Beginning the Baby Blog

I have thought of doing this for the last few weeks, and I am finally getting around to doing it. For those of you who do not know me, I will do a little explaining about who I am, and what our situation is. For the rest of you who are here because you know me and want to keep up with the happenings of our baby-having, skip the next paragraph! :)

My name is Misty, my husbands name is Chris, and we have been married for three and a half years. We have been together for over seven years. We are not your typical childless couple going through IVF so that we can have our first child. Our situation is quite different from that, indeed. Chris has four sons from two previous relationships, and I have two children from a previous marriage. Both Chris and I decided before meeting each other that we were done having children. So Chris had a vasectomy shortly after his fourth son was born in 1997, and I had a tubal ligation shortly after I was divorced in 2000. We were both quite young to have the surgeries, he was 25 and I was just 22. We came together, and have been raising each others children as our own for the last seven years. Chris has always been a very hands-on father, extremely active in his boys lives and never was a "weekend dad." He gained custody of each boy over a period of about four years, which is a long and ugly story and not at all what this blog is intended to discuss or describe. My children's father was a very involved dad as well, until he met and married someone who did not want him to be a part of his children's lives, and that as well is a very long and ugly story and will not be discussed on this blog site. I have sole custody of my two children, and my step-sons live here full time, and that means that Chris and I are very much parents already!!

For about two years we have, in a semi-joking way, talked about having a child together. We mostly dismissed the thought because fertility treatments are very expensive and we have a lot of children to raise and care for. One of my step-sons is severly mentally handicapped, and he is ours 100% of the time, and that needed much consideration as well in the thought of us having another baby. It all happened one day when just the two of us were out in the middle of the lake on our boat. We were talking about adopting a baby, and I told Chris that I felt that we both had adopted kids, I have adopted his kids into my heart and raise them as my own, and he has done the same for my kids. No, I was not interested in adopting more children. "I want to be pregnant" I told him, "I want to have 'our' baby." He reacted in shock, because I had never told him that before, because I never thought it would be possible or probable. The love on his face at that moment, the look he gave me, I will never forget. He came to me and wrapped his arms around me, rested his hands on my tummy, and said in my ear "I would love for you to have my baby." It was an emotional moment, and it was then and there that we decided we would do whatever it took to have a child together.

It so happens that I have been heavily involved in fertility as an egg donor for several years, and I have worked with the best doctors in the state. I called the clinic I was working with and told them that Chris and I had finally decided to proceed with having a child. They were so excited!!! Chris and I went in to have our first appointment to discuss what we would have to do, our financial arrangments were made, and off we went. Chris had to have a sperm aspiration, a procedure for which he was put fully to sleep and was down in bed for about four days following. The doctor was able to check that day and assure us that Chris still had lots of viable sperm that were going to be fine to use for IVF. Yes! The first hurdle was cleared!

Now we are at the present day, where this blog will begin documenting the steps to what will hopefully be our first child together. Perhaps, even, our first and second child together (twins???).

I had my baseline ultrasound appointment, and my ovaries are ready to begin the stimulation process. I start my medications next week, and we are looking to transfer the embryos before the end of July. It has been so hard to wait for this, as things with fertility happen in terms of months, not days or weeks. We hear so many positive comments from everyone, doctors and family and friends, that we will be successful because we are not dealing with unexplained infertility or anything like that. We just have what they are calling a "communication problem" and nothing else. We throw around names, and I confess, I have bought an outfit! I keep telling myself not to do that stuff because it will only make it harder if it fails. I can't seem to stop it though, in my mind I am already pregnant.

I will use this blog to note important events, I will write when I feel in the mood or have something to say, and I will use it as a diary of sorts. It is my hope that it will end up very long and will hopefully mark milestones such as first steps, first birthdays, and things like that. The reality is that it could be only a couple of entries long, the treatment may fail, and we may end up being unable to have a child together. We will still have very full lives, with the six children we already have, and that will be enough if that is what fate has in store for us. I will remain optimistic until the bitter end, and of course, we will try more than one time. We will try until the embryos are gone or until we are pregnant.