Baptism Brew-haha

This post is about 2 weeks overdue, but I have a minor excuse for the first week, at least: my parents stuck around after the baptism for a week to "help." They did help, but sometimes having visitors for a week can be a lot of work, too. Sam and Anna were baptized on July 4th. We chose that date because all of our families needed to travel to our home from out of state, and it was the only weekend in July that worked for everyone. I wanted to have the baptism in the summer so I wouldn't have to worry about school, and I thought they would be old enough that by the time July rolled around, we'd know what were were doing enough to host 12 people at our house for the weekend.

This event was the first time I hosted any sort of get-together at our home (one of the perks of living outside of the state where you grew up), and it was stressful to plan meals for the weekend, coordinate who was staying where and entertain everyone up to the baptism on Sunday, plus get our house clean by the time everyone arrived all with two babies keeping us busy. Our pastor is awesome though, because he and his wife (who happen to live in our neighborhood) watched Sam and Anna for an evening the day before our first guests arrived so the two of us could hardcore clean.

Everything went very well. Both babies cried while we were up at the alter (I think they didn't like us just standing still and not interacting with them) but stopped crying when the water was poured over their heads.

The booties their grandma made for the occasion

(festive, don't you think?)

1 Year Ago...

...this was a very busy and monumental week. A year ago today, Sam and Anna each went from a single egg and sperm to a creation of rapidly dividing cells. A year ago today was my egg retrieval. By this time in the evening, Sam and Anna had started growing. Five days later, Sam and Anna (and their sibling) looked like this:

(Our first baby picture)

Reflecting on this today brought all sorts of choked-up-mommy-moments. Reading Guess How Much I Love You as our bedtime story made me tear up at the last line- "I love you right up to the moon- and back." I won't deny that Sam and Anna got quite a few extra snuggles and kisses today. I know I would do anything to have them back then, and I would do anything for them now. I'll never forget my infertility story that made their appearance in my life a possibility, but today it was a little more in the forefront of my mind amid diaper changes, crying babies, and formula bottles. A year may have gone by, but those emotions and experiences are anything but faded.

My egg retrieval was in the early morning, and it went pretty well. I remember feeling somewhat surprised at how relatively good I felt, considering 22 eggs were harvested from my body. I even felt up to going to the local firework display that night. It was the next day that OHSS hit and I was in crippling pain for a few days- surviving on the couch with OTC pain killers that barely made a dent. As the week went on, we were given the news that only 3 eggs fertilized and would make it to transfer. 3 out of 22 was a sobering number- but not surprising, since our problem was the ability of my husband's sperm to fertilize my eggs. We were very gung-ho to transfer all 3, but expected our RE to be a bit more conservative and suggest 2. To our surprise, he suggested transferring all 3. This IVF was truly our Hail Mary then, because there were no blasts to freeze- and no money to have a try-again IVF cycle. This was it. Our only chance at biological children.

I won't deny that I sometimes think of the one embryo that didn't implant. Although triplets would have been more than we could handle, I wonder sometimes if that other embryo was a boy or a girl. I wonder which one in the picture we have was the one we lost (and also in that vein, which one is Sam and which is Anna). I wonder what that child would have looked like, or do when they grew up. I wonder where that embryo fits in.

I think I will always quietly celebrate this day as a sort of second birthday/creation day for my children. July 5th will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the day that God's plans for us became more than just a promise of good things to come. Sam and Anna were baptised yesterday (more on that later), and although it was just a coincidence that the dates were so close together, I find it very meaningful that almost 1 year to the day that God gave us Sam and Anna, we had their baptism. It's hard to find a better way than that to say "thank you" for making your dreams come true.