Coming from a large family (I’m the oldest of 5, my father one of 6 and mother one of 4), having a family seemed a foregone conclusion. As the oldest, I spent quite a lot of time caring for younger siblings, cousins and local kids. My mom had an in-home daycare, so it was all kids all the time. I can remember putting pillows under my nightgown and imagining what it would be like being pregnant. As my 20s and 30s passed some of my friends were freezing their eggs but at the time it felt like I would be “giving up” on finding a partner. I met with my OB-GYN to see if freezing my eggs was necessary. My AMH came back low but she told me the number “didn’t really mean anything” and she had seen people get pregnant with even lower scores. I put my worries on the shelf and didn’t think any more about it. I considered fostering but my job at the time as an IT contractor was unstable. My job changed to a colleague position, I bought a house and as the years passed by and 40 loomed on the calendar, I realized I may not have a partner but I had an amazing community of both family and friends that were like family. I decided I would pursue SMBC with a known donor. At that time, I read an article about a couple and their embryo donation journey. It stayed with me as I thought it would be an amazing option if I could not find a known donor. This was all just before the pandemic so my plans were put on hold with the rest of the world, but then I met [His name].

 

[His name] and I met thanks to COVID. Looking for a more socially distant trivia spot than our pre-covid establishment, my friends and I went to a local beer garden where [His name] and his brother played trivia. Our two teams started chatting and a rivalry sprung up. We would harass one another for getting the wrong answers or commend someone's Disney princess trivia prowess. Where we once would play trivia and quickly leave after we began to stay longer and talk about work, life, and politics. Close to the election, [His name] let slip that he had never voted. Being part of Generation Rock the Vote, I registered him on the spot with the added benefit of getting [His name] email address to send the confirmation. After emails that lead to text messages that lead to a first date, we've been together ever since- marrying exactly 365 days after our first date. A month into dating, [His name] introduced me to his children from a previous marriage, a girl "M" now aged 11 and a boy "V" now aged 9. We played hide and seek and I wiped out in a muddy patch. My spill definitely broke the ice and I still remember V’s face in that moment as he wondered whether to help me up or run and hide before his sister stopped counting. Later, M pulled out her notebook and a giant pen and put on some very serious sunglasses telling me she had a lot of questions for me to answer. The questions were about my favorite color and favorite fruit. The kids are with us on weekends, school holidays, and part of the summer. During that time, we love to geocache (a fun way to trick the kids into hiking), build Lego sets, and go to the beach down the road from us. M loves games and would rather play than watch a movie (which is V's favorite); but they both make time for each other's preferences, and we have fun playing Left Right Center, Five Crowns, Family Face Off, or Farting Frenchies or snuggling together on the couch with popcorn under a giant blanket for a Marvel movie. We also have a four-legged child, our rescue dog – Reeses (like the peanut butter cup). We could not have been luckier that he found us. He is the bestest dog and tolerates M's "spa days" of putting makeup and nail polish on him or V's wayward kickball bonking him in the head. He has become the mascot of the kids' sports teams running to the chorus of "Reeses!!" when he arrives to the field.

 

[His name] enjoys sports - both playing and watching. He plays on a softball team in the spring/summer and roots for the Twins, Dah Bears, and Ohio State (thanks to his very 80s childhood). He also roots for the kids as M loves softball and V is gung-ho for football. Although I don't play sports outside of wiffleball in the yard or at picnics, I'm ready for the kids' seasons to begin with my new shiny cowbell to ring in the stands. I sing in a local choir and caroling group and am active in the local community. I love to read, although it's hard to find the time between work and activities. A perfect day would be sitting on the beach from mid-morning until golden hour reading a book and napping. Ice cream wouldn't hurt to top it all off with. [His name] has an older brother and the two share a love of craft beer and witty puns. [His name] has never met a dad joke he didn't like. He likes to say his favorite holiday is Arbor Day but he becomes Clark Griswold at Christmastime. We both go all out for the holidays and frequently host our combined families. Both families live close, mine about 15 minutes away and [His name] less than a half mile down the road. [His name] family frequently joins in game nights or dinner together and when the weather is nice, both families come over to our house for a cook-out. Frequently you'll find my extended family also at those cookouts as I'm close with a myriad of aunts and uncles. The kids enjoy rough housing with my cousins or learning to play badminton with my uncle.

 

One of the conversations [His name] and I had while dating was about my wish to have a child. I told him I could understand if he didn’t want to have any more children since he had two fabulous kids. When [His name] told me he wanted to be on whatever road I was on, it made me fall even deeper in love with him. In January of 2022 we met with a fertility clinic due to our age and because [His name] had had a vasectomy. We discovered that both of my tubes were completely blocked so our doctor recommended we start with IVF instead of a vasectomy reversal as we would not be able to conceive naturally or via IUI. She said that through IVF we would be pregnant by my birthday in April. We had no idea that IVF could fail but each time I went in for monitoring I was told it didn't look promising and they didn't expect me to be able to have a retrieval; however, at that final monitoring appointment I had the bare minimum 3 follicles to qualify for an egg retrieval and we moved forward. We were devastated to learn they had only been able to retrieve one egg. Amazingly, when they called with the fertilization report, we had an embryo! We were both able to be in the room as they transferred that shooting star bright against the ultrasound screen. We were over the moon that we had made it to this point and very anxious for the outcome of the TWW. We just felt in our bones that it had worked and I was pregnant.

 

Going into that final weekend before our Monday HCG test, I received the call that my Grandmother was very ill. My Grandmother was the one who added all the color to my world; my cheerleader, my support and so I rushed to the hospital to be with her. She passed on Saturday and when Monday came, my HCG test was negative. We tried another cycle a few months later but I felt dead inside and apparently so did my follicles. We didn't qualify for a retrieval during that cycle. I started therapy and we switched clinics and I prayed every day that I would wake up and not want to be a mother anymore. My prayer went unanswered and by January 2023 I was still mourning but felt ready to try again giving the cycle everything we had for the last try. We made it to egg retrieval, getting 6 eggs this tim