Our Journey to Here...

So... where to begin on this little ride we've been on? I guess at the pre-conception part, huh? Bryan and I have been together since December 2005, and got married in April 2006 (yes, pretty fast!). I instantly became a step-mom to 3 wonderful children, who were 3, 6 and 7 at the time. Our family blended pretty well, although many times it wasn't our family, but Bryan's ex that caused the friction. While Bryan continued to do 60 day rotations overseas, I sometimes saw the kids, sometimes went without. We made it work and Grandma and Grandpa helped a lot...
It was through our custody battle when I first started getting the desire to have a child of our own... But who in their right mind would try to get pregnant during a custody case?!?! (The kids' mom was trying to move with them about an hour away--and eventually after a 2 year fight, was allowed to.) Another small glitch, Bryan had had a vasectomy when our youngest was a baby. I had not wanted to have children in my adult life to this point... I had said to many girlfriends and family members, "Just because you can have kids doesn't mean you should..." and that "If God wants me to have a baby, then He'll have to give me the desire..." I had thought about foster parenting, or even adoption from time to time, but having a husband who works out of the country for months at a time is not conducive to either...
Then, when my older sister got pregnant with her third baby (surprise!!!), I started wondering if I was missing out. I mean, I had been babysitting since I was 11-12, had been a nanny to a family with 5 kids, been through numerous friends' pregnancies, gone to SOOO many baby showers, and was even my younger sister's birth coach. But something was stirring like it had never done before... My clock was ticking... our kids were getting older, I was getting older... I started feeling that yearning... What if I really was missing out!?! Wait, who am I kidding, I AM MISSING OUT! I have to share my kids, every decision, every process, every idea. I love them so much, but man... it's tough to share all of their lives with someone else... I know this is why God hates divorce and why it's so hard on kids. Don't get me wrong, they are wonderful kids, but this has had an effect on their lives... We just make the best of a crazy situation...
So, back to pre-conception... It's January 2008 and I am perusing the internet on options for vasectomy reversals. I called a few places that were somewhat close by, and was horrified at the cost of a VR, along with the travel and other expenses... But then, by an act of God I am certain, I stumbled upon the website of Dr. Cary Leverett. He's from New Braunfels, TX, and has been doing these surgeries for 20+ years. He's a wonderful Christian man, and his fee is pretty minimal compared to the clinics in St. Louis and Kansas City. I made a note of the doctor's name and site, and tucked that info away for the right time. I mentioned the thought to Bryan a few months later, and he wasn't necessarily opposed to the idea, but he wasn't ready to book a plane ticket either. We talked about it a few more times over the course of a few months, and decided in the summer of 08 that we would do it. I think we even had a date scheduled for August or September, put down a deposit with the doc, and then something came up with Bryan's military schedule and we couldn't go. I was crushed! We thought it may work out to happen later in the fall, but I tried not to get my hopes up-- and for good reason. Another work related training fell a week after the date we'd been hoping to go, and there would be no way Bryan would be in any shape to attend the training after a reversal. It's not near as easy as the vasectomy!!! I was so disappointed, and had kind of given up hope that it would ever really FIT into our schedule. I had prayed many times for it to work out in HIS timing, but as we all know, HIS timing is not usually ours... Finally... almost a year after I'd found Dr. Leverett's site, it was really going to happen.
We found a short window of time in January 2009 to make the trip to Austin, and down to New Braunfels. We travel a LOT, so it wasn't unusual for us to be taking a quick trip, just the two of us. We had to tell a couple of people (who shall remain nameless) where we were going, in case of an emergency, or something. But we packed our bags, made the trip and arrived in Texas a day before the surgery. We were like giddy school kids with a secret-- and we had a nice time together, contemplating what we were going to do the next day-- hopefully restore Bryan's fertility!!!
The surgery went well, I sat at Bryan's head during the entire surgery, while he was drugged up and listening to his iPod. He moaned and groaned through some of it, and it brings tears to my eyes as I sit and remember the rush of emotions while I realized what a HUGE sacrifice he was making for US. Bryan had come to the place of understanding that I wanted OUR baby, one that was part him, part me and one we didn't have to share with anyone else. Someone who wouldn't have to share weekends only with us, who we had to ship off for 2 weeks at a time. He realized that he didn't want to be the one to deny me the opportunity to be a mother-- a birth mother. He knew that if we didn't try, there would always be the "what if..." in the back of our minds. I was so blessed to be there with him, and to be able to care for him afterward. He was a trooper, and the next day, we traveled back home! His recovery went well--he had a few weeks of being sore, and told people he pulled a muscle lifting weights. I however, went for my 6 month check up from an outpatient procedure to remove pre-cancerous cells from my cervix and didn't get good news. I needed a repeat procedure, and that was done in February. So, after both of us healing up, we started down the road of trying to conceive (ttc). More on that in another post!!