Coming Out...Baby Style!

Whilst most traditional couples, like ourselves (haha...we are SO traditional), wait the requisite twelve weeks before announcing the arrival of their little bundle of joy, we had a couple of obstacles we had to consider when making our timeline determination.

First, baby mama is skinny. She is a little girl and quite frankly, if she eats a large lunch, just her post-Chinese food baby is quite evident. Add ovarian hyper-stimulation pooch and double duty making twins, ergo two bundles of joy, it's a little difficult to hide her ever growing tummy.

Second, we work with a bunch of women. Women are intuitive. They sense stuff, especially hormonal baby-making stuff. Heidi and I had more than one conspiratorial conversation about our observation of various sets of eyes we caught wandering down to Heidi's mid-section, coupled with a quizzical look and suspecting expression (I said they were intuitive, not subtle). So while Heidi was finally starting to experience the body temperature of a normal person instead of freezing all day, she now found herself covering up with a sweater every day at work. Sometimes she forgot the sweater (clue number one as to why she would never make it in something like the witness protection program...obliviousness to the necessity of hiding something).

Finally, she's managed to pack on about seven pounds in the last few weeks. When you start out as a skinny girl, seven pounds is noticeable (I would point out that this is my average weekly weight deviation so no one suspected I may actually be pregnant...true story). These seven little pounds have settled themselves in three places on Heidi: her cheeks (facial...bring your eyes up, you perverts!), her belly, and yes...my favorite place, her boobs. I would add here, mostly for my own fond remembrance when I am later re-reading this blog and reflecting on our baby making journey that this week marked the very first time in Heidi's life that her boobs popped a button on a shirt. Actually, she did it several times in the same day. God bless pregnancy.

So, with all of that being considered and discussed, we decided that sooner was better for the telling of our news, our secret. This was, after all, big news for us. If we waited another two weeks, it would pretty much be a non-event, likely to only be met with a "Yea, duh!"...much like our first coming out.

In my last blog, I mentioned my enthusiasm about an upcoming support staff meeting and finally being able to tell the folks at work that Heidi was with child, or children as the case may be. Well, apparently my over-exuberance at the prospect of blabbing about two years worth of kept secrets overpowered my abdominal system, and with the harshness of an emotionally detached abusive parent, I was violently struck down...with a stomach bug. I awoke at approximately 12:30 a.m. with the onset of an abdominal virus that, by the next morning, had fully convinced me I would actually die from throwing up. At some point in that day, I actually asked the big man upstairs to stop dragging it out and just go ahead and take me since it was obvious that was his intention. There were several conversations between myself and John, my new porcelain friend, about how if I could just finish regurgitating by 3:00 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. or whatever time followed, I could still get enough sleep to make it to work the next day to share my amazing news. By 6:00 a.m., John and I finally accepted the harsh reality that we were not going to make it to work for our big announcement. Not that it mattered really, the big announcement would now change and be delivered by Heidi and would include something to the effect of Lawanna dying on the bathroom floor, her entire intestinal system left in the bowels of our septic system, may she rest in peace.

Well, to your amazement and mine, this blog is not being penned posthumously. I survived. So the next day, I drug my precarious intestinal system into work and immediately rescheduled the staff meeting to that morning. I was going to get this done, dammit! I was going to share our news! Heidi had already made a bad joke when she came home the day before about having shared the news and the excitement of the staff...all without me. I couldn't risk it. I had to make it to work...must take anti-nausea medicine, must get to work, must let Heidi drive today...must...make...announcement...

OK, it wasn't really all that bad. But I was very excited and anxious. So when the time finally came and I finished all the real business on the agenda, the time had arrived. Oh, a little back story...our department happens to have an inordinate number of twins. I used this little factoid as my baby coming out prop. Back to current stage: I asked several associates and Heidi to stand up. I then asked my staff what these gals had in common. To be fair, in real life, they really have nothing in common except they all work in the legal department, they are all fabulous employees, they all love me incredibly...well, I guess I was wrong, they have a lot in common. Anywho, one of the gals, actually a twin I had forgotten to include, ironically enough, said, "Well, they're all twins but Heidi isn't a twin." I said, well, sort of...and as I pointed at each girl I said, "She has a twin, she has a twin, she has a twin" and as I got to Heidi I said, "And she's making twins". It took a moment for the realization to kick in (a little longer for some...one of the gals asked me what the punchline was, LOL) but when it did, the congratulations started flowing and I was immediately filled with pride and joy and excitement and just so many emotions that I guess just narrow down to really happy. I was giddy, that's it...giddy. I was giddy.

Well, my friends, we were not the only ones in that room who knew we were getting ready to break our news, who knew our secret. *Insert dramatic boom, boom, boom music here* After most of the congratulations had been doled out and hugs given, despite the fact that I was the potential carrier of a deadly abdominal virus, an associate asked me and Heidi into my office. She handed us a gift bag. Hhmmm...this is curious. We open the card and it contained the sweet sentiment of congratulatory accolades for parents-to-be. The gift bag held two adorable sets of booties. Now, I can shop my friends. I can do it at rapid speed, becoming a blur in Macy's in my exuberance at being able to shop til I drop. Despite my super-shopping skills, even I could not have shopped, bought, wrapped and signed in the ten minutes between the end of our meeting and the presentation of this unexpected gift. I'm sure the looks of "How? What? How?" must have been quite amusing...I chuckle internally thinking how we must have looked in our total confusion. She confided that she knew about the blog and had been anxiously waiting for us to break the news. She knew all of our secrets and had, impressively enough, managed to keep it secret even though she confessed there were times she would check the blog several times in a day to try to find out what was going on. Haha...turnabout is fair play, as they say...the secret-keeper found another keeper of the secret who knew about the secret keeping. Very tricky, my little friend, very tricky.

Our coming out at work then led to our coming out on Facebook. Facebook is the quickest way to spread any kind of news. It was incredibly heart-warming to see the congratulatory responses and the re-posting of our ultrasound picture on the sister-to-be and the aunt-to-be's pages. We realized we weren't the only ones excited about sharing our secret...so were the other people waiting to meet their new family members. If I haven't said it before, I'm saying it now...my cup runneth over. I am so blessed and so fortunate to be surrounded by such amazing people who are so genuinely vested in our lives and are so intertwined with us that they make our lives better, complete. We are so fortunate to have family and friends that care so much about us. It is almost over-whelming in the most amazingly positive way possible. I'm almost speechless. And that, my friends, is a feat in and of itself.

This leads me to our final coming out of the week. Several of our friends have asked about our baby daddy. We realized we had only posted stuff about baby-daddy's past (which totally makes Heidi sound a little loose but I assure you, despite the fact she has had several potential baby daddy's, she is very chaste and pure.) Our most recent baby daddy, he of the apparent strong swimming sperm, is below. What do we know about baby daddy, aside from his complete medical history and personal history, which we will not share here because that would feel like some strange divulging of personal information (I gotta stop working in a legal department, seriously...it's affecting the integrity of my blogging...) but I will share this random fact. This was not a deciding factor on choosing this donor. It was actually one I believe we initially overlooked and only later found but relevant nonetheless. It was that which made this meant to be. Fate, if you will.

Our donor is a snowboarder.

I'm gonna let that sink in for a minute. I know...it's heavy, right? *Playing ponder appropriate music* I'm telling you, it was meant to be. Not only are our children likely to be named after superheroes for their amazing endurance and tenacity, they will likely also be professional snowboarders. I mean, come on, it's clearly fate. You couple the amazing carving skills of their mothers with the fact that their completely anonymous donor is also a snowboarder and it's obvious. It's. Meant. To. Be. Shawn White...revel in your moment. Own your titles now. The Voci children are chomping at your heels, ready to take over the snowboarding world. This is prophetic, my friends. Mark your calendars for, like, I don't know...2029. Watch for the names of snowboarders in the Winter X Games. You'll see. I digress once again into seeing into the future. Back to current day. Actually, back to the past. Here is our donor in a younger man's clothes...this is not his actual current age. I present to you...snowboarding baby. While cowboy hat baby, Abercrombie baby, and glass blowing baby will always hold a place in our collective hearts, snowboarding baby has ridden his way into our lives. He has given us the gift of baby superhero snowboarders. Kids...say hello to dad. Well, donor. Not dad. Donor. Kids, say hello to donor.

One last post script before I sign off: Today marks another milestone. For my mathematician friends (which by my calculations are probably 0.0 unless you count the Korean who is just inherently good at math because of genetics), we are officially 25% of the way through our journey. One quarter. One half of one half. Ten weeks into a forty week trek. It's not been so bad. OK, well, a little trying but we're on the upside. As Heidi finishes healing from surgery, the huge abdominal bruise is finally fading. This bruise has been the primary impediment to her allowing me to take any tummy portraits. Since it is finally fading, I am hoping to convince her to start posing for some pregnancy pictures. I'm pretty persuasive...I think I can do it. I mean, I have talked her into crazier things. :)

Wombmate Update

Well, friends, family and countrymen...it has been a little time since the last post. It's been a little exhausting taking care of the kids. Well, taking care of Heidi taking care of the kids. One would think this would be an easy task, particularly at this early stage of the game. But no, there have been so many new things for Heidi to learn in this journey. What, you ask? Well, let me just tell you. Shortly after first realizing we were with child,, well, children, Heidi tried her darnedest to pickle them. Literally. She developed her very first craving. It was straight-on cliche...pickles. And I don't mean a pickle here and there. I mean multiple daily doses of pickles. Small pickles. Big pickles. Homemade, Saturday Morning Market, ginormous pickles. I actually had to put her on a pickle moratorium. I had to treat her like an addict; I had to watch her constantly, monitor her intake of vinegar and cucumber. She acted like an addict. She would try to sneak them, lying about how many she had. She would covertly leave the kitchen, chewing ever so slightly, the smell of brine on her breath, denying she had anything in her mouth. We had serious discussions about sending her to rehab to overcome this addiction, to help her admit she had a pickle problem, to find a requisite ten-step program. *Insert Amy Winehouse crooning "They tried to make me go to Rehab" here*.

After we overcame that difficult hurdle, which seemingly ended as quickly as it began, we faced the next challenge. Food shortages. Now, anyone who knows me knows my affinity for food. I love food. I love to cook. I love to eat. Heidi, not so much. I mean, she appreciates that I love to cook, but she eats to live. I live to eat. Until now. I am slightly ashamed to say that as of late, Heidi is putting me to shame. She is eating like a fiend. She wakes up at 5:30 in the morning because she's hungry. She'll eat, come back to bed and then get up and eat breakfast with me when I get up. She eats more food before lunch than most people eat in a few days. She is keeping the produce stand in business, my friends. While she isn't racing to eat any green vegetables, she is partaking in every kind of fruit these days. I'm in the process of scheduling a chiropractic appointment because I'm pretty sure I pulled a back muscle carrying our lunch into work. I, hanging my head in shame, have found that I, the food lover of the family, am unable to keep up with her intake. I don't know where on earth she is storing all of the food she is intaking. I do know, however, where it sits...right above her stomach. Like a rock. Because of the daily progesterone shots, my dear baby-maker has the world's slowest digestion. So, while she's incredibly hungry all of the time, there's always a traffic jam in her intestines. It's quite the quandry for her. If she doesn't eat, she feels nauseous and gets shaky. When she does eat, she feels nauseous and has to wait for the backlog of food to make it's way through her digestive system. The positive is that my 95 lb. girl, with her increased intake of food and her decrease in digestion and therefore metabolism, has hit a milestone I haven't seen in over ten years...she has broken 100 lbs.! 101.6 to be exact! (I will, of course, defer comment about how I gain that amount of weight in a week with a good pasta meal because that would minimize her accomplishment.)

With this weight gain comes another added advantage for her...BOOBIES! I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty sure the increase in her weight has landed in two spots...right boobie and left boobie. I have never seen her mirror my admiration of her boobies in the past. Her downward glance at the newest member of her tiny frame, as she watches those two growing additions bubble out of her little A-cup bra. She, my friends, has cleavage. I offered to take her bra shopping, to which she replied, "No way! I finally have cleavage, I'm keeping this bra!". Well, of course, I want only what is best for her so if she wants cleavage, she gets to keep cleavage. This is in no way, shape for form gratuitious on my part; it is only because I'm "supporting" her choice to keep this particular bra size. I would also state that for some reason, if her shirt is off, I find I now have the hardest time making eye contact with her...strange. However proud she may be of her new boobages, try as I might, she will not allow me to post a picture here. Sorry.

What else...oh yea, her little pooch. Whilst she is only nine weeks, three days pregnant (not that I'm counting, not at all), when you are all of 95 lbs. plus six pounds added between two boobs, any little increase in belly size is extremely obvious. Couple that with the fact that she's making two little babies in that tiny space and her little belly is the cutest damn thing I've ever seen. In twelve years, I have only ever known Heidi with a completely (and wholly enviable) flat stomach. Her idea of pooch in the past has been the slightest amount of skin that may, by virtue of her pants and contorted placement of her body, barely visibly but ever so slightly overlap the waist of her pants. It's skin, people, because she was sitting funny. She's never had belly fat, never had a pooch. I, on the other hand, have spent the last four and a half years perpetually looking about five months pregnant. So to see her with a pooch both makes me chuckle at the slow departure of those enviable abs and the overall cuteness of her growing mid-section. With her boobie and belly growth comes chubbier cheeks. If I thought she looked like a teen-ager before, she's actually turning into Benjamin Button and each day, she's looking younger with her new chubbier cheeks. Yea, walking through the mall with her wearing a tight t-shirt (tight only because of her new boobies...yes, I am obsessed, why do you ask?), I become the cliche...the 40-something woman walking through the mall with her presumably pregnant teen-age daughter. I'm totally going to look like a criminal if there is even a hint of PDA within the next seven months. *Sigh* While we were going to keep the babies on the DL until twelve weeks, Heidi's growing girth is making it a little difficult. We are going to tell folks at work on Wednesday at a support staff meeting. There have been a few stares at her belly area so we want to be the ones to announce it, not have people figure it out. I tried to talk Heidi into doing the Beyonce dance then open-jacket announce, but she's wholly uninterested. So, yea, I guess I'll be figuring out a little something, something to say to the group. I think I can come up with a word or two. :)

Well, you ask, what about her little wombmates, Baby 1 and Baby 2, or Baby A and Baby B, depending on the week we do our ultrasound? How are they doing? Well, since their very rough start in their new little world, they have behaved like the little superheroes they are! We have heard their heartbeats each week since the week after her surgery. Each time, the beats are at just the right beats per minute, getting faster with each ultrasound. Their rhythm has been exactly where it is supposed to be. And their size? Well, they are growing so well that they are actually two days ahead of their gestational age (likely because Heidi has been fattening them up with all those pickles and any of the eight meals a day she eats). It has been the most amazing opportunity to see them develop from such an early stage. The first ultrasound introduced us to just blobs of cells with a heartbeat. Then, their little bodies started to grow a little longer, heartbeats staying solid and strong. Now, we can see which end is their head and which end is their little rumps. I will say, that at this point, their heads are about a third of their total body size...I'm hoping that changes a little. Otherwise, I fear our kids will look like Lord Farquaad. We are also seeing little "buds" that are their arms and legs. Since they stay pretty tight, arms up to their faces and legs like little frogs, we only see little buds on the ultrasound. It's a little too soon to count fingers and toes...we're anxious for that whole toe counting opportunity since six toes (six on one foot, five on the other...eleven toes total) run in Heidi's family. We're hoping to only see twenty total toes, not twenty-one, not twenty-two. We are also anxious to see other parts. You know what parts I'm talking about...boy parts or girl parts! The earliest we'll be able to see those little parts is around eleven weeks. And only if they are boy parts will Dr. Welden say with any certainty what gender they are. If it's a girl, he thinks it's too early since the boy part could be "hidden" and pop out later, surprising us when we've already planned a pink nursery. So, maybe in a couple of weeks, there will be another little "bud" that will tell us a gender. Either way, we are happy. Boys, girls, boy and girl...no matter. We're just amazingly happy and fortunate to have babies! At our last ultrasound, we actually saw Baby 1 (aka Baby A) move a little. It was ever so slightly, but Dr. Welden pointed it out and we can see it on the video he gave us. He said they spend most of their day sleeping but every now and again, they'll twitch and move (I think they already have the potential to take after me on a Sunday...get it, sleep all day and twitch a little? Huh...all this baby-making has made my humor slightly dull, I see).

So, here we are. Our next appointment is next week...we had to wait a whole two weeks between visits! They are going to change so much that we probably won't even recognize them! We also have our first OB appointment at the end of this month. Lots of new paths on our journey!

And our first Thanksgiving. I know the babies are here yet, but it will be an amazing Thanksgiving this year, with so much to be thankful for. We are blessed. Doubly blessed.

Peace and love, my friends. Over and out...until next time, that is!

Surviving the (third) worst week of my life...

This, my friends, will officially go down in the record books as the third worst week of my life, third only to the week involving Payton and the week involving Jonathan. This was number three. It is amazing the ability of a person to go from such an amazing high to such an amazing low in such an amazingly short period of time. It is, to say it simply, amazing. I shall proceed momentarily to detailed elaboration, but be forewarned...I've already advised it was a horrible week. I am also warning you I am graphic in my detail. If you choose to read on, you have been warned. In the words of Jigsaw, "Oh yes, there will be blood."

We left off last Thursday going back to Dr. Welden's office to see if we had a baby thriving or if we had the "worse case scenario". When we got to Dr. Welden's office, we were obviously trepiditious. We start the ultrasound process. By the way, Heidi may actually hold the title for most vaginal ultrasounds in a week. Not a title she ever aspired to, but one she may hold nonetheless. Getting back to business...we are on our way to the ultrasound, obviously worried and anxious. But this ultrasound is part of our high this week. During the ultrasound, we see one baby and one heartbeat. It wasn't yet large enough to hear, but we could see it...the slightest little movement. It was so early that Dr. Welden had to zoom in ever so close to be able to see it but we saw it. It was, well, amazing. This was the first time we'd seen our baby's heartbeat. It was moving, incredible. Heidi was making a baby, a real life. We had taken our IVF science project and were actually making a baby. A BABY, PEOPLE!!! But wait...that's not it. Not only did we see our embryo beating its little heart, there's more! What you ask? What more could we possibly ask for? I answer you with this...we also saw another yolk sac (that's the baby holder, people...google this stuff!), only this one was considerably smaller, so small we are unable to detect a heartbeat. Dr. Welden explained it could be smaller for a couple of reasons; it could have implanted up to 48 hours later than the first embryo, thereby lagging in growth. Or, it could be failing to thrive and on its way to miscarriage. There was no way to tell at that moment. Instead, we would have to wait a few days to see if it was growing and if it was doing so at a rate commiserate with a thriving embryo. Great news! We were so excited! Not only did we have one seemingly healthy embryo, but we might have two! Twins. Wow. Twins. Holy double wow. Two strollers, two car seats, two everything. Why? Because they were twins. We left Dr. Welden's office feeling amazing, maybe even walking on air a little bit. We also left with our first baby photo and video of the heartbeat. A-mazing. For our loyal fans (well, maybe not "fans" but family, friends and some strangers becoming friends through our blog), I introduce you to...our embryo.

Because we aren't sure about the viability of embryo number two, I shall refrain from posting pictures until appropriate confirmation has been received.

We have to give the original child, Jessica, a ride to her car in Riverview after the doctor's appointment so we start our trek to pick her up in Tampa. Our car ride is, of course, punctuated with talk of the embryo(s), showing of the picture, happy baby-making talk about how amazing it was that we might have two babies in there...all conversation that anyone having a baby and seeing it for the first time might have. We drop Jessica off in Riverview, which is a hop, skip and a jump to our house (um, if by hop, skip and jump you mean a BFE). On our way home, Heidi starts to feel a little sick to her stomach. We start looking for a Wendy's to purchase a chocolate Frosty, medicine of the Gods, to help her through this icky moment. Apparently, Riverview is not known for it's conveniently located Wendy's. By the time we find one, we're back in Tampa and Heidi's pain is considerably worse. We stop at Wendy's and while I am ordering her the "Save Me" Frosty, she heads to the little girls room to take a tinkle. By the time she gets in there, the pain is so bad that she has to sit on the floor until the wave of pain passes. For those of you who know Heidi, she's an incredible germ-o-phobe. Sitting on the floor of Wendy's is NOT within the sanitary guidelines she has outlined for her natural habitat. This is being shared solely to help you appreciate how much pain she was in. We leave Wendy's, me helping her walk out because she's in so much pain. Using our medical backgrounds and incredible powers of intuition, we deduce that the kidney stone is once again rearing its ugly head and continuing its painful passage to and through Heidi's urethra. I start texting a friend who has endured the agony of the stone and everything she's telling me about its passage is right on par with the pain Heidi is feeling. I guess we have finally figured out what the painful culprit from earlier in the week is...a rolling stone (hahahaha...get it? Nevermind.)

When we get home, Heidi is in serious agony. I help her into the house but by the time we get even five steps in, she collapses to the ground. I feel just horrible for her because I know she's in an incredible amount of pain and I can't do anything to help her. I've never had kidney stones (thank God!) so I can empathize but that's about it...I can't take away her discomfort. After she sits on the couch for a bit to catch her breath, I take her to the bedroom and lay her down so she'll be more comfortable. A neighbor had graciously offered to bring us dinner and it was an offer I was too exhausted to refuse. Prior to her arriving with her delicious dining delights, Heidi called me in to help her go to the bathroom. As she was leaving the latrine, she said she felt dizzy and wanted to lay down, which she did, right outside the bathroom door. As she lay there, she said she could feel blood coming out and it felt like a lot. I grabbed a towel and put it under her but the blood had already soaked through her panties and onto the carpet. Then the doorbell rings. I tell Heidi that I'm going to go get the door while she gets her bearings on the floor and that I would be back shortly to help her back to bed. It was our neighbor with dinner. I take a few moments to let her know whats going on and then head back to the bedroom to get Heidi back into bed. By the time I got there, she had bled some more and she didn't feel like she could walk to the bed. I was sitting on the floor with her and I told her that I was just going to carry her to bed. Um, here's where I need to brag just a bit about my incredibly inhuman strength. From a sitting position, I put my arms under Heidi's legs and head and actually pick her up, FROM A SITTING POSITION, and carry her to bed. No, this is not crucial to the story, however, it should be noted that this was very difficult and again, it was from a sitting position! I'm not exactly a spring chicken so I'm not going to lie...I was feeling a little like a stud. I digress. I get Heidi into bed and go into the kitchen to make her a plate of dinner. I bring it to her and she eats some but she just isn't feeling very well so she finds it difficult to eat. I eat dinner because, well, quite frankly, I'm feeling fine and I'm hungry and my neighbor made me a fabulous dinner so I was not about to waste it. Plus, I had just exerted super human strength in lifting her and I'm sure that is what induced such hunger in me. Speculation, of course, but I'm pretty confident that's what it was. We (I) eat and then we decide to turn in for the night because Heidi is just feeling horrible. About 10:30, maybe 11:00, Heidi wakes me up because she's having a hard time breathing. I can't be exact on the time because I was already asleep and the events that occur after are more than a little traumatic so forgive me if my timeline is slightly askew. She wakes me up to tell me that she thinks she has a collapsed lung because she can't take a deep breath. In my grogginess, I'm confused as to why should would think her lung was collapsed because it seemed so out of left field. She said she googled it and had all of the symptoms. OK. I'm going to be a little honest here. I thought she was getting a little ahead of herself and exaggerating the situation because she was in pain. I have to admit, shamefully so, that I was a little frustrated. I told her it was probably the way she was sleeping, all hunched down, and she should either lie down or sit up because her diaphragm was probably squishing her lungs (again, using my medical expertise). She said she had to go to the bathroom again and asked for my help. I take her to the bathroom and as she sits on the toilet, she says that she thinks she's bleeding again. I hear the heavy stream and ask her if she's peeing as well. She says no, it's just blood. I look down and to my shock, there is blood pouring from her. She said that she needed to lie down because she wasn't feeling well. I told her she needed to wait; I had to help clean her up because there was so much blood. She was adamant about laying down and I held her up and told her to take a deep breath and calm down, she was starting to hyperventilate. I honestly thought she had just worked herself up into a panic attack. Rightfully so, mind you, because of the blood and pain, but I still thought it was just a panic attack or something of the sort. I told her I was going to lean her against the back of the toilet while I cleaned her up and then I would take her back to bed. As I leaned her back, her body went completely stiff, her eyes glazed over and she started sliding off the toilet. She was suddenly gone, unconscious. Limp and falling. She wasn't responding to me at all. It was like she left the room and I was left there with just her body. I don't know that I can find the words to describe how terrified I was. She was just bleeding, severely in my estimation, and then immediately she passes out. She was pale and non-responsive. I was afraid she would fall off the toilet so I picked her up and laid her on the floor, all the while calling her name and telling her to wake up. I can hear my own voice in my head, repeating over and over, "baby, baby, baby...wake up, wake up. Baby, baby, baby, wake up." After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, her eyes came back into focus and she asked how she got to the floor. I told her she passed out and I put her there. She said "I told you I wasn't hyperventilating. Call 911". Dang, straight from a complete pass-out, girl just called me out! I run out of the bathroom to find a phone and call 911. I'm petrified. I don't know what the frig just happened to her, I only know there's blood everywhere and she's on the floor. The 911 operator does her job in calming me down and gives me specific instructions...put the dog away, turn on the porch light, unlock the door...all things that make me focus on simple tasks and not the panic welling up in my chest. Heidi tells me to get her some pants and to pull up her panties, which are still down around her ankles. I get her dressed. I also realize that I'm in my undies as well so I find some boxer shorts to quickly put on. By the time all of these things are done, the paramedics show up.

A rush of chaos ensues for me and Heidi. Four paramedics show up and start asking all standard questions (you know, like "are you mom?"...erg.) I explain everything that has happened as they load her up on the gurney. They take her out to the ambulance to get her hooked up to an IV and do whatever other paramedic magic is required. I go through the list of Heidi's meds with one of the other paramedics. Then I try to find a bra and real pants...great. Four strangers saw me with floppy boobs. Can the night get any worse? I will save you the trouble of trying to answer that...yes, my friends, yes it can...a lot worse.

We ask the ambulance driver if he can take Heidi to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa because our fertility doctor has privileges there and after the chaos at the beginning of the week, we wanted to be in a hospital he could see us in. They agreed and started the trek to Tampa with Heidi. I put the dogs away, grabbed her meds, put on shoes, all stuff done in a panic. How could this be happening again? How could kidney stones be so frigging bad?!?

We get to St. Joseph's Hospital ER and I'm relegated to the waiting room. At each ER this week, there was always more than a little anxiety about our "marital status" and whether the hospital would let me go back with her or if they would pull the whole "you're not really married in Florida" card. After about twenty minutes, a nurse came to get me and with a big sigh of relief, I was taken back to her. They were going to run more tests, including an ultrasound...yep, you guessed it, vaginally. Unfortunately though, they needed a full bladder and because of the situation, Heidi wasn't allowed to drink anything. So, they proceeded to give her a catheter. Not just any catheter, mind you. No, this was a special massively sized catheter designed to be able to not only drain urine, but also push saline into her bladder. This was incredibly painful for Heidi, especially when they removed it. It was supposed to be a swift, quick removal, but Heidi said it hurt so much that she would never get another catheter again....foreshadowing...she wasn't going to be able to stick to that resolve. Back to the room. After a little while, the nurse comes in to add another IV line to her other arm. We ask why they need two lines and she stated that they do it in serious situations in case they need access quickly. Hold the fort, my friends. These are kidney stones. In what universe does that qualify as a serious situation? I mean, I know they are painful, but nonetheless, they're kidney stones. Aren't they?

The ER doctor comes back into the room. He wants to get the name and phone number for our fertility doctor. He advises that Heidi has some type of fluid in her abdomen. They can't be sure what it is at this point, but they surmise that it is blood and likely from an ectopic pregnancy. They are going to call Dr. Welden to come in because Heidi would need to go into emergency surgery to find the source of the bleeding and stop it. STOP! What the hell just happened here? They were f**king kidney stones!!! How is she bleeding internally?!?! The doctor further advises that this is not something that will fix itself and that there is no other option for Heidi but surgery. They were going to transport her to St. Joseph's Women's Hospital across the street by ambulance and perform the surgery as soon as Dr. Welden could get there. What's the expression people use? Oh yea, it's something to the effect of "Shit just got real". Despite all of my intention not to cry in front of Heidi no matter what we were going through, I couldn't help myself. I cried. Why? Shit just got real. These weren't kidney stones. She was bleeding internally and not just a little. The doctor said it was likely the bleeding that was making it difficult for her to breath because the fluid was pushing against her diaphragm, which was pushing against her lungs. It was also the blood loss that was making her dizzy and weak. She saw me cry (dammit!) and said it would be OK. I had to pull my shit together because my job is to be strong for her, take care of her. Shake it off, baby, shake it off...you can do this. The doctor calls Dr. Welden (I know this because I was eavesdropping on his conversation). While he's doing this, the nurses are getting Heidi ready for transport to the women's hospital. They are somber, serious and quick. I call Heidi's mom at, oh, I don't know...3:00 a.m. to tell her that Heidi is going into emergency surgery. She doesn't believe me. I barely believe what is happening. The nurse tells me and Jessica to go ahead and leave so we could get checked in and be ready for when Heidi arrived across the street. As we left the ER, it happened. It sunk in. Shit was more than real...it had potentially devastating consequences and I cried. Jessica did her best to console me but I had a moment away from Heidi where she wouldn't see me cry and it just had to happen. It had to be purged so I was ready for her arrival at the next hospital.

Jessica and I drive across the street to the women's hospital and wait for Heidi. We proceed to the security guard whose age I would estimate to be about 157. I advised we were checking in for a patient who was being brought over for surgery. He said he doesn't see an ambulance arriving and I say to his 157 year old ears that I understand that, she should be arriving shortly and we were told to come check in first. He points to the door and says we'll just have to wait until an ambulance gets here. He told us to have a seat to wait. We sit down. Now, my friends, if you haven't already surmised by this story, it's about 4:00 a.m. I'm a little fricking stressed out and I am making every single effort to maintain maturity so I do not get kicked out of a hospital my wife has yet to arrive at but it is not easy. I'm tired. I'm scared. And now I'm pissed off. I go back to the desk and ask if he can contact the AOD and advise her that we are here for Heidi's surgery and need to check in. He writes down Heidi's name and asks if I'm related to her. Geezohfuck...here we go. "Yes", I say. "What is your relationship?" he asks. "Wife." "What?" "Wife" "Wife, to her?" "Yes"...spoken very slowly through clenched teeth. What, I wonder, would the repercussions be if I just jumped across the desk and actually stabbed the 157 year old security guard to death with the pen he was using to write down Heidi's name? Would it impact my ability to see her when she arrived? Likely...so I restrain myself. He speaks to the AOD and she advises that Heidi should be on her way. He relays that to me then tells me to have a seat. Jessica and I sit for approximately four minutes and then he says to us, "You should come in check in so you are ready when she gets here." I say in my calmest I think I might actually stab you in the eye and go berserk on you voice, "That's what I was trying to do the whole time." My visitor badge picture is not a very happy looking one. I am still considering whether I should return and off him...

Heidi arrives. For a girl whose never rode in an ambulance, this is her fourth ride of the week. Maybe another title for her...They take her back to the prep area and Jessica and I continue to wait in the waiting room, glaring with evil intent at the old guy in the security chair. Odd that the evil daggars we were shooting at him didn't cause him immediate harm. I guess it was his lucky night.

We go back to the prep area and sit with Heidi. My dear, sweet girl is tired and spent. She's still in pain and she's still scared. The anesthesiologist comes in to talk to us and yep, she keeps it real. She tells Heidi that if she has general anesthesia and is put out completely, the chances are minimal that the embryo's will survive. They will most certainly perish at this age because the anesthesia will stop the development of the organs and limbs. Her other alternative is an epidural. This is safer for the embryos. It is, however, not high on Heidi's list of things she feels she can endure. She is very scared, very anxious, about how she will react to being in surgery and being awake. She's already in an immense amount of pain and has been for hours. She can't breathe well, even though she's on oxygen. She's had the misfortune and humiliation of having to use a bedpan twice in the same night. She is at her end...she just can't take anymore. Going into surgery awake feels impossible for her. The anesthesiologist is good at talking to Heidi in her heightened state and agrees to let me come into the surgery with Heidi to keep her calm. Well, now, it would seem that she must have heard of my medical expertise and this was her secret way of getting me into the room to assist...or, she just thought it was the best thing for Heidi; having someone with her that could comfort and soothe her. Probably that.

They take Heidi to prepare for surgery. I get to prepare myself, with a super-sexy blob shaped body outfit, hair net, shoe booties and a mask. I'm feeling pretty darn surgical right now, my friends. This also lends credence to my medical expertise. I'm pretty sure I can now sign my name and follow it with the letters M.D. Please feel free to call my receptionist for an appointment...I offer only gynecology services. :P

When they bring me to the surgery room, I see Heidi laid out, butt-ass naked, with a sheet screen dividing her from neck to bottom. I am directed to my very important chair at the head end. She's groggy but awake. The anesthesiologist has given her the epidural and is testing her for feeling by poking her, alternating between a needle and a dull pen top to see if Heidi could tell the difference. Yea, Heidi wasn't really good at this game; an important one if she wanted to get through this surgery without actually feeling anything. It is going to be a laproscopic surgery which poses a bit of a problem because when they pump the gas into her abdomen, it is going to put more pressure on her diaphram and make it even more difficult for her to breathe. She'll be awake so she will be very aware of this. Adding the gas also creates additional pain in her shoulder (why? I don't know...that's just where it presents.) Throughout the entire surgery, Heidi's shoulder was in a lot of pain. Even through the epidural and the other drugs they gave her to make the the process easier, she continually complained about the pain in her shoulder. I sat at her head and consoled her, rubbing her face, holding her hand, reassuring her. I could see the containers holding the blood that was being suctioned from her abdomen. At the time, I didn't know it was diluted with fluid they were adding so I was growing more and more concerned by the amount of blood I was seeing. At one point, the anesthesiologist told me to stand up and look at the screen. She showed me a large bubble in a tube. That was an embryo. And that was a fallopian tube. After almost a week of pain and unknowns, this was it. An ectopic pregnancy. One that led to a significant amount of pain and bleeding. I asked her if it was still viable, she said no. That was a relief to me, just knowing we weren't destroying it, even under the circumstances. I sat back down and continued kissing Heidi, rubbing her face, rubbing her shoulder, holding her hand. At one point, they had her inverted and her head was down. This made the pain in her shoulder worse. The nurse kept encouraging them to hurry and get her back in a horizontal position because of the pain. About an hour and fifteen minutes into the surgery, and after that entire time period is spent at Heidi's head, cajoling, consoling, she turns to me, looks me in the eye and says, "What are you wearing?" LOL...my girl and her powers of observation...it took her 75 minutes to notice I was in surgery wear, with a mask on. I had been kissing her through this same mask but she just now noticed. LOL My girl...

The surgery ends after about an hour and a half. They completely remove the fallopian tube and the embryo. They make sure there is no blood remaining in her abdomen. They stitch and bandage her up and wheel her to recovery.

After recovery, we spend two days in the hospital. Heidi is extremely weak from the blood loss. The doctor did not want to give her a blood transfusion because of potential risk to the embryos, including the possibility of an allergic reaction to the transfused blood. This meant she had to regenerate it on her own. She had lost, at a minimum, four bags of blood, each bag equivalent to the size of one of the bags you fill when you donate blood. This was what they ended up removing minus the solution they added. This did not, however, include any of the blood she lost at home. The time in the hospital was spent by Heidi working up the energy to sit up, stand up, walk to the bathroom, try to eat even though she was nauseous. She was in pain and couldn't sleep well, she couldn't eat well...she was not in a happy place during her recovery.

It was while in the hospital that she came to the realization that she could have died. This was a difficult realization. She was suddenly terrified of what the rest of her pregnancy might hold, if she was even still pregnant. This was a lot of trauma for embryos. She even said she wasn't sure she wanted to be pregnant at this point. She wanted to have a baby. She did not want to die; she didn't want to leave me alone. We didn't talk much about the babies while we were in the hospital because this was something she needed to reconcile. This was something no one expects to have to deal with so she needed time. And my job was to give it to her.

We were released from the hospital on Sunday with instructions to go to Dr. Welden's on Monday for an ultrasound. The ultrasound was to let us know if the embryo(s) survived. Through most of this experience, I am typically the one that keeps everything positive; I put everything into perspective. This day was different. I was so nervous. It felt like someone had taken my body between my head and pelvis and twisted it like giving a really bad indian rug burn to my whole body. I was anxious, scared. I was uncharacteristicly...quiet.

When we got into the room, Dr. Welden asked the cursory questions about how she was feeling, how the incisions felt, etc. Then, as he inserted the vaginal probe (which sounds dirty but isn't...grow up, you immature freaks!), he pauses. The screen is ready to see what is going to show up at the end of that probe in mere seconds, milliseconds, really. My eyes were fixed on the screen, anxious, waiting. And then, he stops. Before he inserts it fully, he stops and prays. He prays that God has seen fit to keep our baby safe and let us be mothers. He prays that God has protected them. I'm going to interject an opinion rant here (like I have to preface my rants...) I believe in God. Heidi believes in God. We are gay. Sometimes, that feels like a contradiction but for us, it isn't. We believe God made us who we are, whether religion believes it or not. One of our concerns when we first went to Dr. Welden was all of the religious paraphenalia we saw scattered around his office and how he would feel about his belief in God and our gayness. Never once has that been an issue for Dr. Welden and to end my rant, never more than this moment have I been more appreciative of Dr. Welden's prayers than this second, this moment in time. His commitment to us and to God merged and I could feel how important God's blessing on our embryos was to not just us, but also to Dr. Welden. Here we go...the moment to end all moments. Did they survive? Was God looking out for them?

As soon as the probe was inserted far enough to see the uterus, we saw it. A heartbeat! WE SAW A HEARTBEAT!!! Stop, pause and ingest the depth of that statement. After all that Heidi had gone through; after all of her blood loss, after surgery, after everything, there was a heartbeat. THERE WAS A HEARTBEAT. And I also saw the glimpse of a second heartbeat and pointed that out to Dr. Welden. He laughed and said I was getting ahead of myself. He zoomed into the embryo and started the measurements. Heartbeat should be 120. This one's was 120.67. The size at last measurement was 1mm. This time, it was 4mm. It had quadrupled in size since Thursday. Not only had it survived, but it thrived, grown! Dr. Welden continues the ultrasound...searching for a possible second embryo. And there it was! Just like I said (again, another testament to my medical knowledge). This one was only a slight bit smaller than the first. The heartbeat was a slight amount under 120. It too, was perfect.

I think it goes without saying that we cried. We cried because despite everything, we had not just one baby, but two. We cried because even though we had just had an incredibly frightening week, we still had a shot at this parenting thing. We cried because we were indescribably happy, relieved. We cried because Dr. Welden apparently has a direct line to God and God listened. Twins, my friends. We have twins. Two. Babies. Twins. And now, my dearest friends, family and strangers alike, now I introduce you to our children, our boys, or girls, or both. It doesn't matter. These are our babies...please say hello.

And so we end our journey trying to get pregnant and begin our journey making babies. We look forward to this trip! As a matter-of-fact, Heidi's already experiencing morning sickness. The first real-life sign of pregnancy. Here we go...making our babies! Thank you, God. Thank you, Dr. Welden. :)

Three Emergency Rooms Later...

It never fails, you know. Whenever things are going exceptionally well with our fertility, something has to happen to throw a wrench into the works. Well, this most wrench was quite the doozy. It's a long story, involving a long night so roll up your sleeves and get ready to hear about our last couple of days. Warning to the reader: They sucked. Royally. Worse, I'm still super tired so this blog will likely have minimal humor injected. I'm just too tired so I apologize in advance. Feel free, however, to interject where you think I would have added something funny or sarcastic. It will lighten this up a bit.

Around 6:00 p.m. on Monday evening, Heidi had two sharp pains in her back. By 8:00, her stomach and right side started hurting pretty bad. I told her that it was probably the normal aches and pains associated with pregnancy...lots of uterus stretching, maybe her introduction to morning sickness, all of the fun stuff that she had to look forward to being pregnant. I wasn't worried, I just figured it was the next step in her journey and chuckled internally knowing what she was in for...and she wished for this. LOL

She went to bed early hoping that she would feel a little better by the morning. Around 11:00 p.m., I heard her whimpering, almost crying. I asked what was wrong and she said her stomach was hurting really badly. She went out to lie on the couch (because apparently, she feels our couch has magic healing powers). I joined her and we sat in the dark trying to figure out what to do would fix the problem. I decided to call our nurse, despite the late hour, in case the pain was from hyper-stimulation. She answered in her "Who the hell is this? I'm sleeping" groggy voice. I told her the sitch and she said we could wait until tomorrow to come see Dr. Welden or if the pain got too bad, we could go to the ER...she just didn't want us to sit in the ER all night for nothing. She said Heidi should try to take Tylenol to take the edge off. She didn't think it was the hyper-stimulation but she didn't know what it was. I fetched some hard-core Tylenol and Heidi took those. We went back to bed and decided that if she wasn't feeling better within a half hour, we would go to the ER.

Now, if it had worked, this would be a very short blog. It didn't. At 12:00 a.m. we headed to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. When we checked in, they told us it shouldn’t be too long. This was good because Heidi was getting more and more uncomfortable from the pain in her back and stomach. After an hour and a half of waiting in the waiting room, which is slightly scary at midnight, and being told twice that it wouldn't be much longer, the little dude at the desk advised he didn't know when they would be able to take us back because they had gotten really busy (um, not in the waiting area...). It was now 2:00 a.m. and Heidi can barely walk. We absolutely did not feel like having her sit in a hard chair and continue to wait to not be seen so we decided to go to Bardmoor ER. We called them first to see if there was a wait and by the grace of God, there wasn't. We went to get our car from the valet...yea, the hospital is under construction so you had to valet. The dude jumped in his mini-van to head the two blocks to our car and reappeared in about five minutes, laughing that it would help if he had the keys. Seriously? You're a valet...you have two responsibilities: Keys and parking. By the time he got back, I was more than a little annoyed and Heidi was in more pain. Were it not 2:00 a.m. and if I didn't have to hold my wife up, I may have beat him up. Seriously.

We get to Bardmoor ER and get taken right back to a room. Thank you, Gods of ER's, thank you. They immediately start her on an IV. We advise of the issue and advise that she is five and a half weeks pregnant after IVF. Let me just say that the nurse was nice enough, props for that. However, she wasn't really all that detail oriented. When the doctor came in, he though Heidi was five months pregnant. When I was giving her the names and dosages of Heidi's meds, there wasn't an available drop down for 1 ml of Progesterone so she just input the standard 50 ml. One would think that a little attention to detail would be important in this setting, but what do I know? When the doctor came in and we started answering IVF questions, you could tell he wasn't very familiar with the process. We told him we had 3 embryos put back but that we didn’t know yet how many took so he ordered an ultrasound. About an hour later, the ultrasound tech arrives. By this time, Heidi's pain has worsened. This made the topical and vaginal ultrasound extremely painful. Apparently, this tech had not taken the "Dr. Welden's Guide to Gentle Ultrasounds" course and was quite rough on Heidi, especially considering the fact that her stomach was already in so much pain. The only positive in this situation was the fact that I was able to watch her do the ultrasound and I saw her mark the drop-down box for number of fetuses: 2. I also got to see her mark one of the screen shots with yolk sac. This was my second visit with our baby...once during the aspiration, and now, watching a screen with a yolk sack on it. Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile. Two babies. Deep breaths...two babies. Oh my god. Two babies...back to Heidi. I couldn't help but smile at her, even though she had no idea what I was smiling about. My happiness was short-lived.

After the tech finishes, she advises that the radiologist has to review the pictures and the doctor would be back in to talk to us in thirty to sixty minutes. It's about 4:30 a.m. at this point so what else do we have to do? Sleep is pretty much out of the question because of the amount of pain Heidi is in and the fact that the temperature in the room was probably bordering at about 37 degrees. The doctor finally comes in and tells us one fetus looks good and is in the right spot in the uterus. Another embryo looks to have implanted really low in the cervix and is in the wrong position and may not continue to be viable. He also thinks the pain on Heidi's right side is due to an ectopic pregnancy. So, in a span of a mere few moments, we learned we had three babies and then learned that maybe we had one. He also said that they were not equipped to handle these types of issues and that an ambulance has been called to transfer Heidi to Bayfront.

It is now 5:00 a.m. and the pain is just too much for Heidi. A half hour earlier, she asked the nurse for pain medicine. When the nurse came back with it, Heidi asked if it was okay to take since she was pregnant. The nurse gave her a look that said, "why would it matter?" and said "Not really, it's a narcotic.". I then asked her if she could have some Tylenol to at least try to take the edge off. The nurse goes to get some. After about thirty minutes, Heidi just couldn't take the pain anymore. She conceded and agreed to take the pain medicine. After nine hours, she just couldn’t take it anymore. You have to understand how bad Heidi's pain must have been. Under normal circumstances, I can't get her to take a Tylenol to save my life. She could be fighting the worse headache of her life but she'd rather see if she could just manage it without taking the Tylenol. For her to take a pain pill was a huge indicator of the amount of pain she was in. She was so worried about the affect it would have on the baby. Second visit from the nurse with the pain pill must have resulted in her actually looking up some information about the pain pill because she said it was a Class C narcotic that was often used in OB situations. Weird...this is the second health care professional that I wanted to beat up in a single night.

When we find out we are being transferred, I tried again to call Pam. Our phones were almost dead so I called from the hospital phone. I'm sure the sobbing voicemail she received was not the best wake-up call she could have gotten. It was weird. I didn't cry in front of Heidi because my job is to be strong for her, take care of her, make her know that its going to be alright. But there's something about talking to a trusted person, someone who had gone through this journey with you, there was something about talking to that person in a time of crisis that makes you turn to shit and become completely incapable of forming words without hitching and sobbing. I took a moment to go plug my phone into the car so it could charge and give myself a moment. I called Pam again and unfortunately for her, just let go again. I asked her what we should do because I just didn't know. I only knew that I needed Heidi to be alright but beyond that, I was actually lost. I needed her to tell me what to do. Using her groggy voice again, she said that we should go ahead and go to Bayfront. Before we agreed to let them do anything except diagnostic testing, the needed to talk to Dr. Welden. The ambulance shows up around 7:00 a.m. We were on our way to ER number 3 for the night. After a long 45 minute, bumpy ride with Tim, the new ambulance driver, we finally arrive at Bayfront. I followed the ambulance and made all the phone calls I needed to make while I had battery-life. Work, Nancy to update her on Heidi's condition and Jessica...again, a person who just made it OK for me to cry when I talked to her. That was okay...I needed to get it out before I was back with Heidi. You can't be someone's rock if you're a blubbering idiot, right?

We were placed in a room upon arrival. Heidi's stomach pain had finally calmed down and while we waited for the doctor, we fell asleep - - - Heidi in the hospital bed, me in the least ergonomically correct chair possible. It's amazing where and how someone can fall asleep if they are tired enough. Around 9:00 a.m., the OB doctor came round...Dr. Brown. By the grace of God, once again, he was very familiar with IVF (he and his wife were currently 22-weeks pregnant with twins so he knew exactly what we were going through). Thank God! He indicated that he didn't believe it was an ectopic pregnancy because the pain was to high in Heidi's stomach. He thought it was more likely a kidney stone but would send her for his own ultrasound instead of relying on the notes from Bardmoor. In less than six hours, Heidi was having her second topical and vaginal ultrasound. And amazingly enough, this ultrasound tech had also failed the gentle ultrasound course. Heidi was in so much pain her eyes were filled with tears. The entire experience was so painful and uncomfortable for her. I watched the tech, who initially asked me to wait in the waiting room (yea, right, that wasn't going to happen!). She was quicker than the last tech, taking less pictures. After the ultrasound, Dr. Brown reviewed the ultrasound and said that the one fetus appeared to be fine. He indicated there may be a second fetus at the bottom of the uterus but because of the size, it was hard to tell. He thought the best course of action would be to go to our fertility doctor. He called Dr. Welden to explain his findings and then came back in for a brief chat. As we were preparing to be discharged, Heidi started spotting. It created that feeling that if one more thing went wrong, we might just go unhinged. I don't actually know what the result of that would be, I just know that we were nearing the end of our emotional rope. Each time we would start to feel better, something else would happen. We hailed the doctor in the hallway to advise him of the spotting. He indicated that it was likely because of all of the ultrasounds Heidi had that day.

We left the hospital around 12:30 p.m. On our way home, we grabbed lunch and with what little energy we had left, ate and went to bed. We had to be at Dr. Welden's by 4:00 so we only had an hour and a half to rest but we needed every second of that.

We get to Dr. Welden's and are embraced by our nurses. It felt good to be somewhere familiar with people who knew us and cared about our outcome. Dr. Welden did an external exam, listening to Heidi's belly parts, tapping around in places (all of which were weird because he's usually just involved in one part of her body so it felt out of place...). He performed another ultrasound, much more gently than the techs. Poor Heidi...this was her third vaginal ultrasound in one day. If you've never had one, know this...the want is a good twelve inches and has to reach the netheregions of her girl parts. It is not what one would describe as "fun" or "enjoyable". He was so thorough, looking everywhere...he found the baby placed appropriately in the uterus. He also found a blood sac behind the embryo and said that sometimes, when an embryo is implanting, it may hit a blood vessel and some of the blood may leak into the uterus. It thought that was the case with the blood behind the uterus in this ultrasound. He was unable to find an embryo at the bottom of the uterus as indicated by the two other ultrasound techs. He said it may have been a mucus sac or something like that. He had seen them in Heidi's cervix in the past so he wasn't concerned. He advised that it was difficult to see an ectopic pregnancy because the ultrasound contract was the same as the tube; unless the embryo was large enough, it wouldn't necessarily show on the ultrasound. IF the embryo had travelled up the tube, it may be about forty-eight hours behind the other embryo. With that being said, he wanted us to come back on Thursday to do another ultrasound. He also said the pain Heidi was feeling could be a kidney stone but he didn't know; he was just speculating based on the path of pain - - - lower back to stomach.

He was going to do a urine sample and more blood tests before we left. Heidi had been poked so many times this week, between the blood tests for HCG and all of the tests from the hospital. My poor little pin cushion...she had gone through so much today. We were finally starting to feel a little better about things. One last thing...urine test, and then we were off to go to bed. She went into the rest room and as she sat down to do piddle in a cup, a bunch of blood came out. She was obviously freaked out and immediately left the restroom to tell Dr. Welden; she didn't even finish peeing in the cup. He happened to be right at the bathroom when she came out. He said not to worry; it could be from all the ultrasounds and trauma to the cervix. It was possible that the one embryo that was really low aborting itself. Just no way of knowing this early in the pregnancy. Heidi went back to finish her urine sample. I sat with Pam and cried. Again, everytime it felt like we could relax a little, something else happened. Heidi was coming out and I dried my tears...gotta stay strong for her. I am her rock, dammit, I gotta stop all this damn crying. It must be because I'm so damned tired.

We have instructions to return on Thursday. We go home and have dinner and go to bed. This was one of the longest and most difficult days we've had to endure in this process.

What now? Well, Pam called and said that Dr. Welden took the records from both ER's home with him to review more closely. Since they both indicated an embryo at the time of ultrasound but he was unable to find it, he thinks she may have miscarried. Pam also indicated Heidi's HCG levels had gone down; another indicator that one of the embryos miscarried. I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure; since she is so early, everything is speculative. The pain has subsided signficantly. If it was a kidney stone, it could have passed. She's still tender but it's nothing even close to the original pain she as in. The bleeding has also stopped; just some spotting today. She's exhausted but we took today off together and caught up on some sleep.

Tomorrow is another ultrasound. With every single ounce of everything that I am, I pray and hope that the baby is growing and thriving. I only ask that you also pray because that's what we have left...one baby and a lot of prayers.

Numbers don't lie, baby!

Ever have that feeling that you are walking on air? I mean, really...you don't even feel your feet hit the ground when you walk. Every once in awhile, you actually have to look down to see if you are, in fact, touching the ground. That's what kind of day I had today. And not I alone...I think little Hieidi may have actually been taller than me today, the way she floated on cloud 9.

Today was our second blood test. We arose early to get to the lab early so we could get the blood drawn and get to work on time. By 7:30 a.m., the lab held in a little vial a specimen, the one we were anxious to hear the results of. It was going to be a numbers day today. We needed to see some doubling in numbers. Our first blood test was 769. We needed that to double today. We were worried since it was such a high number that it would be unrealistic for it to really double; that seemed like so much. Double. Twice as much. That just seemed like so much to expect. I mean, to be honest, we should have some in the bank since we already exceeded the expectation on the first number. No matter how we sliced it, we needed double. Sigh.

Because we went to a lab instead of Dr. Welden's office, it took a little longer to get the results. Heidi was patient until lunch time. Then she started getting a little anxious. She sent Pam a text, looking for a status. Pam texted back and said it would take about an hour. Sigh again. An hour is soooo long!

We got back to work from lunch. I was in a meeting in someones office when my beloved poked her head around the corner. I asked her if she had a number, she said she'd tell me after my meeting. I, of course, immediately excused myself since this particular person knows nothing of our endeavors. I stood in the middle of our department where my wife, with crazy excitement in her eyes, told me our number. Not double, not even triple. 4313. Holy all that is amazing, good and holy!!! I wanted to hug her right there but I couldn't (damn you, professional protocol!!!). I couldn't believe my ears. The nurse said she couldn't remember the last time someone at their office had a number that high on their second blood draw.

So here we are...still progressing amazingly well. We're so excited and so happy that things are going so well. Everytime we set an expectation, it is surpassed.

I know this was an incredibly close blog to our last one but I just had to share!!! Monday is our next test day. We still have to double...so keep those prayers coming! We need at least 8600!

Love, smiles and hearts full of joy,
The mommies-to-be

"Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts,
the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.”

This poem has resonated through my head quite frequently as of late. For those of you who know where the sidewalk ends, Mr. Shel Silverstein penned this little bit of prose many moons ago. I know this because it was included in one of my favorite childhood books. Last August, my wife bought this very same book for me. It was to be the first book for our child-to-be. I was tickled pink (ickle me, pickle me, tickle me too...). It was such a signficant gift for her to buy me; so thoughtful, so perfect, so timely. It turned out that this little gem would, sadly, be placed back in the gift bag and stored in our closet until later days. Our child-to-be was not to be had last year. Interesting, though, that this poem showed up unexpectedly on my Facebook page (yes, I'm a fan of Shel Silverstein's page, you aren't?!?!). It showed up on September 25th...halfway through our ten day waiting period. Ah, but I get ahead of myself...

September 20th: Transfer day. This was the day we would have our embryos placed back into Heidi's babymaker. It was a little nerve wracking. We only had three embryos fertilized. Each day since the aspiration, we called our embryologist, Dr. Bill (or Dr. Clarke if you're an adult...I am not, so he shall forever be known as Dr. Bill). Everyday he would give us an update on the quality and progression of our eggs. Our routine for five days was to call Dr. Bill on our way home from work to see how the babies-to-be were doing. Each time we dialed the number, we did so with a slight amount of nervousness, a small level of anxiety, afraid he would deliver bad news. With so few embryos, we were so worried that one would fragment or not survive. It felt like such an incredible amount of pressure, worrying about three small, microscopic eggs and their progress; knowing these three eggs held so much hope and promise for us. But, each day we called, we heard a smile in Dr. Bill's voice as he relayed to us the positive progress made by our little eggies. Each day, he was so happy to report that no fragmentation had occurred and the embryos were progressing magnificently. Each day we hung up with a sigh of relief...this would be the time. This would be our time. We just had to have faith.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.

The day before the transfer, Dr. Bill said he hoped that at least one of the embryos would reach the blastocyst phase. This is the most ideal phase because it means the egg progressed to the best potential prior to transfer. All that would be left would be for the eggs to find a comfortable place in Heidi's uttie to settle in and grow. We were hoping for the blastocyst phase...it meant less work for our embryo. Fingers were crossed; so were toes, sometimes eyes. You get the point...a lot of body parts were crossed that at least one would progress to blastocyst.

Listen to the don'ts...

When we arrived at Dr. Welden's office on transfer day, Dr. Bill was at the front desk and in his happy little hand, he held a picture. It was the first official group portrait of our embryos. He was grinning from ear to ear. Three blastocysts, he pronounced. Three. All perfect, all ready to be transferred.

We went back to the room, ready to be impregnated. Knocked up. Have a bun placed in the oven. We'd been here before so we knew what to expect from the procedure. Dr. Welden was anxious to see if the dilation would make the transfer easier and hopefully not need to use the guide. He preferred the less invasive method, but because Heidi's cervix likes to fight all who dare enter her forbidden zone, we weren't positive that the dilation would make the process easier. We got settled in for the dirty deed. Deep breath...here we go. After the transfer, Dr. Welden said a prayer. I cried. I know that's not much of a surprise but it was moving. During the transfer, we noticed, as we did with the last IVF, that while he was pushing the embryos into the uterus, he closed his eyes, as if in prayer. Somehow, it meant so much that he not only worked with us medically, he did his spiritual part too.

Listen to the shouldn'ts...

So nothing left now but the waiting. Ten days. Oh my gosh, I don't know if you have ever had that moment in your life when even the smallest period of time somehow defied the entire scientific time continuum and somehow, the amount of time it took to elapse a mere ten days seemingly doubled, no tripled. The wait became it's own living, breathing being, doing all it could to extend its life. The wait...

the impossibles, the won'ts.

As luck would have it, day 10 fell on a Sunday. The lab is closed on Sunday. Really? Why? Why do we need to have seven days in a week? Why not have a lab open everyday? What the what? Perhaps I was feeling a little irrational but geez oh Pete people, we're feeling a little anxious and impatient here. So, instead of waiting for the lab, we opted for the HPT, home pregnancy test. An EPT to be exact. The only thing that stood between us and eternal happiness were two little pink lines. We planned to take the test first thing, around 7:00 a.m. Heidi awoke at 6:30 a.m. She gently shook me awake and advised that she had to pee really bad. If she peed without the taking the test, it may be a couple more hours before she had to pee again. She asked if we should take the test then. And so we did...we went into the bathroom. I unwrapped the test and handed it to her. She did her business (which was, in and of itself amazing because she generally has stage fright when it comes to urinating in front of me, or any other person). As I'm fumbling with the instructions to figure out the requisite amount of time necessary to allow for the appearance of the magical pink lines, Heidi exclaims, yes exclaims, through mid-stream that the lines are showing! They appeared before Heidi could even finish tinkling! She began to cry, as I stared in amazement at those magical two lines. The test before, last August, took a few minutes to register so we were more than a little shocked at how quickly they appeared on this test. Heidi finished making number one and we stood together, hugging, crying. It was happening. Oh my dear God, it was happening. We were making a baby!

Listen to the never haves,

What now? Well, we obviously wanted to tell our family. But how? We didn't want to call them. We wanted to do something else. We debated having cookies made for each person, announcing their new status, you know "I'm going to be a grandma", "I'm going to be a sister", you get the idea. The only problem with that is that it was Sunday at 6:30 in the morning...the mall didn't open until 12:00. Our family knew we were testing today; there was no way they would wait to hear from us until the afternoon. What about t-shirts? We headed to Wal-Mart to see if they had any t-shirts that pronounced the all-familiar "Baby on Board". Nothing. We decided to try Babies R Us to see if they had bibs. Jackpot! We made our first baby announcements...bibs declaring new relationships...sister, aunt, uncle, grandma. These would be our declarations. While checking out, quite proud of ourselves, I get a text from the mother-in-law...the patience has worn off. I do the best I can. I lie. I tell her that Heidi didn't sleep all night because she was so nervous. I tell her she decided to wait until later in the day to take the test...I tell her it meant more for Heidi to hold on to the hope by delaying the test than to give up hope and take it. I'll say this...they were good lies...mostly true, just of Heidi's feelings the day before, not this day; not this amazing day. We knew who our first stop had to be...Nancy's house. We drove up to her house and sent her a text to come outside. She ran to the car. LOL She was so excited. We gave her the gift and after punching me for lying to her, she held Heidi and cried. We stopped by Ross next, where Amanda was shopping for shoes and surprised her with the news. She cried in the shoe aisle. Jessica was at work until 10:00 p.m. so, despite my efforts to lie to her, I ended up having to tell her over the phone. I texted and then called my mom with the news too. And last, but not least, a pop-in at David's house. Family told. Now we could tell our nurse. She had sent a text that morning that we did not respond to until we had told our family. We responded with a simple picture, one of our pregnancy test. She called, shrieking that she had turned her phone off while in church and when she came out and saw our message, she started screaming and crying with excitement. The next call came almost immediately after by our other nurse, Tana. She told me Happy Father's Day. LOL That's my girl. LOL

then listen close to me...

The next morning we made our way to Dr. Welden's office for the blood test. We were met with huge hugs and huge smiles. Both Dr. Welden and Dr. Bill were there and doled out hugs and congratulations. It was happy, happy, joy, joy all the way around. Pam took blood and off we went...anxious to hear what our HCG numbers were. The normal range is anywhere between 5 and 435. Our last pregnancy had an opening HCG of about 20. We both hoped for a higher number than last time. We thought 50 would be great. We wanted to hear a 50 for our number...it just had to be better. That afternoon, Pam called to give us our number. Can you say 769? That's right...769 baby! Wait...769? What does that mean? That's way outside the range...is that bad, good, what? If you are the deductive type, you may have guessed it...multiples! It's not an absolute indicator for multiples but certainly an indicator. Progesterone was supposed to be around 20. Heidi's exceeded 300. Another indicator. Holy IVF, batman...we could be having twins. OR TRIPLETS! Holy multiple babies, Robin! We knew there was a chance but we were hoping so much just to get pregnant, we didn't really thing we could possibly have multiples! So, where are we now? Waiting to take blood test #2 tomorrow...then every Monday and Thursday for the next two weeks. We have an ultrasound scheduled for October 16th. We probably won't be able to hear the heartbeat(s), but the doctor should be able to see how many sacs there are, how many babies. October 27th is week 8...a critical milestone. Chances of miscarrage reduce greatly after the 8th week. What an amazing month October is going to be! What an amazing year it's going to be. What an amazing life we have to look forward to...


Anything can happen, child. Anything can be...

A tale of Midazolam...and a basket full of eggs

There's something to be said for the memorable side effects of a Midazolam and Demerol cocktail. When I say memorable, I do not mean for the person injected with this concoction. I fully mean this solely for her audience.

On Saturday, my beautiful wife and I went for our aspiration. For the IVF challenged, this is the procedure where we go in and try to retrieve all of the eggs that Heidi has spent the last month trying to make. We are hoping for a good number of eggs so we have lots of opportunities for success! The embryologist is there to find, rate and fertilize the eggs that we find. Also starring in this little event, the good Dr. Welden and his trusty nurse, Pam. It's a full house.

Prior to the actual procedure, she is injected with a little Midazolam and then a dose or two of Demerol. This puts her in a bit of a twilight state where she is able to communicate but has absolutely no recollection of the events that unfold. My friends...I learned something on Saturday about my wife. She's funny as hell. The irony...she doesn't remember how funny she was thanks to her special cocktail.

We went in for our aspiration. As is typical routine, Heidi spent the entire pre-procedure worrying that she might have ovulated and this would be all for naught. She does this all the time because, in reality, it's a huge deal-breaker if she does. She has never ovulated before she's supposed to (except for that one little IUI with RMG) but she worries anyway. At last count, there were about fifteen follicles so we are anxious to see how many eggs we'll fetch during the aspiration. As is standard, the preparations for our aspiration include cranking the AC down to sub-zero temperatures. Heidi was prepared this time! She brought socks to keep her tootsies warm. She also brought her own pillow with her instead of using the standard issue Care Bear. I'm sure this alone is sufficient for ensuring success! Work with me people ~ if baseball players can credit game wins on dirty socks, surely we can credit lesbian pregnancy on socks and special pillows. It would be nice if, for a change, you would just see my vision without me having to elucidate on everything. Digression...

So, all of the cast is present for the making of "Let's Make a Baby". Heidi is naked from the waist down, except for her trusty socks. I offered to also be naked but said offer was graciously declined by the nurse. Just wait until I give feedback on my comment card; this is absolutely going to come up as a "Needs Improvement".



The IV is placed in Heidi's arm and taped to a board. This is good because last time, during her drunkard Demerol state, she was very insistent on removing said IV. Taping it to a board will make it a little more difficult for her to try her own IV removal. We have a new addition to the procedure this time...a video monitor that links up to the embryologist microscope so we can see the eggs as he sees them. Correction...so I can see them. Heidi will be drunk on Demerol. She'll be communicative, but likely not able to remember or see or focus or you get the point. So, yea, a new monitor for me.

As the Demerol starts to flow, Heidi's eyes become heavy. Her words start to slur just a bit and I know...she's heading into the land of narcotic intoxication. The doctor comes in and starts making his preparations. It's a full on procedure so there are a lot of things to do...set up the ultrasound machine, set up the test-tube sucky-thingy, set up all of the test tubes, set up the guide for the ultrasound machine, put the dreaded speculum into Heidi's nether-regions...all types of pre-aspiration fun. As he is preparing his workplace (also known as Heidi's vagina), the Demerol kicks in and the first of Heidi's memorable moments occurs. In her sweetest slurred voice, Heidi says, "Dr. Welden...you're beautiful." Immediate laughter from me and the nurse. I don't mean a giggle, I mean I had tears coming out of my eyes. She's so fricking adorable! Dr. Welden just smiles and nods; I imagine he suspects it's the Demerol talking. LOL

As the procedure starts and the ultrasound wand is inside Dr. Welden's workplace (er, you know, Heidi's vajayjay), Heidi says, "Ow." Pause. "Ow, ow." Dr. Welden looks up from betwixt her thighs and little wifey says, "Just kidding". For real...my drugged up wife is playing a little vaginal practical joke. I thought I was the only Voci who did that?!?

She proceeds to ask Dr. Welden if she can have the rest of the Demerol to take home. Dr. Welden chuckles and says no. Heidi says, "Why not? I paid for it."

Throughout the procedure, Heidi does well but is in a little pain. She's also extremely thirsty. This results in me playing nursemaid to her with a small cup of water and a broken straw, which as we all know, means you suck in a lot of air and a little water. The last time she asked for some water, she said, "It was just right here on the nightstand." LOL My little Demerol darling. LOL

Now, the actual point of this blog isn't only to recap the musings of my intoxicated wife. It is to relay to you, my friends, family and some random strangers (what? It's a public blog!) the progress of our baby making efforts. The procedure lasted for a bit since there were so many follicles. Each follicle was sucked out, sometimes twice because eggs have a tendency to stick to the wall of the smaller, less developed follicles. Dr. Welden would suck the egg into the test tube and Dr. Clarke would look at the messy blob of bloody goo and announce whether or not an egg had been located. I would look at the monitor on the wall to confirm his findings. Really? No, I would look at the monitor on the wall and have absolutely no idea what the hell he was looking at. It was a blob of black and white. I'd like to say I could see it but it was really only when he actually pointed out the exact thing to me. Even then, I wasn't able to pick out the next one. LOL I could, however, identify the follicles on the ultrasound; I'm a frigging expert on that at this point.



The "Unexpected Moment" of the day came in casual conversation with the nurse. The last time we did IVF, we elected to freeze any unused embryos so all of the eggs retrieved were fertilized. Somewhere around sucked out egg #8, the nurse mentioned that only three would be fertilized since that was all we were putting back in. *Screeching brakes* What??? Why were we sucking out all of these eggs if only three were going to be fertilized? What if any of the three fragmented?? It happened the last time but it wasn't a big deal because we started with twelve eggs. What if they were all unsuccessful in dividing? For me, this was a holy shit moment. Heidi was in Lala Land and we hadn't discussed this. I told Pam that I wanted them frozen then because I wanted all of the eggs fertilized. I asked her why they wouldn't fertilize all of them. She responded that Dr. Welden wouldn't discard a healthy embryo. *Screeching brakes again* I hadn't thought of that. I mean, there are plenty of arguments about when life begins but I can tell you that for two lesbians trying to make a baby, for us, it begins the moment those eggs are extracted and they are introduced to a sperm or two. They are, for all intents and purposes, our babies. I couldn't imagine just discarding them either. I talked with the embryologist a little to see what he thought the chances were of successful fertilization with three embryos. He said he thought they were excellent because Heidi had great eggs PLUS there was a back-up plan. Four of the eggs were at the intermediate stage of maturity which meant they weren't able to be fertilized for a day or two. If any of the three that we had fertilized did not thrive or started to fragment, we still had four eggs that we could fertilize. OK. That didn't sound so bad. We didn't want to freeze eggs because, as we already knew, the chance of pregnancy wasn't so great (unless your name is Kyong) and we'd actually have to make contingencies for our frozen embryos. Meaning what would happen to them if we died. Didn't think about that either. So while my wife lay there in her little happy place, I made the executive decision not to freeze any of the embryos and rely on the success of three or the back-up of four. And if all of that failed, I would just tell her that she made the decision and I had to comply. I'd tell her that I thought she was lucid and legally able to make these kinds of decisions. Yea, that's what I'd do...

So, end of the day, we ended up with fifteen eggs. Not half bad for a girl weighing in at 98 lbs. If nothing else, my girl is a helluva egg maker...momma hen, if you will.



Oh, that's not quite the end of the story. What would this blog be without one more example of how darned funny my wife is. So, at the end of the procedure, after vitals are taken and she's stable and all of that good stuff, they slowly start to wake her up. They lift the table she's laying on up a little at a time. They move her legs from a nice comfy position to a sitting position. I rub her hair lovingly in an attempt to rouse her from sleep. I whisper sweet nothings to let her know we are done and to get her to come back to the land of the living. When those things don't work, I reach out, with only love in my heart and ever so gently, grab her boob. To which, she responds, "Thanks Pam." That's my girl. LMAO

We have spoken with the embryologist twice since the aspiration. Both times, he said the embryos are doing fabulously and no fragmentation has occurred. This is great news! His words today, "You're going to get pregnant this time." I hope his prediction is right. I hope this is our time...our turn to be mommies to a baby (or two!).

And now we wait until Thursday when we will hopefully put three healthy embryos back into the baby maker. Hopefully, all of the prayers we have received, good karma and the fact that Heidi made out with a fertility statue will bring us the success we so desperately want. Fingers are crossed!

Doing the math...

Today represents 70, yes, 7-0 shots given to Heidi since the beginning of our "vitamin" endeavor. 70 times she's lifted her shirt, let me rub a cold alcohol swab across her little belly and then stick her on one side or the other and inject her with chemicals designed to make her follicles not grow, then designed to make them multiply and grow. Today, we stop those shots and at midnight, we do one more shot...one to make them mature. Thirty-four hours from that shot will be one of three very major moments we have remaining in this, our last journey. Thirty-four hours from midnight tonight we aspirate.

Over the last seventeen days, we have had a regimen of doctor visits, shots and oh yea, we can't forget, cleaning up puppy poop. Not really a vital component to fertility, but definitely worthy of mention. Why would poop be relevant to this blog? Well, first I will direct you to the last blog wherein I informed you, my dear reader, of our adoption. Second, I will direct you further to the end of said blog to remind you of my intent to effectuate a little duplicity upon the universe. Alas, the universe seems to have uncovered my attempted deception and has paid me back in triplicate by providing me with sleepless nights, countless piles of poop, puddles of pee and a missed opportunity to invest in Bounty and/or Lysol wipes. Checkmate, Universe, checkmate...

So, throughout the injection of closely timed doses of lupron and follistem and ovidrel (oh my!), we have managed to create quite the collection of follicles. There are enough eggs in my little wifey to make the matron of any henhouse proud. Our first "measure" visit netted about twelve follicles progressing quite nicely. This is more than our last try by three...so this is good; more is good! Our schedule for the next couple of weeks will involve various trips across the pond to see Dr. Welden so he can count and measure follicles. Each trip to count and measure will hopefully amount to about 2 mm per day of growth. Doesn't sound like a lot BUT when you have a dozen follicles in there, growing at 2 mm per day in a really small space, well, it can definitely get a little crowded. For those of you gals really attuned to your girly parts...know how some months you can feel what side you ovulate from? Well, that's one egg. One. Let's revisit simple multiplication. What is one times twelve? Come on, seriously? I sense some of you looked up to do the math in your head. LOL It's twelve. So if you can feel one egg move when you ovulate, magnify that by twelve hanging out in your ovary. Get my point? Oh, and you suck at math. :)

This point in our journey is pretty critical. We are doing so many things at the same time, with everything being so calculated. The Lupron is draining Heidi of estrogen. This is the intent, however, it is not exactly fun for Heidi. By a show of hands...who has hit or is hitting menopause? Same effect. The girl who is cold in the dead of summer is now having hot flashes all the time. And, um, well, how do I say this the nice way...low estrogen can also lead to, well, um, a bit of emotional behavior. I'm sure I've mentioned in a past post that Heidi is not prone to emoting uncontrollably. Not so much the case with low estrogen. She sent a text to our nurse asking if it was normal, the nurse said, "yes, it's normal. You're beautiful and everyone loves you." Heidi cried. Add Kleenex to the list of items we should have invested in... After a blood test to measure her estrogen to confirm that they are, in fact, trying to throw her into menopause, we learned her level was 4. For a little estrogenial perspective, when she did her last IVF, her level was over 1300. Just a tiny difference (if you believe that, you really are mathematically inhibited). So our first week of IVF fertility mirrored that of a 54-year-old woman on the cusp of menopause.

Back to measuring...our next visit netted favorable results. The future eggs are maturing at just the right pace. Labor day began the introduction of follistem to our shot regimen. It's as handy-dandy pen used to inject very expensive medicine into Heidi's little bruised belly. We have two vials of follistem to inject through this process, designed to help those little follicles develop and multiply. So, two shots in the morning, one shot in the evening. Oh and prenatal vitamins every day.

With the introduction of the follistem, we had to make more visits to the doctor for more frequent measuring and counting. One of the risks with using meds to stimulate follicle growth is the risk of hyper-stimulation syndrome. I would interject that contrary to what my 17-year-old mind would translate this to, it is not sexual in nature. It has to do with over-stimulating her ovaries. Monitored, it shouldn't happen. Unmonitored, it could actually be very dangerous. So, more trips across the little pond known as Tampa Bay. Each visit nets us the same favorable results...excellent growth and at seemingly each visit, more follicles are located. We went from twelve to fourteen.

In the past week, we have been back to the doctor's office for, you guessed it, measuring and counting, four times. Each time, on track. Today was a great visit...fifteen follicles measured. Yea, measured. There are more follicles growing in my little tiny wife's body, but we only measured fifteen. Most measured around 16 mm. And now the pièce de résistance...drumroll please...Heidi's uterine lining measured in at a little over 14. Dr. Welden's words, and I quote (well, to the extent I can remember), "That is textbook, ideal. It's so ideal I could live in there." Hahaha...he could live in there. I guess you had to be there to appreciate the moment. Good thing you weren't...Heidi doesn't like her friends looking at her vagina. I digress.

So, we are at the beginning of the end of our IVF. Tonight, in less than three hours, I'll be shooting my wife up again, one last time before the aspiration. Then I'll be taking the dog out to poop. I digress again.

Aspiration is scheduled for Saturday at 10:00 a.m. What will you be doing then? Well, you'll be praying for us, of course! I will be doing the same...plus watching the most amazing thing a mother-to-be can watch...a pair of highly trained doctors extracting the eggs of our future child from my wife's ovary. I will be looking through a high-powered microscope to see what will be our son. Or our daughter. Or, both (we are, after all, trying to convince the doctor to put three eggs back in...the chances exist). So, download Brahm's lullaby from iTunes and think of us. And pray. Pray because you love us. Pray because you know how much we want this. Pray because you know God has a lot of people trying to get his attention, it wouldn't hurt if we had a few extra voices putting a bug in his ear for us.

So we are getting ready. We are acclimating to only three solid hours of sleep without a pee or poop interruption. We are acclimating to baby, er, puppy proofing our house. We are acclimating to having our entire lives redefined by an eating schedule, a doo-doo itinerary and cooing and cheering for a successful pee-pee outside. I think we're ready. I've done the math...we're in. We're good. We're going to make a baby...