Baby Kylie.
Baby Jayden.
I am inspired by my friend Holly. I feel like I want to tell my story about how Jayden and Kylie came to be. Now I know how babies normally get here, but for us it was a journey with much different results. Jayden and Kylie are what you would call "snowflake babies". We won't be hiding this from our children and so why not educate others about the options out there for those of us who struggle bringing a spirit into this world.
We were married 9 years ago, we did not start trying to have kids until we were married for about a year. We tried to concieve without too much concern for about 1 1/2 years after that. Finally we realized that something wasn't right and we went to a normal OBGYN with some experience in infertility. At this point it is test after test to make sure your body is performing normally. They are expensive and some painful but worth it if it will help answer those questions about why you aren't successful yet. The tests showed that we were both perfectly normal and we learned that we fall into 15% of people who at this point their infertility is unknown. We were given some prescriptions to help but they were not successful and caused some interesting and funny moments in our marriage. It was not a comfort to know you fit in that unknown category and to be honest every month was a game of waiting and then total dissappointment. The hardest times were when you were a few days late and then found out you were not pregnant. We lived in Utah and the pressures there to start a family are strong. That is a good thing but a lot of people did not understand and asked a lot of questions that were hard for us to answer. It is hard to explain because we felt God's hand throughout the whole process but patience was hard.
Finally the doctor in Logan said that he could do no more for us and recommended us to a specialist in Salt Lake City. We were excited to find out what was next and for this consult. It was a horrible moment for us. He kept stating the odds against us, we were now in an 8% category. The money we needed was staggering and in the end he felt it might be time for us to look into adoption. I will never forget the drive home. Our solution? We went shopping and spent a lot of money on stupid stuff. We decided to take a break for a bit.
In 2004 we moved to Boise, ID. While we were there, we heard of another infertilty clinic and decided to give it another shot. It was wonderful! We were given the odds but we were also given hope, we left that consult with a plan. First we tried inter-uter insemination. That was done once a month for three months. This is where they take Colby's swimmers and insert them further into my tubes. The hope is that if my uterus is tilted or my body is fighting the swimmers, they have a better chance. It was not successful. That was O.K. because we found out more things that were not the problem. Next was IVF.
IVF is one of the hardest things emotionally and physically I have ever done. The medication routine is intense! They cause all sorts of hormones to go crazy. I still remember that during one medication I had a personal space bubble and I would get so angry if Colby got in my bubble. It was life or death if he got in my bubble :) They were able to "harvest" 19 overies. That is very successful but come to find out that after my eggs were in the test tube, my eggs were not progressing and dividing how they were supposed to. At least we had an answer, we didn't know why but my eggs are not good. That was another rough week. We could try IVF again but the stats were not good for us. With as much as went into the process, I couldn't go through it again with the odds as bad as they were.
We took another break but got the itch again when we were living in Pocatello, ID. We decided to look into adoption and went to a meeting with LDS Social Services. Now remember that I am adopted. I had a closed adoption and feel strongly that that is the way to go. I love my birth mother in a way that is hard to explain but I know that she gave a gift by letting go and letting my adoptive parents take over from day one. It was hard to hear in the meeting how many rights the birth mother now has. We left the meeting knowing that we were not ready for this avenue and the waiting time given to us was three years!
We prayed and decided to go back to the clinic for a consult one last time. We had decided that this was going to be it, maybe we weren't meant to have children! We were told we have three options...1. Try IVF again with Me and Colby. 2. Try an egg donor situation 3. Try something called Embryo Adoption. We knew 1 was not an option. Egg donation cost about $15,000 and was hard to handle for us. Embryo Adoption cost only $2,500.
What is Embryo Adoption? A couple comes into the clinic and does an IVF procedure. They have success and have left over embryo's. They then sign over all rights and donate those embryo's to those who need them. We prayed again and felt this was the way to go. It is a little wierd being mailed a list with ethnicity, eye color, blood type, etc. information and "shopping" for a couple that looks somewhat like you. We had a hard time finding a match and then one day got a call from the office saying they had a couple that we might be interested in. It was like a peace settled over us and we knew we had found what we were looking for. We had 10 embryo's to use.
Our first time they let 6 embryo's develop further and two were awesome. I can not tell you how awesome that day was when we found out that we were pregnant! It took 7 1/2 years but finnally we were going to be parents! It was not wierd, when he was born he was ours in every way! We laugh now and wink at each other when someone tells us how much he looks like Colby. I will never forget when we blessed Jayden, I never thought that day would come. We are sooooo blessed! We didn't know if we were lucky the first time and so we decided to do the procedure again the next summer.
Of course for us nothing could be easy. When we decided to do the procedure again we had to do a blood test and found out that my body did not respond to the Rhogam shot I was giving after Jayden was born. The doctors had never heard of this before so now we are in the 1% group. Rhogam helps your body not fight your babies blood while in the womb because you are different blood types. I am negative and the embryos are positive. Colby is positive as well so we would have had this issue no matter what. The clinic was nervous doing another procedure because it had a high possibility of being a high risk pregnancy. We understood the risks and moved forward anyways. We felt the longer we waited the higher chance there was of my blood fighting the fetus.
We used the last 4 embryos and again had 2 good ones. To our surprise, we were successful again. My blood numbers stayed low the whole pregnancy and so I was not high risk. Kylie was born 4 months ago. My blood was tested and my level now is too high to have another child safely. So, we have a boy and a girl. We love them sooo much and are so thankful for technology today that has allowed us to be parents. We know we are a family in a unique way but still feel that this is Heavenly father's plan for us.
This has been a long blog, I just felt like remembering today and journeling this for the future. Thank you for being patient with me. If you have any questions, please let us know!
