1 Year Ago...

...Kelsey and Drew were 5 days old and had been living in a petrie dish. And were grade "A" embryos. And were ready to be sucked up into a long pipette to be transferred into my uterus. And we were *hoping*, fingers crossed that one of those embryos wanted to latch on and be our baby.

That's what we were doing 1 year ago today. I had gotten a call 2 days prior to let me know that 4 embryos were still growing and their cell division looked good enough to wait until day 5 to transfer them back. Craig and I made the trek to Illinois early in the morning. The fertility doctor showed us the numbers of all 4 embryos and said, "This is the first we would transfer and if you are going to put in two, this is the other one we would put in today." There was no question - we were putting in two. We had already went through 8 embryos at another clinic without success; why wouldn't we do everything we could to maximize a positive outcome?

The process was simple: we show up, make our decision to put 2 in. The embryologist comes to the half-door in the room that is connected to her "baby-making" lab and has me state my name and birth date (no wrong-embryo-to-the-wrong-patient here). Then we get to watch, on ultrasound, the doc shoot these 2 small air-bubbles into my uterus - which is squashed by my bursting bladder (think 32oz of liquid in about 45min and then HOLDING it for 30min AFTER the transfer!!)

And then we were on our way home. And then the wheels start turning. And you're wondering if the embryos are implanting. And you question every move you make because you don't want to jepordize their tinyness...but you're not even thinking about BOTH of them, just praying for at least one.

Four weeks later we found out we were having a "Kelsey" and a "Drew". The car ride home was a little quiet, trying to figure out how we went from being ready to accept that if it didn't work this time we were moving on, to having 2 babies!

Here we are now; the babies will be 5 months next week. It's still a little surreal that these are our kids and all the surgeries, shots, recurrent disappointment got us to today. Healthy, happy babies - there's nothing more we could have dreamed/prayed/asked for!

Kelsey and Drew's first picture! How many parents have a phot of their babies at 5 days old? :)

I'm not a betting girl but I do love guessing, so I would say the left one is Kelsey and the right one is Drew!