Abundantly Blessed

I am starting this post with a little background on the journey that Trey and I have been on in the last few years to bring us to the incredible adventure we are about to embark on...

We got married in August of 2008.  By September I was pregnant.  We were so excited!  Unfortunately, about 6 weeks into the pregnancy, I woke up in incredible pain.  I went to the doctor who sent me to get a sonogram.  From there, I learned that my pregnancy was ectopic and I had to have surgery immediately.  We were devastated.  As time passed, though, we decided to try again.  In May of 2009, I was pregnant again!  Sadly, though I had another ectopic.  This time it was a long, drawn out process that included many doctors appointments and blood tests.  From here, we were at a loss.  Do we try again, or do we go straight to IVF?  After many discussions with my doctor, we decided that we could not handle another loss.  If we truly wanted to become parents, we would have to go through with IVF.

We started the process in October of 2009, and by December I was pregnant!!  I had a pretty smooth pregnancy and on August 25, 2010, Bryan was born.  What an amazing gift he is to us!!  He makes us laugh and smile every day.  We decided that he is such a blessing, that we would like to make him a big brother.  So in September of this year, we began the IVF process again.  On September 23rd, we had 3 embryos implanted.  Most people question that decision but it came down to this... We had 5 viable embryos left from our original IVF cycle that had been frozen.  When we went in for the transfer, 3 were growing - 1 was grade A, 1 Mid-B, and 1 Low-B.  The embryologist told us that we could implant all 3 and the likelihood of multiples (twins or triplets) was about 5% - maybe lower given the grade of 2 of the embryos.  We also know that this was going to be our last cycle and in the end did not want to have to tell the clinic to dispose of any unused embryos.  On October 3rd, we got the good news that it worked!!  I am pregnant again!!

The first few weeks went pretty much par for the course.  I am exhausted and nauseous pretty much all of the time.  Last Saturday night, though, we had a scare.  Without giving all of the details, I was sure that I was having a miscarriage.  Trey and I were devastated.  We called the doctor and he told me to go home and lay down, then go to his office in the morning.  I did what he said and headed to his office on Sunday morning.  I was so scared that Trey had to do all of the talking for me.  So, we sat in the exam room and the doctor reviewed my file and tried to keep me calm.  He decided to do a sonogram and see what was going on.  As he started the sonogram, he mentioned that they had implanted 3 embryos - which we knew.  He then said, "And all three have attached."

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!  ALL THREE HAVE ATTACHED?!?!?!  DID I HEAR YOU CORRECTLY?!?!?

Then I look at the screen as he is typing TRIPLETS....  HOLY COW!!!

Under normal circumstances, I would have flipped out.  However, we went into the office thinking that we would see nothing, and instead, saw 3 beautiful and amazing heart beats.  I know that we have a long road ahead - I have already thought about the fact that I will end up on bed rest, we have a huge risk of premies and NICU stays, and we will have 4 kids under the age of 2.  But we continue to pray that God's plan will get us all through and we will go from being a family of 3 to a family of 6 next year.  With all of the struggle to get here, we truly appreciate the fact that we are ABUNDANTLY BLESSED!!