A Day of Thanks, A Lifetime of Gratitude

Today seems like the right day to bring an end to my blog.

It has been a long, painful, and wonderful journey. One that I will always look back on with mixed emotions.

It took up my life for four years, most of it bad. But, my miracle at the end of the road was worth all the heartache that came before.

We will never forget the day, one year ago, that we got the best phone call of our lives.

And on Thanksgiving no less.

Our hands shook as we answered the phone and we thought for sure we were in for bad news. But instead, we got our Thanksgiving miracle!

On this Thanksgiving day, and every Thanksgiving Day that follows, we will thank god for our miracle of life. Looking down at our perfect sleeping baby face, reminds us of all we have done to get here. Of all the sadness and all the pain, and with one smile from our angel baby it is all erased. The joy and love seeps into the very fabric of our beings -- straight to our hearts. Yes, we are thankful. We are forever blessed. We are so lucky to be able to feel this kind of gradittue and thanks. We are thankful for the gift of hope, and the gift of all our Thanksgivings yet to come. We are thankful for CCRM, and everything we did to get here.

Today we take stock, of how all this unexpected and painful journey has shaped our lives. Of how it has blessed us and enriched us with suffering as much as with joy. And that is what Thanksgiving is really all about. Remembering the past, celebrating the present, and looking toward the future -- all with gratitde in our hearts.

Today is filled with such significant meaning for us, as it remins us that mircales do happen, to never give up hope, and to always give thanks for the gift that we have been given. We don't even have words that will ever fully express the gratitude we feel, as we reflect and rejoice in our miracle. So instead, we just say thanks.

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice." -Meister Eckhart

And yes, he was worth every single penny!

Good luck to all of you out there still waiting for your miracles.
I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving and God Bless.

Love Lisa
xo
PS -- I hope anyone who stumbles across this blog finds comfort in my story, and it helps them hang onto hope.

For anything is possible with hope.


Should anyone ever wish to reach me, I can be contacted at: lisarwaiteAThotmailDOTcom. I would be happy to help.

Family Day

One year ago today, Cooper came home. It was the day that we finally became a family!

It's amazing to think that the first place Cooper lived was in a petri dish in Denver -- not inside his mommy's uterus like most babies. He hung out in his own little embryo appartment with embryo brothers and sisters -- while mommy and daddy footed the steep rent bill for such a small little dish. But after five long days of living on his own, Cooper was placed, along with his brother and sister, inside his mommy's uterus where he belonged. He We talked to him and told him to snuggle in tight and we prayed with all our might that he would like his new home and decide to stay.

And thus, today will forever be known as family day.

I'll never forget the feeling, leaving CCRM with my embabies inside me. We were finall a family. Maybe not for long. But for now, we were.

I moved in slow motion. Every step, like a ninety-year old woman. I felt like a woman carrying around a nuclear weapon that was entrusted to me to make sure didn't go off. I had precious cargo on board and I knew it. I layed flat, only getting up to eat and go to the bathroom. I layed still, trying not to jostle anything around. We talked to our embryo's. We sang to them. We prayed. We visualized our embryo's snuggling in tight and not giving up. For the next two weeks, I barely moved, I kept warm, ate well, and did everything I could do to encourage my embabies to stick.

We were a family that day. For that moment. And we were filled with hope, but also with so much fear. We didn't know how long it would last and we were so afraid that somehow it would all disappear, like all our previous attempts.

But it did not. Today, we are celebrating family day again. This time, Cooper is out in the world, three months old. We are a family. It's real. He really did it. He snuggled in, held on tight, grew big and strong, was born, and now is growing into a wonderful little person we can hold in our arms. We have never felt so lucky. Or so blessed.

Today, when we look back, we remember that moment like it was yesterday. And yet, somehow it feels like a lifetime ago. I will forever be grateful to CCRM and will always celebrate the day we became a family.

OUR FAMILY THEN:

OUR FAMILY NOW:


And of course, our other little baby, who has been there through thick and thin for all of it, and who made us a family all along!
A family truly is life's greatest blessing. I am so glad we didn't give up. And I thank god every day for this gift.

Happy Lifeday, to Our Little Miracle

Today is the anniversary of the day our son was given life.

One year ago today, at around 10:30am, Cooper was specially created, in the CCRM lab along with his 27 other embryo brothers and sisters.

We can't believe it's been a whole year since that day. Little did we know then, that one of those embryos would survive and be born nine months later.

Reflecting back on that day brings up so much emotion. Both good and bad. There was so much pain, so much sadness, so much hope and anxiety and helplessness. And today, we are filled with more joy and happiness and gratitude and love than we ever thought possible. We still can't believe how lucky we are to become so blessed. And it makes us realize that it was all worth it. Every day of our pain brought us closer to our son. At the time, we wondered. We almost gave up so many times. We debated. We fell down. We felt that we could not go on. But we picked ourselves up and kept fighting. We held on to that little shred of hope, that little voice inside our heads that told us to keep going even when there was no hope left. And I still don't know how we made it through. But here we are. We did it. And one year ago today, a miracle happened.

This is the prayer we said to God the night before the big day.
http://waywardstork.blogspot.com/2008/11/dear-god.html

And this is how we were feeling after our egg retrieval, at the same time Cooper was being created in the CCRM lab.
http://waywardstork.blogspot.com/2008/11/egg-retrieval-is-over.html

We owe a lifetime of thanks to the brilliant Dr. Schoolcraft to whom none of this would be possible, and to our amazing embryologist, John Stephens, who gave our little Cooper life. It's incredible to think of how much has changed since that day. It was the beginning of life, not only for Cooper, but for us in a way too.

We have so much to celebrate, and we wanted to mark this very special day that Cooper came to be.

"Before you were conceived, we wanted you
Before you were born, we loved you
Before you were here an hour, we would die for you
This is the miracle of a mother and father's love."

We love you so much Cooper.

HAPPY LIFEDAY FROM YOUR MOM AND DAD! xoxo

"For you were fearfully and wonderfully made..." PALMS 139

A Brand New Day

Today is the one year anniversary of the day I started this blog about our struggles with infertility.

I started it to document our final try with IVF as we headed to Denver to give it one last shot with the legendary CCRM. And now, one year later, it's with overwhelming gratitute and joy, that I share these two pictures....

Here I am one year ago in front of the CCRM fertility clinic, with nothing but fear and hope in my heart.

And here I am just a few weeks ago in front of Evergreen hospital, where we delivered a healthy baby boy, with everything I've ever wanted.
After 4 years of infertility treatments, we never thought this day would come. Yet here it is. Our miracle baby. Our little embryo that could. Proof that yes, it really does only take one. Proof that yes, even at our lowest of lows, there is always hope.

It was my birthday, two weeks after our tiny miracle was born. And it hit me, all at once -- sitting in pajama's, sleep deprived and still a little delirious -- as Dave brought me out a cake with a candle, that I had absolutely nothing to wish for. I have everything I've ever wanted. And I broke down in tears. Tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of fatigue, and strength, and helplessness, and hope and fear and faith -- all rolled into one. We are finally here. We did it. Our son Cooper is really here, and I have indeed finally completed my journey from a dark lonely place of infertility to a new one of joy and hope and dreams. My flaming birthday candle was proof of this, and the reality of what we've been through, what we had to endure, and what we finally overcame, was more emotion that I could stand. How many birthdays had I wished for this. How many candles had I blown out over the years with the same wish, over and over and over. And now, here I was, celebrating a new year, with a new son in my arms. It was a moment I wasn't prepared for as I looked at that candle and remembered the lump in my throat as I blew it out last year.

And now, here I was with nothing to wish for.

Imagine that.

It's over. And not only did we survive, but we got the happiest ending of all.

I'm not much of a Celine Dion fan, but as we celebrated my birthday the song "A New Day Has Come" played. And as I listened to the words, I felt this song could have been written for me. For the moment our son was born, it truly was a brand new day. A new chapter in our lives has finally begun. It's time to say goodbye to the old and hello to the new. It's time to smile. It's time to say thank you. It's time to be grateful. It's time to pray and hope and dream. It's time for happiness. It's time for laughter. It's time for life.

So that night, I held my son and my husband, as we danced together through tears of joy to this song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg9jQOebTo8 And we cried.

Our miracle has finally come.
Cooper Peter James Waite, was born on August 17th after 61 hours of labor. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces -- and is a perfect healthy baby boy. For more about Cooper, our birth story, and our new journey, check out Cooper's blog: http://cooperwaite.blogspot.com

And for all those who struggle with infertility, hold on to hope and never give up. For when the world says: "Give up," Hope whispers: "Try it one more time."

And in the end, no matter what form it takes -- hope always wins.

Update: The Final 2ww

Yes, it's been a long time.

But today, I thought it was time for an update. It goes out to the few straggling readers who may happen to stumble upon this, but mostly, it goes out to my husband... and to myself.

I'm 38 Weeks today - which means I have 2 more weeks to go. When I realized this, I couldn't help but feel a strange sense of quiet retrospect for everything we've gone through. I feel the need to pause. To remember. To have a moment of silence.

The Two Week Wait.

It is the one sentence that can still strike fear into my heart. That brings up feelings of isolation and resentment and pain beyond belief. Who would have thought that it could actually mean this? Who would have thought that I could ever have made it this far? That I am two weeks away from holding my baby in my arms, from realizing all our hopes and dreams. To me, it's one of those days, where I feel more blessed than I ever could have thought possible. I feel grateful. I feel relief. I feel excited. But mostly, I feel, the need to say goodbye. This will be my last 2 week wait... ever. It's like saying goodbye to an old familiar friend. An enemy that constantly ruled my life. An addiction I could not break away from. A way of life that kept me stuck, that held me down, that sapped the life from my body until it was only a shell of what it once was.

But no more. Today I am taking my life back. Today, a new day has begun. Today, I let go of the old, the pain, the hurt, and say hello to my future, the wide open amazing road that lies ahead.

And I am grateful.

I am about to become a mother.

We are about to become a family.

It's all really about to happen.

My pregnancy has not been without it's problems. We started out with twins, and lost one of our babies along the way. I was sick 8 times a day for the first 22 weeks of my pregnancy. I tested positive for gestational diabetes. We were in and out of clinics. We worried. We wondered if we would make it. But we enjoyed it. We bought little bity baby outfits, we decorated the nursery, we had maternity photos taken, we took classes, we made our birth plan, we took little vacations away together. We wanted to freeze this moment in time, to never forget it. To savor it like a glass of expensive red wine -- one that you know you will never have again. We wanted to make the most of our one and only pregnancy -- to talk to and love our little boy each and every day. To let him know how wanted he is. How much we love him. And how he saved our lives.

I've been thinking about it. About the long journey it took for us to get here. About infertility and the heartache of it all. And I think I can say, with absolute certainty, that finally becoming pregnant, that finally getting a chance to hold our baby in our arms, isn't even the best part about this whole thing. It's getting our life back. It's finally not feeling like our life is on hold. The ability of being able to move forward, and not being stuck on a constant merry go round that you can never get off of. It's being happy again. Being able to find the beauty in life. Being happy for others. Reconnecting with friends. Opening our hearts up once again. Becoming part of the world. Of life. Being able to breathe. Being able to smile and laugh. Being able to love. But mostly, it's being able to once again, hope and dream.

I know there are many of you out there who are still fighting this awful battle. And I hope that you will be able to hope and dream again one day too.

And to my husband...

I love you more than anything in the world. You are my best friend. And I can't wait to see you holding our son in your arms.

xo