And then there were 4 (6 total)!

 If you'd had told me 10 years ago that I would be pregnant with my 4th child at 40 years of age on purpose, I would have laughed in your face and called you dumb! Granted, 10 years ago I never expected my husband to cheat on me, divorce me, treat me and his kids like crap, and then find and marry someone who was 10 times better! Let's pause a minute and get some back story!

When I was pregnant with Evie, my and I knew we were done. No more kids. I mean, it took some serious convincing to even get pregnant with Evie as my ex felt we didn't need more and couldn't afford so we would we? That was his reasoning anyways.. Finally he agreed and Evie was born via c-section. Because of that, I opted to get my tubes tied since I was already on the table open and it was a simple procedure for me. No biggie. Only sucky part about it is you still have your menstral cycle but such is life! Regardless, we were done. Just before Evie turned 3, I found out my ex was cheating on me and had no plans of ending or fixing our marriage and wanted out. He was done and checked out awhile ago so we started the divorce process and our 12 year marriage was done and over by Nov 2016. 

I met Jason in 2017 as a mutual friend set us up to be each other's dates for the friends wedding. We met, got to know each other and decided after the wedding to try and date. Now, he knew I had 3 kids and that I was a packaged deal. During the course of our relationship, we talked about anything and everything and that included kids. I asked him what his stance was on having kids of his own and he didn't want them. Said my 3 would be good enough for him and he didn't need his own. I let him know I was ok with that but that if he wanted his own, it would be a process since my tubes are tied! We moved on in our relationship, I moved back to TC and then in April 2020, we got married at the courthouse. Best wedding ever except that my mom wasn't there at the courthouse thanks to covid! Regardless, our lives were being molded together in the house we decided to buy in Dec 2020. In Sept/Oct 2020, Jason started mentioning how cool it would be to have his own little one. You know, the man who didn't want his own kids! After being a father to my 3 and not hearing the words dad, he realized that was something he wanted. So at my annual check up with my dr, I mentioned wanting to look into IVF and that started us on our path!

At the time, TC did not have a facility to do IVF treatments and the dr I was referred to came to TC from Seattle every couple of months. However, covid hit by this point and all appts were telemed as the dr was not traveling to us. We "met" Dr. Letterie through telemed and talked about what we wanted, what our options were and what had the highest success ratings. I could either have a reversal done and hope that I get pregnant and not need to do IVF or just do the IVF process which had a much higher success rate! However, that meant getting a LOT of money just to even get started and our insurance was most definitely not going to cover it. So we did what testing we could to make sure we were healthy and had no diseases and then did our research on ways to get the money. There are many scholarships (if you are picked) and many loan options. We ended up getting a loan for $15K which was almost what we needed to get our journey started. It took a long time and a lot of waiting and of course, we had to redo the tests because it had been so long but Jase got his job at Amazon in Jan 2022, we got insurance in April 2022 and we were finally able to move forward after redoing the tests and getting all the bloodwork and everything for it.   

The time was finally here! On Sept 26, 2022, we drove in the early hours of the morning to Seattle where they transferred this little beauty inside me. This is what they call a 5 day hatched blastocyst. Did it mean I was pregnant and we were done? Not really. It meant we were well on or way to being pregnant but we need to make sure the pregnancy would be viable! On day 5 past transfer, I took an at home test and it came out positive! On day 9, I had to do bloodwork for Dr. Letterie to make sure HCG numbers were where they should be which they were. I then went in 3 days later and took the blood test again to make sure my numbers were climbing like they should be and they were. We call a call from our clinic telling us it was official and I was pregnant! The next step was to have an ultrasound at 7 weeks to confirm viability and how far along I was and then my dr would sign off on us and send us to my ob. 

Meet baby Edwards at 7 weeks! This little bugger was moving up a storm! Both mom and Jason got to be at the appointment with me to see baby Edwards and see where baby was measuring at and baby was right on track! They gave me an estimated date of June 13th, 2023 which made me about 7 weeks and some change. We were very happy to hear baby was doing well. We got a call from Dr. Letterie's office telling us we were officially released from his care and into the capable hands of my ob. I called my ob and made an appointment with her for 10 weeks and started the process of making sure we have a healthy baby! 

Now this pregnancy is different in SO many ways. First, because of my age, I get to see 2 dr's instead of one. My regular ob and then a maternal fetal medicine (mfm) dr. I don't necessarily need to see mfm but I am at a higher risk with my age and due to this being an IVF baby, there can be complications for the baby as well. So I actually had another u/s at 13 ish weeks with mfm who will do all my u/s. This is 

definitely Jason's child. At this u/s, the tech had to push on my pelvic area harder then usual because baby was so far back and they HAD to get the measurements of baby's neck to make sure it was growing properly. Heart rate was strong and healthy at 163 bpm and was kicking up a storm. The tech tried for like 20 mins to get the measurements and then took a break and had me drink cold water hoping it would encourage the baby to move just enough the tech could get the measurement. Finally did but still took a bit and dear heavens, I never knew an u/s wand could hurt! If only the child knew we needed the measurement and just happened to be in place! Despite it taking forever, we got what we needed and got to see the little nugget! 

I am 22 weeks pregnant and just had our anatomy scan about a week ago but we aren't doing our gender reveal till Feb 18th. The kids are actually going to learn of the gender before and do a big reveal using elephant foam! 

This baby has kept me on my toes with nausea, food aversions (mostly meat-pork and chicken) that still hasn't gone away, lower back pain, sleepless nights, and oh my Lord, the heartburn is ridiculous! Regardless, I am starting to feel baby move inside more and more and can't wait to feel it on the outside. This baby is definitely healthy and doing. We go back on the 23rd to check more measurements and confirm baby is still growing well which means more baby pics for me! 

While my story is not one of infertility, it is one of IVF and I have a new found respect for all those that HAVE to go this route because they tried on their own and nothing worked. These women go through this process over and over and I did it once. Some have multiple medications and shots they have to do and multiple scans and procedures. They go through a lot. I thank God every day we have the ability to even have IVF as an option. Now my husband gets to experience life of his child from the beginning instead of coming in at 4, 6, 8! It will definitely exhaust me starting over but it's 100% worth it for my husband to experience the same joy I have!