The Twins

Everything about our second round of IVF was God-inspired.  Every moment, every injection, every appointment lead up to the moment God revealed the next piece of our puzzle; the next brush stroke in His incredible, masterful design for our family.

I've taken a long time to write the story, partly because the ending wasn't what my human heart would have wanted, and yet the beauty is in the design.  The perfect design.  And it's in those details that this story speaks to the incredible Hand of the Father.  And I can't leave that out.  From the beginning of this journey, we asked only to be His mouthpiece. 

We started the process in March of 2012.  We were hoping for a pregnancy sometime in the summer, but the prospect of adding to our family was so exciting to us that when I called to schedule the appointment (initially thinking of making an appointment in late May) I couldn't resist the first opening they had.

In an earlier blog, I had alluded to the fact that we had taken Blake up to meet our fertility team, and in fact, that was also the day we had our first meeting regarding IVF Round 2.   It was a relatively quick meeting, since this cycle would be different than the first in that our babies were already waiting for us.  The medications were much simpler, the process quicker. 

Adam and I had decided early on to keep this round of IVF quiet.  We told a close group of friends and family prayer warriors, but we made the decision to keep this leg of our journey private; as an intimate walk with our Savior that would give us the opportunity to lean in and respond through obedience.

This decision was very important for us because infertility is a thief.   It robs you of dreams.  It robs you of moments that other women take for granted.  Announcing a pregnancy. The elation you feel after peeing on a stick and seeing two lines. Even joyful intimacy with your husband free of external pressures or expectations.  It's a thief.

But our God is the Redeemer of heartache.  He is the Redeemer of all things that may feel broken or lost within us, and for me, this intimate walk with my Savior was about that redemption.

Keeping our IVF quiet was hard.  I loved the fellowship and support that we'd had the first time around, and I loved looking back on all the moments from that journey that I had shared and cataloged on this blog.  But I also knew that  I needed to be obedient, and I need to trust in wherever God would take us on this road.  I felt like the stakes were higher, in part, because these two babies were waiting for us.  These babies had literally been in our prayers, specifically, for almost an entire year.  I knew I needed to lean in.

The medicated cycle began in May.  I took Lupron to suppress my ovaries, and then Estrace (in varying amounts) to mimic the hormone changes that occur during the first half of a woman's cycle.  Near the end of the process, I began daily injections of progesterone in oil into the muscle (of my behind...I won't go into details there)

We transferred two absolutely perfect day 6 blasts on July 5.

The transfer itself was a beautiful moment.  We were blessed to have the same doctor, our doctor, perform both procedures in both of our IVF cycles.  He knows our family pretty intimately, and we love him dearly for the incredible role he has played in our lives.

The process of unfreezing these babies is tricky, and we had been praying continuously for their safety with anxious hearts.  When the babies were frozen in late 2011, the cells were basically dehydrated.  Freeze-dried, if you will.  This is a natural state that embryos take inside the body, as they travel down the fallopian tubes and enter into the uterus.  On transfer day, the embryo babies are rehydrated, and watched carefully as they expand.  This takes place about two hours before the scheduled transfer, and the hope is that they will be actively expanding by the time it takes place.  This is indicative of a healthy embryo ready to attach and result in a pregnancy.

Once we were checked in and ready for the procedure, the embryologist came in to give the report on our babies.  He told us that one of the embryos had rehydrated beautifully and was expanding and growing and looked absolutely perfect.  He told us the other had begun to expand, but at a much slower rate.  He wasn't sure what kind of odds that baby would have of growing and creating a pregnancy.  We have always been committed to our embryos as babies, and any expansion/cell growth to us is a living human life that is precious and sacred.  We wanted them both, and gave him instructions to prepare them both for the transfer.

After he left, we prayed for them one more time.

A few moments later, the doctor came in and we set up for the procedure.  The very last step in the process is for the embryologist to come in with the babies loaded into the tip of a long, hollow needle.  He hands it off to the doctor, who basically slingshots the babies into the uterus.  As the embryologist handed off the babies, he looked at us and said: "I think they must have been waiting for you--as soon as I was finished talking to you and went back to prepare them for transfer, they both started expanding and growing like crazy"

We cheered.  What a mighty God we serve.

The two week wait was hard.  With Blake, I waited the full two weeks and found out I was pregnant with the blood test administered at OHSU.  They told me not to take a home pregnancy test, and I didn't.  And I hadn't planned to do anything different this time around.

But then there was this thing called redemption.

For me, the harder decision would have been to not follow the rules and choose to take the test.  I was okay with waiting.  I liked that because the results were literally out of my hands.  Taking a home pregnancy test meant facing a huge source of disappointment and hurt, and in doing so, being prepared that the answer--like every time I'd ever taken one in the past--could be no.  I could pee on that stick and see only one line.  And then it would be over.  The hope.  It would be torture to go ahead with the blood test at OHSU knowing that it would show no pregnancy. 

It was at this point that I felt, really felt, the tender love of my Heavenly Father.  I could feel Him whispering to me that He wanted to take this.  He wanted to redeem that hurt.  My heart felt full in the knowledge that He cared, even about this seemingly insignificant hurdle, because He knew how much it had always mattered to me.  And it made me feel so incredibly loved.

I took a test one morning in our guest bathroom.  I hadn't told Adam. 

I remember sitting on top of the toilet, anxiously holding that test in my hands.  I would close my eyes, squeeze them shut, and then pop them open to see if the results had come up.  When the two lines appeared on the screen....my heart soared.  I cried.  I was filled with thanksgiving as I praised my Heavenly Father who knew me so intimately, and cared so deeply that He had taken and redeemed even that detail of my infertility.

I had the joy that morning of running into our bedroom, jumping on top of my sleeping husband, and excitedly waving a positive pregnancy test in his face.  It was the fulfillment of a dream.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10

Amen.

From that point on, it was a countdown to our first ultrasound.  My blood tests at OHSU had yielded high levels of the pregnancy hormone, much higher than with Blake, so we were anxious and believing that it meant both babies had attached.  From the beginning, we told everyone about them.  That we were pregnant with twins.  Because I was.  We had seen two go in, and we had chosen--since the beginning--to be obedient to the call and believe in expectation that God would deliver our babies.  

He did.  That story I've already told, here and here.  Today I'm 27 weeks pregnant with one of those precious little ones, Lainey Rose Breitenstein.  The other beat us to paradise.  

I will forever cherish the weeks I spent pregnant with both my babies.  Those moments were an incredible gift from the Father.  

Sometimes, I let my mind wander into the future, when I'm walking down streets of gold holding the hands of all my babies--both the ones I met here on this earth and the ones who walk those streets today.  I am such a blessed mama.  This journey through infertility continues to teach me so much about the Father, and with each step, I'm more humbled and amazed with the depths of His love.  

So that's the story of our twins.   

One more puzzle piece falls into place.  This time, a lesson in redemption.