The Year of the Unbelievable

*Note: I have not written in a long time....the age old advice, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," ran through my head every time I considered writing.  While I have tried to weave hope through even some of my most challenging entries, I felt a strong pull to not write again until I had good news to share....and so now....my hiatus is broken....

In the dark and early morning hours of Thursday, November 3rd, I drove west on I-90, headed towards my doctor's office in Shaumburg.  As I listened to the radio announcers excitedly replay the events of the evening before, I blearily tried to keep my attention on the road.  I adjusted the radio volume, put my hands at 10 and 2, and looked up to see a caravan of police cars with flashing lights, and big black tour buses with the windows tinted drive past me headed east.  The radio confirmed my suspicions, the World Champion Chicago Cubs had recently landed at O'Hare and were headed to Wrigleyville.  I had driven right past them.

The night before, surrounded by some of our nearest and dearest, at a friend's condo in the city, Jeremiah and I watched the nail-biting, stress-inducing, disbelief-shattering Game 7 of the World Series.  As the Cubs secured the final out, my husband and I turned to one another and almost simultaneously said very simply, "Believe."  That night was unbelievable.

That morning that I drove past the Cubs' caravan, I arrived at my doctor's office, had my blood drawn for the one millionth (it felt like) time, and hours later received the phone call with instructions and the "A-OK" to move forward with our embryo transfer.

This transfer would be our second embryo transfer from our egg donor after eight stimulated cycles in attempts at IUI's and IVF with my own eggs, and three trial cycles to prepare for IVF.  It was my thirteenth cycle overall in three years.  However, this one felt different.  This one felt unbelievable.

One week after the Cubs won the World Series, I once again found myself driving to the doctor's office in the dark and early morning hours.  This time, I was bundled up, excited, nervous, and accompanied by Jeremiah.  Also this time, the radio announcers had a much different tone as it was Wednesday, November 9th and Donald Trump had just won the presidential election.  As we flipped between newscasts, this morning also had the feel of something unbelievable occurring, albeit also frightening.

The unbelievable was happening repeatedly in our world, in happy AND unsettling ways.  Did I dare hope that on a much more personal level, our miracle, our unbelievable was soon to come?

Dr. Miller transferred two beautiful and perfect little embryos that cold, November morning.  Jeremiah held my hand the entire time and when we were left alone in the operating room to rest, we prayed.  Then we searched YouTube videos of the Cubs and World Series highlights.

On one last cold and dark November morning, a week and a half after our transfer, I awoke and knew that I could not wait the two extra days for my doctor's blood pregnancy test.  I took a home test, looked down to see the clear blue "+" sign and fell to my knees.  Of the dozens of tests I have taken over the years, this was my first positive.  It was my first positive EVER.

This was my best unbelievable.

The journey was not over, and we had many weeks to go until my anxious and fearful heart felt safe to celebrate.  However, I will say with all sincerity that hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time, watching him or her kick a little leg, or even the first time I threw up in a garbage can were even more wonderful than I ever imagined those moments to be.

In the years to come, I will look back on the final weeks of 2016 and have memories of a full and happy Thanksgiving table, a country in political turmoil, putting up Christmas decorations while fighting bouts of nausea, listening to Hamilton on repeat, wearing Cubs paraphernalia and crying over highlight videos, snowstorms and record cold, holding a big a beautiful secret, and re-learning something that my fragile and broken heart had forgotten:

God does answer prayers and the unbelievable will happen.  We will see miracles.

When I was only eight weeks pregnant, on what would have been my brother's 31st birthday, my mom and dad and I drove to the cemetery.  At Matt's marker, we left a little Christmas tree with a Cub's World Series ornament hung on it.  I also left a card with an ultrasound picture of the baby tucked underneath the stand of the tree.  Uncle Matt knew he was an uncle before I knew I was pregnant, but I had such an overwhelming urge to tell him myself, in the only way I could think to do so.

If you had told me three years ago, when I began  my journey with infertility that I would not be pregnant until 2016, and that my beautiful brother would not be here to hold his first niece of nephew, I would have never believed it.  That moment felt so incredibly unbelievable to me, that I honestly look back on it now and it does not feel like it has happened in my life.

The cemetery on December 19th, 2016 is a reminder of the simple truth that the unbelievable will happen in beautiful AND heartbreaking ways.  We will see them intertwine, they show us God's hand, and remind us to surrender control.

It is unbelievable to me still, that Matt is in Heaven.  Honestly though, that is where he is the safest.

It is unbelievable to me that it took me three years and thirteen cycles to become pregnant.  Honestly though, this is how it is the sweetest.  

I know that 2016 was tumultuous for many.  I know the pain of those around me suffering with illness, death, infertility, fear, and anxiety.

What I do hope to convey, is my very strong (and tearful as I write it) urging to remind, hope, and encourage those in the midst of the heartbreaking unbelievable that the miraculous and joyful unbelievable will come again.  Jeremiah and I are living proof.