catheter on the ultrasound.

This time it took five minutes for the whole thing. Catheter went in. Ultrasound found it right away. Dr said, "Get the solution ready" or something like that. I was watching my uterus on TV so I was distracted. Nurse tells me I have a beautiful uterus (true). I say, "Yes, I get that a lot."

There is some movement at the embryo adoption window. Doctor announces, "They're in." Gives catheter back to embryologist. Embryologist checks catheter for stragglers and then announces, "Clear."

Hooray. I'm pregnant with triplets.

The embryo adoption window is pretty cool. I don't usually get a good view because the blinds are nearly always drawn when I get there. The embryologist, one of the smartest in the world, Carol, sits in there with scrubs and a surgical mask. Really, it's like a baby drive thru. They walk me in. Dr. says, "3 cute babies please." Carol slides open the little window of her climate controlled baby defrosting room and gives them to the Dr.

After the transfer, I'm wheeled out and made to wait the longest hour of my life before they let me use the restroom. The staff brought me a Coke, which I gave to John - because hello not only was I in no position to drink any liquid, Coke is a diuretic. But they also gave me cheesy Ritz bits. LOVE THEM. And I managed to eat most of them in spite of the bladder issue. I can always make room for Ritz bits.

So I'm in the dreadful 2week wait (aka 2ww). I think the earliest I could have a positive HPT is on Sept. 26 but I'm not sure if I'll test that day or wait until the feast of the Archangels. Rrrriiiiiiiight. Who am I kidding. I started testing yesterday. Don't tell John. BFN (of course)

Mr. Cubby is awake from his nap 1 hour early. We are going to have a grumpy afternoon.

The Difference Prayer and Childbirth Make

I can't emphasize enough the importance and the power of prayer in our embryo adoption this time. There were so many things guided by the hand of God. He put powerful prayer warriors in our path just days before the transfer was to take place. People we hadn't seen or talked to in a year or longer. People who have a direct line, unlike me who has to go through the automated answering system before getting a live operator who will then sometimes transfer me to the Big Guy.

A priest friend offered mass for us yesterday. A dear friend who is becoming a consecrated early next year prayed for us. My very holy godparents offered up mass and a super holy family of ten... no, eleven offered their family rosary. Not to mention all of my friends, family and of course mom, dad, mother-in-law and father-in-law and me'n John. The prayer accomplished amazing things through out our entire trip.

I also have to give a shout out to natural childbirth as a good prep for anything painful that might happen in lower girly parts.

As I mentioned in a past entry about the trial transfer, the "this might hurt a bit" part which usually made me hyperventilate and grab my arms so hard they bruised was uncomfortable but manageable.

The official transfer has a "you might feel a burning sensation" part. It wasn't the good type of muscle burn that makes you want to kill your spinning instructor. It was relentless and lasted about three million years.

They say, "Is everything OK? Are you comfortable?" I say, "Pretty good but warn me before you start that burning thing."

Doctor says, "OK then, we're ready to start the burning." (Really that's what he said. He's cool that way).

I grit my teeth and grab John's hand. Strangely, while it burns, it's not as awful as it was before. I found that I wasn't hyperventilating.

Nurse sees look of calm on my face and says, "Is it bad?" And I say, "Can't they use something else, like Neosporin?" And then I add, "It's not something I want to do everyday but it's not bad."

Alcohol torture lasts for a few minutes. Then it's over.

The best part is yet to come but Mr. Cubby just woke up and this is my first time seeing him in two days so I'm going to end here for now.

Embryo Adoption and Transfer

I don't have a fancy title for today. I'm still feeling a little groggy from the Valium and my long afternoon nap.

The first thing I want to do is honor the memory of Mr. Cubby's genetic sibling. Yesterday the little guy survived the thaw but he faltered this morning and wasn't able to make it to the transfer. We miss him very much and are very sad that we will not meet him nine months from now. But we commend his soul to God's mercy and hope to meet him in heaven.

The good news is that we did have embryos transferred to us this morning at 10:50 am. Three of them. The doctor gave us the same "warning" about this transfer as he did Mr. Cubby's transfer. Triplets might be a possibility. Of course we would be thrilled with that outcome. Overwhelmed but thrilled. :) But we also don't think that it's highly likely - though with God all things are possible.

A little about our new babies. Two of them look very healthy and happy. We got pictures of them and you can see the smiles. They're so happy not to be frozen anymore.... because who really wants to be frozen. The third is struggling a bit but we are hoping and praying for him. (I'm using the masculine pronoun in the generic sense. We won't know their gender until our 20 week ultrasound). All of the embryos are at the morula stage, which means their cells are compacting to the point where they can no longer be counted. They're about a day/ day and a half out from becoming blasocysts. At that point they will implant, God willing.

We have a pregnancy test scheduled for Oct. 2 - Feast of the Guardian Angels. Go guardian angels. But we'll definitely won't wait to take a pregnancy test. Will probably start testing with HPTs in about a week. Doctors don't like you to do that but come on.

I'll post all the gory details about the actual transfer later. For now know that all is well and we are pregnant with three babies.