When God closes a door...
When I was young I used to fantasize about what my life would be like when I was older. I mapped it out in my head in neatly organized perfect little boxes. You see I'm a bit of a planner with just a hint of control freak...okay fine a lot of control freak. First I would go to college, graduate, meet the perfect man and marry him. Spend the first year in wedded bliss, then start a family. Two kids, one boy one girl of course. Work at a perfect job, in my perfect home with a perfect life. Well the funny thing about wanting to control every element of your life is you soon find out you are not the driver at all. God is.
I went to college, I graduated, I married an amazing man...it only took him 7 years to propose but who's counting :) Here's where things really go off plan, remember those babies I was going to have...well God had a different plan for us. Remember that perfect job, well God had a different plan for us. In fact my life is so different than I could have ever dreamed up, thank you God for taking control and forcing me to give it to you, because I could never have asked for a more perfectly imperfect life. I'm so grateful for every twist and turn and bend in the road, because it's led us to today.
Webster's dictionary defines a miracle as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. It took 6 years, 7 rounds of IUI, 3 surgeries, countless procedures, hundreds of shots, 4 rounds of IVF a failed frozen transfer and a faith in God that grows stronger each day to finally get our miracle. Saturday October 14, 2017 we got the call I will never forget, "Hi is this Amber and Rob, Amber we have good news, you are definitely pregnant." At 4 weeks pregnant the doctors want to see your HCG levels at 50, nurse Jill went on to tell us that our first number was 269...say WHAT! Yep, definitely pregnant!
It gets better because at 5 weeks 5 days pregnant Rob and I went in for our very first ultrasound. We nervously held hands as the doctor and ultrasound tech hid the screen and whispered. After what felt like forever they turned the screen and said, "Here THEY are." I'm pretty sure all of Edina heard me scream TWINS! Not only could we see two growing babies, Baby B already had a heart beat in the 120s and Baby A wasn't too far behind. We've since seen these two little fighters on ultrasound 4 times, each time we are amazed at their growth, we laugh at how they kick and flip and we grow more and more excited about the life we are building.
I sit here in tears remembering the journey this year, I have never felt more weak and out of control. The year 2017 was a long hard one, we went through IVF #3 in February, transferred 2 amazing embryos in March and lost them both to a chemical pregnancy. We had only 1 embryo remaining which left us with the tough decision to transfer or try IVF one more time. We prayed and God answered, he led us to IVF #4 in June. Financially this decision was a big committment, thank you God for leading us to this path helping us to trust your plan because we were able to add 10 top grade embryos to freezer leaving us with a total of 11. Remember 11 is a number God uses in my life often. We needed some time to recoup financially and planned a frozen embryo transfer for October. In the mean time, I was diagnosed with both PCOS and Endometriosis, we found out that our insurance was refusing to pay for ANY of our treatments this year because they cover infertility treatments, just not IVF (WTF!?!) and to put a cherry on top I lost my job of 10 years due to layoffs. This all happened in August, about a month before we would bring two of our precious babies home to cook.
I felt broken, terrified and exhausted. For a split second I even considered canceling our transfer. Financially I felt like we were drowning and I was so scared that we would transfer these perfect little babies and lose them again. Then what? This time it was Rob's turn to be the strong one, he held me tight and said "God is giving you a sign. He closed the door on your stressful job to open a window of opportunity. You get to focus on our babies and take care of yourself without worry. We will be okay and we are not canceling the transfer."
Our favorite bible verse says this:
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
With a leap of faith we let go of control, we let go of the fear and we let God drive. He brought us to this place of joy that I could never have imagined for myself.
With bated breath we wait for June 2018 to arrive and bring our 2 little miracles home. Thank you God, our prayers have been answered!
