September/October 2024

Sometimes when trying for a baby, only one partner keeps track of things like when to test (usually the one getting pregnant), and other times both partners are very involved. For us, we both knew exactly which day a pregnancy test could be taken and there were no surprises. We found this particular two week wait very stressful and the day before we planned to take a pregnancy test, we actually decided to escape the stress by spontaneously hitting the road. Anyone who has struggled when looking at a pregnancy test month after month will understand how stressful this can be. We left the house for almost exactly 12 hours, driving a 600km loop through the province, exploring roads and places we had never been. It was a gorgeous sunny day and was the perfect distraction we needed.

The next day, when the pregnancy test had been taken, we both looked at the results at the same time.

Pregnant.

Exciting as that is, this time still felt a little different. Once you’ve gone through loss, it’s impossible not to alter the experience at least somewhat. Nevertheless, we celebrated and cried with happiness again.

The next few weeks were a scary but exciting tangle of emotions as we continued to have ultrasounds and tests at the fertility clinic. This time, the scans showed better things and more hope than they had before. Eventually we reached the happy state of “graduating” from the clinic. They gave us a little gift as we left that contained a lovely little baby onesie with the clinic name on it.

After all the costs of infertility and IVF, I made a joke that is was the most expensive “gift with purchase” we will ever have. And also the absolute best.

In case anyone is curious, we’ve come to learn that fertility clinics (or at least ours, but I assume this is a broader method) schedule people into the clinic based on what type of test/scan they are doing. What this means is usually the happiest appointments occur latest in the day. So when they give you a little gift bag, you aren’t walking out past someone in the waiting room who knows they are facing bad news.

One of their other locations has a second exit so that after your procedures, or an especially difficult moment, you don’t even have to go through the waiting room. I mention this because having been on both sides of this, I appreciate the small ways they make the clinic work in order to help manage the difficult emotions that people have during infertility.

We went out for a meal after graduating, looked at our ultrasound photos over and over again, and celebrated. Over the next few weeks (somewhere around week 9-10) we allowed ourselves to start buying a few things for the nursery . This is something we had very slowly been doing one thing at a time here and there for years, but this was the first real furniture item purchased. That was truly the beginning of having a hope that things were feeling so different this time.

We also began to tell friends. A few knew well before anyone else, and I mean significantly earlier, and they magnificently kept the secret. We slowly told other people one by one in person as we saw them. It was exciting to share and have them be excited right along with us. I admit, it was scary to tell them at first, knowing that if something went wrong, we would have so much more weight attached to it and we would need to break the hearts of so many. It’s an indescribable feeling, having to hold hope, positivity, and fear all together in one big basket.

At the end of October, we took a trip to Montreal. We had booked this well before we even did the embryo transfer, knowing that we would either have something to celebrate, or we would need something to cheer us up. We had vowed not to let our lives be stopped by infertility, and we stuck to that. Andrea had normal first trimester sickness for quite awhile before and after the trip, but thankfully our time away was wonderful and she felt good the entire time. It felt very celebratory. I’m super glad she felt good, considering we walked 63 km over 4 days!

In the Montreal airport, on my birthday, we were waiting for our flight home when the midwives called. We were expecting to get a call with the results of our NIPT, which also would include the sex of our baby. My heart leapt as I watched Andrea answer the phone, ready to hear the news of our baby. Sadly, it came crashing right back down when Andrea was told that the test needed to be completed again as it was deemed to be “Low Fetal Fraction” which means there isn’t enough fetal DNA in the blood sample to run the test accurately. Not everything can have a storybook ending, so that was not a birthday gift I would receive, but that’s alright!

When we did find out the sex of the baby, it was a few weeks later. We went out for dinner to make it special and we opened the email together and found out that we were having a……..baby.

After being so free with our lives and story, we decided not to tell anyone so that we can keep one thing just for ourselves.