Well All is well in babyland! I had a Dr appintment last week and things are looking good. I am up 8lbs and uterus is measuring normal. All good things to hear.
So I heard about a contest on the radio the other day for a chance to win a $5000 nursery/accessary and I decided to enter. You simply have to tell your story of why you should win. Here is ours..........
This is the story of the gift of love. A Grandmothers devotion and love for her family.
It started long ago when I was young. My Nana used to come and stay with our family for holidays and special occasions. She was a very loving women and family was of the utmost importance to her. I remember how she would always make us feel special and she was always a very important part of the family. As I grew up and went off to school the visits were not as often but I knew that over the holidays I would always see Nana.
After I met my husband Dan, he would join in our visits and she thought of him as another grandchild loving him just as much as the rest of us. I couldn’t wait to have a child of my own to be able to share with Nana.
Our journey began in February 2005. We had been married in September 2004 and had decided that we were ready to begin our family. Easy right? We thought so too! How hard could it be? Everybody was getting pregnant so we thought we would follow suit. Wrong! By July 2006 and many months of frustration we decided to seek some advice and were referred to a fertility specialist. The sound of that word scared both of us but we were optimistic and moved forward with hope and an open mind.
We met Dr. Martin from the Southern Ontario Fertility Technology Clinic (SOFT) in August 2006 and by September 2006 we found ourselves sitting in his office hearing the results of his findings. “INFERTILITY” that word rang through our ears like a loud bell. How could this be? We were young, healthy and ready to be parents. We were devastated but still hopeful at the same time. After our initial reaction we listened carefully to our options and decided to proceed with Intrauterine Insemination ( IUI) . I thought it would be a piece of cake but little did I know it was a bit more complicated than that! IUI consists of very close monitoring of the womens cycle and includes daily ultrasounds and bloodwork. This meant many early mornings to the Dr. office but a small price to pay for the end results.
Like most people I was still extremely positive about IUI and thought that it would work the first time we tried it but I was wrong again! I was certain that we would beat the odds and I would be pregnant right away. The percentage of conception with IUI for us was about 4-6% but we still pushed forward. After 4 unsuccessful attempts at IUI we decided that we needed to look at other options so back we went to see Dr. Martin. It was clear to us that Invitro (IVF) was our next step but with such a drastic increase in cost from IUI we decided to try our luck 2 more times with IUI.
In amongst all of this personal turmoil our family also went through the unexpected loss of my Nana. With all of the funeral arrangements taking place in Toronto we were faced with yet another obstacle. My 6th and final IUI was scheduled for the morning of my Nana’s service. We were torn because with an over 2-hour drive from London to Toronto we could just barely make the service provided traffic was on our side. Was this a sign? We knew that Nana would want us to proceed and with the support of our family we were able to make it happen.
After the IUI we had to wait to find out if it worked. Let me tell you that it was the longest 2 weeks of my life! Here I sat with so many thoughts running through my head. Was it a coincidence that this was all happening at this very moment? or was it fate? Well not every story has a happy ending ( or so we thought at the time) because this last IUI attempt was unsuccessful. Again we were devastated.
As a result of Nana’s passing I was left with an inheritance. It just so happened that this inheritance would cover almost exactly the cost of the IVF fees we would incur. We held the thought close to us that although she couldn’t be here to share in the joy of a baby this was Nana’s way of sending her love.
On July 22 ( which just happened to be the day after my Nana’s 90th birthday) we had a successful egg retrieval and on August 8th we found out that we were finally pregnant! We were overjoyed with our news and couldn’t believe that this day we have been longing for was finally here!
As if having to face the loss of one grandmother wasn’t heartbreaking enough we also unexpectedly lost Dans grandmother less than 2 months after Nana. Through the sadness of losing the dearest members of our family we feel comfort in knowing that these two ladies are looking down on us with a smile.
We know that we have been anxiously waiting for this day to be here and we hope that by sharing our story if anything we can give other people hope and encouragement, as we believe miracles happen!
They will be making the decision on Dec 15th so we are keeping our fingers crossed!
Until next time....
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