Beta Day...

When the phone rang last night, it was a much different experience than when CCRM called us about Cooper.

We weren’t waiting by the phone patiently. We didn’t even expect the call to come until possibly the next day, but we had our phone with us.... just in case.

We went to a family swim with Cooper. Since I can’t go in the water, I sat on the ledge and watched my two boys splash about. Afterwards we went tobogganing on some small hill. And then we went to Boston Pizza for dinner.

We were in the middle of dinner at Boston Pizza when the call came in.

Dave’s cell phone rang and both our hearts leaped out of our chest as we saw the call display was from CCRM.

Dave answered, but they asked to speak with me. I told Dave no, for him to take the call. So he got back on the phone and said my wife would rather you give me the news. I’m not sure what exactly I was avoiding. Either we were or we weren’t. But for some reason, I felt overcome with emotion and didn’t want to know.

And then I heard Dave’s voice.....

We were pregnant.

Our beta came back at a whopping 193!

We are pregnant.

We are really pregnant.

After years and years of not getting pregnant and then finally getting a miracle at CCRM – I’m almost stunned to think that it could happen again.

I was overcome with happiness. And then suddenly, overcome with sadness. The one person in the world, the only person I wanted to call was my mom. I remember calling her immediately after we got the news about Cooper. And now, she wasn’t here. The feelings that rose up inside me were almost too much to bear. Not having my mom to share in this joy felt wrong, and lonely. And the thought that my mom will never know one of my children crushed me in pieces.

You see, up until now I have sort of been emotionally shut down from this IVF cycle. I haven’t intentionally shut myself down, but in many ways I’ve managed to stay detached. It was almost as if this wasn’t really happening to me, like I was just checking in on a friends progress from time to time to see how they were making out and if the cycle worked or not. I felt excited, the way I might for a really good friend, waiting and wondering whether they will get pregnant. But I also feel like I could shrug it off, the way I might if this was happening to a friend and not me. “Not pregnant? Oh, too bad. What do you think we should have for dinner?” I felt like I hadn’t really given myself permission to really think about these embryos. To picture them as my little babies, that I’ll one day be holding in my arms. I didn’t want to get emotionally detached, only to have the test say no. And even worse, somewhere deep down, I wasn’t sure I really had faith in miracles anymore. I wasn’t sure that I really believed that with hope, all things are possible. Because deep down, I felt if those things were true, my mom would still be here today. I would have done anything in the world for my mom to survive her cancer. Anything. I prayed harder than I ever prayed, even than for a child. Yet, she is not here. And so part of me felt like, there was no point hoping or praying for a miracle, because they simply did not exist.

Yet, here we were. Given another miracle.

After of of the longest darkest road of our life, Cooper miraculously came to us, and blessed us with becoming a family.

And now, after losing my mom, the hardest loss I can ever imagine knowing, our two embryo’s have miraculously implanted inside me, blessing us with a the hope of new life.

Our test came back positive.

They are REAL.

And it’s clear to me. That this baby (or babies) needs me to open my heart up to the beauty of miracles once again. To the magic of joy, and love, and yes.... hope.

We are blessed.