James and Erica: Our Adoption/Pregnancy Story

Okay. So here is our adoption/pregnancy story. James and I were married in May of 2009 and by October we knew that we wanted to start our family. After eight months of trying we decided to go to the doctor to get help. James' brother, Greg, and his wife also had issues getting pregnant, but had been able to adopt two beautiful babies. Tests were done and the results came back that James had some issues. So the doctor started to do IUIs. An IUI is where they take the man's sperm and insert it into the woman. At this point James was working for Vivint as a security technician and was traveling a lot. So it was hard to go into the doctor and do the IUI since it could only be done once a month while I was ovulating. In 2012, James and I decided that we didn't want to do another summer of being separated. So I quit my job at the bank and started working for Vivint as a security technician. We went to Long Island, NY for a long six months. When we came home we started up again on the IUIs. When we finished our sixth IUI the doctor sat us down and told us the hard truth. It would take a miracle for James and I to naturally conceive. Our other options were a sperm donor, adoption, or in vitro. As hard as it was to hear I am so glad she told us. It helped me close that door and open a new one.

James and I talked about getting a sperm donor, but I vetoed it. I didn't want my husband to feel like an outsider in the family. I didn't want a baby that was half mine and half some strangers. I also vetoed in vitro. James and I didn't care if our baby was biologically ours. We just wanted a family. In vitro is an amazing thing for parents with infertility, but its a one shot deal. It is as expensive as adoption is. At least with adoption you know for sure you are getting a baby. So we began paperwork for adoption and by March of 2013 we were on LDS Family Services website. I was so sure that we would be matched within months and I would get to become a mother. We had some emails from birth mothers, but nothing ever came from them. I started to get nervous and scared. My sister told me about another option embryo adoption. Families who go through the in vitro process have a choice once they feel like they are done having children. The remaining embryos could be thrown away, giving to stem cell research, or donated to agencies for couples with infertility issues to adopt them. So the embryo adoption process is pretty much the same as in vitro. Except the embryos are not biologically ours. In vitro takes the egg from the woman and the sperm from the man and combines them into an embryo where they then implant the woman with the embryo. With embryo adoption all that needs to be done is implant the woman with the embryo since the first part has all ready been done. I hope that made sense. James and I discussed it for months unsure if this was the path that we were supposed to be taking. We felt strongly that embryo adoption was right for us and signed up for the program in late October. I've had people ask me why we decided on embryo adoption when the risks were exactly the same as in vitro. We chose embryo adoption over in vitro for three reasons. One: it did not matter to us that our children would not be biologically ours. Two: With in vitro you have one chance to become pregnant, but with embryo adoption you have four chances for just the one fee. Third: Embryo adoption was 1/3 of the price that in vitro costs.

James and I decided to go with an agency called NEDC (National Embryo Donation Center). It is in Knoxville, TN. They were a lot closer agencies to us then NEDC, but they had the best success rates plus the best price. NEDC is christian based and really cared about helping us make a family. With NEDC we had to make two trips to the clinic in Knoxville. Our first trip was scheduled for late January and then our second trip was scheduled for May 15. The first trip was to meet the doctor and his staff and run tests on me to make sure the procedure would work. The second trip would be the actually transfer. James and I have been so blessed that we were able to do these trips. He had received points to use at a Marriott hotel from working with Vivint. So we didn't have to pay any money for our stay in Tennessee. We were also able to use his parent's air miles for the first trip over there. When James' boss found out what we were doing he let us use his air miles for our second trip to Tennessee. We were so grateful for those around us and how supportive they are of us.

I should also add that as soon as we signed up for the program we received an email from a birth mother. I started to worry that we had made the wrong decision. James is so good for me. He calmed me down and simply stated that we would wait and see what happened. After emailing for a month we discovered we lived in the same small town. A town where only about 5,000 people live. We weren't sure how we felt about that and we found out that the birth mother wasn't sure how she felt about it as well. James and I came to the decision that it didn't matter. We wanted a family and even if we lived in the same town we would make it work. After emailing for another month the emails started to become sporadic. We later learned that the birth father had come back into the picture and she had decided to keep the baby. So James and I continued our journey with NEDC. We went to our first trip in January and were blown away by the kindness from the people there. I couldn't wait for our next appointment. James and I were going to finally have a family! After our first appointment it was time to pick our embryos. We were given a ton of profiles to look through, but within two weeks we knew who we wanted. The couple we picked were not super heroes in hiding. They were just a regular couple from Pennsylvania. But they felt right and perfect to me. We had to pick out a secondary couple in case the embryos from the first couple didn't make it past the thawing. I had such a hard time with it. I couldn't pick anyone. No one else felt right to me. So I finally closed my eyes and picked one at random. I knew that it didn't matter, because it would work out with our first pick.

I'm not sure how we made it to May. I would call James just to tell him the countdown for the day. Finally the day came when we were flying out. On May 13, we drove down to the SLC airport to board our plane that afternoon. Oh I should mention all the wonderful medication I was on at this point. So I had to be on birth control from January to May so they could control when I was ovulating. I will never take birth control again. I don't know how people do it. Plus I was on an estrogen pill to get my body ready to carry a baby. The pharmacist thought I was some crazy person to be on birth control and estrogen. They took me off birth control a week before I went to Knoxville and that's when I started my progesterone shots. Oh my goodness gracious. I'm not sure who hated it more James or me. Poor James had to give me a shot twice a day with a long 2" needle. So back to my story. We were at the SLC airport and I was so nervous that we wouldn't make it through security. James and I were just taking carry on bags and so my bag was loaded with needles and my progesterone medication. You had to use two needles for every application and we were staying in Knoxville for a week so I think I had about 35 needles in my bag. I was sure someone would stop us and drill us on why we were taking so many needles, but no one did. We made it on our plane and were on our way to Tennessee. We were so lucky that day. We had to change planes three times and all our lay overs were 20 to 30 minutes. We made all our planes and only the last plane of the day was delayed. James and I could not wait until Wednesday when we would get pregnant! We still had to wait one more day. Really the only thing I remember doing in Knoxville is going to the Cheesecake Factory. James told me I could pick any cheesecake I wanted for us to share. Haha. He says things like that, but really he still wants a say in it. Oh my goodness. I wanted to try them all! They all looked so amazing and so we got three different slices: red velvet, strawberry, and chocolate tuxedo. My favorite by far was the red velvet cheesecake. Oh my goodness it tasted amazing! I wanted to try the lemon one, but James is more into the traditional flavors. One day though.

So the day had finally arrived. I was shaking with nerves. I don't know how James was so calm through out everything. They tell you to come with a full bladder and kind of scare you that if you don't drink enough they have to shove a needle up somewhere to feel you up with liquid. Apparently it's very painful. So I was drinking water like a crazy woman. A nurse took me back to a room where at least four other woman and their husbands were waiting. It felt like a hospital. There were curtains separating each space with a hospital bed in each one. All the woman were in gowns and had hair nets on. James and I overheard one couple that this was their fourth try. It didn't reassure me. The lady who is in charge of the embryos came in to talk to us. Our first choice donor couple had five embryos. Two had not survived the thawing. They were going to implant all three remaining embryos. They grade the embryos 1-5. 5 being the worst and 1 being the best. One embryo was at a 3 which is okay, but the chances of it taking were slim. The second embryo was at a 2, but overnight it had started changing into a 1. The third embryo was a 1. So we actually had a great chance of becoming pregnant. James wasn't allowed to come into the room with me where they do the actual transfer. I wish he could have been, because it was painful. The nurse, Candy, held my hand and kept telling me that I could make it through. I was pretty close to telling them to stop the procedure. I was done and going home. I think having someone push on your full bladder just makes everything feel worse. They had an ultrasound monitor up so they could make sure they were placing the embryos far enough into me. Afterwards they took me back into my "room" and I had to lay there for another 30 minutes to make sure it took. Then I was able to meet up with James and head back to our hotel. James was so sweet. I wasn't allowed to move or do anything. So we watched Survivor reruns for the rest of the day. The rest of our week there was us just lounging around taking it easy. Our flight back was so much fun. We fly out of Knoxville and landed in Atlanta where we boarded a plane for SLC. We had first class tickets. It was so much fun. We can cross one thing off our bucket list.

After we got home we had to wait two weeks to find out if the embryos took or not. They advised us not to take a pregnancy test, because it would be too soon for it to tell. It seemed like everyday I would call James, because I was convinced it didn't work and everyday James had to calm me down. I really don't know how he is so calm. So two weeks pass and I went in for a blood test. That afternoon I got a call that my numbers looked great, but we would have to see what the second test showed. The next day I got a call and the nurse told me I was pregnant. My numbers had tripled. I couldn't believe it. James and I were pregnant. A couple weeks later we headed into the doctor for an ultrasound to see how many embryos took. Well the ultrasound showed we not only had one baby, but two babies cooking in the oven. James and I were so excited! The poor ultrasound tech probably thought we were crazy. I was crying and James was laughing. We were so excited to be having twins. This is exactly what we wanted. The embryos were actually two weeks along when they were implanted so I was six weeks along at that point. The doctor cautioned us that we could lose one of the babies within the first trimester. We had another ultrasound appointment at 10 weeks and there were still two little babies growing. When I was 14 weeks along I went in for just a doctors appointment to listen to the heartbeats. I was paranoid that something was going to happen and he'll only be able to find one heartbeat, but there were still two. At 16 weeks we had another ultrasound and we actually found out the sex of our babies. We are having a boy and a girl. The boy at this point was a little smaller then our little girl. He's on top and she's on the bottom. So the ultrasound tech told us that eventually he would become the bigger twin. We just had another ultrasound at 21 weeks. It's still a boy and a girl. I can start to feel them move now. It's so exciting! The ultrasound tech checked their spines, hearts, brains, head, feet, and hands. These two little babies are perfect! They are almost a pound and our little guy has grown a ton! He is in the 28th percentile while our little girl is only in the 14th. All the numbers are where they are supposed to be. The doctor measured my belly and it measured at 29 weeks even though I'm only 21 weeks. But that's normal with twins. I really am not a worry wart normally, but I have waited five years for a baby. I keep expecting them to tell me that this is too good to be true and something is wrong. By the way our due date is February 5th, but the babies will come between 32-37 weeks. So anytime in December up until January 15th.

So the first trimester for me was rough. I started to feel nauseous at about eight weeks. I don't know how women are pregnant and have toddlers running around. I would get home from work and collapse on our couch. I was too exhausted to get up and do anything. Luckily I have an amazing husband. He would get home from working hard on the farm and do yard work or clean the house. We pretty much ate freezer meals for the next ten weeks. Smells started to really hit me. Chicken...ugh...was just gross. The only thing I could keep down were rice cakes and french fries. There were a couple of times where I would go 36 hours not being able to keep anything down. Oh my goodness I got sick everywhere: outside the doctors office, multiple times in a parking lot, driving and having to pull over on the side of the road... The worst thing that I think I experienced was the night before my 21 week ultrasound I was in awful pain. The only thing that didn't hurt was my belly. My shoulders down to my wrists, my neck, and my legs were hurting so bad. I couldn't lay down, because that would just make it worse. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing would relieve the pain. Mostly I paced up and down the hall until morning came. I was nervous for our 21 week ultrasound. They had told me it would take two hours to complete, because there were twins. I didn't know if I could last that long, because lying down made the pain much worse. I made it through with the baby girl just fine. I was able to take a break for a couple minutes. Then when she started on the baby boy the pain got worse. It was so bad that we had to take another break. We finally made it through his ultrasound and were off to see the doctor. He recommended I take a tablet of children's aspirin and a couple tablets of Magnesium. Seriously. I was in excruciating pain and all I had to do was take children's aspirin! Luckily my mom had some, because crazy enough Walgreen and Walmart were out. I took the pills and fell asleep. When I woke up the pain was gone! Happy day!

So enough about the not so fun things about pregnancy. Here are the things I love! I love it when my husband puts his ear to my belly to see if he can hear them. Or when he rubs my belly and tells our babies how much he loves them. I love how sweet he is to me. He still teases me, because he thinks its hilarious to get a rise out of me. He likes to call me chubby. I just remind him that he's gaining baby weight too. He wants to take such great care of me and the babies. He's going to be an amazing father. I love that I can start to feel them move. I love how my belly is growing! I actually feel pregnant now. I love how I can eat anything and not feel guilty about it. My main cravings are french fries and fry sauce (the fry sauce is the most important part), zingers, apples, and steak. I haven't had any weird cravings. My sister craved pickles and ice cream. That just sounds nasty. I'm constantly thirsty and I've found which flavors of Powerade I love; white cherry, pink lemonade, and the blue one are my favorites.

I am so excited to be getting the opportunity to be a mom and to have this little boy and girl. People have been coming up with some hilarious names for them: Luke and Leia, Jack and Jill, Tarzan and Jane... I don't remember the others. As of right now the little girl is Scarlet Jane and the little boy is Luke James. Our families and friends have been so supportive of us! We are so lucky to have these amazing people in our lives.