An Egg-cellent Easter

How exciting this Easter seems! Filled with the typical hope and joy of our faith in Christ mixed with a new hope and excitement of what is happening with our family. 

The retrieval procedure went well last week and over the weekend we learned that we had 12 eggs retrieved and of these, six were fertilized. Yea! Going in we didn't know what would happen or what to expect. I was worried there would be no eggs or sperm. While wanting to be hopeful, I was very cautious in that hope.  (If you want to no more about this particular procedure check out our Hopeful Hearts blog post on this).

Learning that indeed we have all the parts needed for baby making, we are filled with a new kind of joy - and relief. Yes, we still have a long way to go but we have made a huge leap in this process as well. 

We go in this week for the implanting - another huge step in the process.  Results from this procedure will take a little while before we know if the embryos attached and the pregnancy is in play.) Like I mentioned earlier, it is a very detailed process and still a true miracle this happens to people at all!  What an amazing and detailed creator it is that we serve and trust.

During the past week, several people has asked how we are doing, how the process was/is going and some have even asked why we are sharing such a personal journey so publicly. 

Often people are surprised to hear that normally we are actually much more private in our talks about this kind of stuff. We are engaging in a new step of honesty and vulnerability with this process. While it is a little weird to share this, it also has opened up so many great conversations with people who have faced all kind of challenges with having children (or not!). 

For the more private one in our relationship, (Josh loves sharing!) - I am finding a new love for sharing. It is life giving to be opening up the conversation about the challenges of fertility issues (and adoption, dreams, etc). 

I love sharing our hope with people and hearing about what other families have experienced. The more we talk about it the more I see the value of continuing to share our story. The pressure of having children (or not) in our culture is hard. Let's keep talking about - whatever this story looks like.