Behind the scenes (big fertility update!)

There's been some developments going on "behind the scenes" (behind the screen?) at the Burden house which I'm happy to share with you now!

Remember a few months later when John ran a marathon and we went camping in Petoskey? John running the marathon wasn't the only milestone we reached that weekend! John and I had been on a waiting list with our clinic to be recipients of donor embryos (embryo adoption) and that weekend we received a list of embryo profiles awaiting families! After Arie went to bed, John and I spend hours around the campfire reading through each profile, searching our hearts and the heavens for the ones we would call our own. In his faithfulness we believe God made it immediately and abundantly clear which ones we should choose. That is a story I will likely share when our babies are here. (Wait... WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?! Yep. Hang with me!)

Remember September 2, 2015? No? Maybe it was an ordinary day for you. For us, it was a big one! It was the day on which we transferred two beautiful, perfect, loved embryos into my womb.

The following two weeks I would describe as mostly peaceful with a few nervous breakdowns (on my part) as our family members and a few friends held us up in prayer.

Our first beta (pregnancy test) came back positive at 436 and two days later my second (which should rise by at least 80%) was 954! More than double! Those numbers were very comforting as our chemical pregnancy numbers were lower: 52 and 104.

Still we had experienced the joy of two positive betas before and our happiness was tempered by fear. We spent two weeks anxiously anticipating our first ultrasound. The same ultrasound at which we didn't see a baby last spring. Our hearts cried to the heavens Please, oh God, let us see our child! Let us see that beautiful heartbeat! 

Yesterday that moment arrived: the moment that could be one of the best or the worst of our lives.

As I sat on the exam table, waiting with John for the doctor to arrive, my body shook. I kept flashing back to that horrible moment last spring that occurred in this same room. Please, please, please. Was the simple prayer pulsating through my body.

Soon the doctor arrived with a female medical student. He wasn't my normal doctor (who was out of town), so he took a moment to look through my chart before the ultrasound. When he saw my beta numbers he smiled and showed them to his student. "What do you think the odds are of twins?"

Her eyebrows raised, "Yes those are very high numbers! I bet it is twins."

The doctor asked me and John if we wanted to place a wager. We nervously laughed but inside were all Doctor we will hit you with the ultrasound probe if you don't do this thing right NOW!

Every second seemed to draw out eternally.

Finally I lay back on the exam table and the ultrasound began.

Just as fast as our doctor last spring said, "I don't see anything," this doctor spoke some of the most beautiful words we will ever hear:

"Yep. There's one baby... and... there's other one."

TWINS!

John looked into my eyes with a mix of elation and near painful relief. TWINS!

I took a deep breath as I began shaking again, this time with joy rather than fear. An emotional, "Oh!" and "Wow!" escaped from my mouth as the doctor and student pointed out the two flickering hearts on the screen and measured the beats.

117 and 122 beats per minute. Perfect.

After five years of infertility and two years of treatment, we are having twins through the gift of embryo adoption!

*

Telling Arie was pure joy. John and I drove to his school at the end of the day and told him in the car because we just could not wait a second longer to share the news! After a gleeful gasp, Arie's immediate reaction was to request a bunkbed so he could sleep on the top and the babies could sleep on the bottom. He was not too happy with us when we told him the babies would sleep in our room at first.

"But I want the babies too!" he cried.

We promised him we'd share. "These are all of our babies, Arie. Our whole family's."

His frown turned to a smile, "And I can teach them lots of things! Like crafts!"

He's going to be a wonderful big brother. It's so fun to share this journey with him as he is old enough to grasp a lot of what it happening, but still young enough to request adorable things like a bunk bed for newborns.

As of Monday I am 6 weeks along and the babies are due in May. We are praying fervently for a healthy, full term pregnancy for these babies. I am feeling very tired and pretty much constantly nauseated, but even feeling sick I give thanks because to me these symptoms are a sign of the life inside, life I have wanted for so very long. My prayer is that I will handle the discomfort with grace.

We are thanking our Father who brought us through a time of unbearable darkness into this beautiful and merciful light! "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

xo