Worth the Wait

Jack has a message for everyone today:

In case you didn't catch it the first time, here he is with the message again:

Woo hoo, that's right! Jack is going to be a big brother! Below is an ultrasound picture taken of his little brother/sister (our new little Baby Falzon) on 4-21-10 at about 9 weeks gestation. It's so adorable, and such an unimaginable miracle! To the left is the baby's head, the body is to the right, and on the top and bottom of the body are the tiny little arm and leg buds (so cute)! Just above the head (to the baby's left) is what remains of the yolk sac, which has nourished our tiny little one until the placenta took over. The line on the bottom of the image is the a representation of the baby's heartbeat, and between the two little white hash marks on the baby's chest is where his/her little heart is.







So I know you are probably craving details-like how in the heck is this possible! Well, take a quick trip to the potty and get a snack. I am going to go into a lot of detail for any of you who may not be familiar with this process, so this is going to be a long one.......

Our Journey

After our accident last February when we lost our precious little Ryan and my ability to carry another baby, we began to do a lot of praying. We wanted so much to be in God's will, and we knew that if we didn't seek him in prayer we were likely to just go with what we wanted to do with our lives rather than what we felt he wanted for us. If we felt that it was his will for us not to have any more children, we were going to follow his guidance. Likewise, if we felt he wanted us to do what we could to have more children, we were going to obey. So we prayed and prayed, and we listened (patiently at times, not so patiently at others) for his answer. We prayed about whether or not he wanted us to try and have more children, and we also prayed about how he might want us to come about bringing another child into our family. If we felt he was leading us toward having another child, we had two options: adoption and surrogacy. As I'm sure you can imagine, this was quite a decision that required a lot of faith and much patience.

Very soon after the accident Rachel, my brother Andrew's wife, selflessly offered to be our surrogate if we felt that was where God was leading. Actually, it's ironic: she and I had offered to be each other's surrogates years ago in case anything like this ever happened. So in March of 2009 Rachel and Andrew talked again and they offered to carry our child for us. At the time we were unsure of what we felt God wanted us to do and were still trying to learn how to handle our greif. We thanked them and told them we'd let them know down the road when we felt able to make a decision.



So we kept praying (not just about children-about a lot of things), and through my prayer and times of reflection I felt that God wanted us to trust him and take the step towards surrogacy. I asked Jason what he had been feeling and he said he felt the same. So I got a recommendation of a fertility doctor from my ob/gyn (he helped her conceive both of her children, one using the fertility drug clomid and the other through IVF) and Jason and I made an appointment for a consultation with him to talk about whether or not we'd be good candidates for IVF. IVF (in vitro fertilization) is a process by which a woman's eggs and her husbands sperm are combined in a lab in the hopes of forming healthy embryos. Usually those embryos are transferred back into the biological mother, but since I lack a uterus, we would use a surrogate (Rachel) to carry the pregnancy to term. Dr. Dunn told us that we were great candidates, and because of how young we all were (I'm the elderly member of the group at 27) he thought we had a great chance of a successful outcome.



We talked to Andrew and Rachel about it again and to let them know what we had decided. We wanted to take it one step at a time, each of us listening for the Lord's guidance in case he wanted us to stop or go another direction. What a miracle it was-each time we were faced with a question or new step, doors opened in front of us. We took that as God saying "go ahead, take another step." Before we knew it, Rachel had passed all of her evaluations with flying colors (state law requires a surrogate to undergo psychological evaluations to determine if she'd be able to mentally handle the surrogacy), we had passed all of our blood tests (there are a lot of blood involved, both for us and Andrew and Rachel), Rachel passed the "healthy uterus" test, and we had gotten in contact with the lawyer (in the state of Texas people entering into a "surrogacy agreement" must have a legally binding contract).

Before I go much farther, below is a picture of the most fabulous sister-in-law in the world

Next step: injections--yikes. Did I say "yikes." Yeah, definitely "yikes."



In January and February of 2010 Rachel and I began taking our fertility medications. Rachel took medication to suppress her own ovulation (so there wasn't a chance this baby could be biologically hers) and begin to build a hearty uterine lining that would be ready to accept the embryos. She took both oral medication and injections. I injected medications to stimulate my ovulation so that my body would produce many more than the normal one egg at a time. All of my medications were injections. At one point I was doing three separate injections. At this stage in the treatments, though, they were subcutaneous injections (right below the skin, the same way diabetics inject insulin.) They really weren't that bad. I'd say less painful than an ant bite. Rachel, though, has some big mamma needles. She injects progesterone daily, and this requires a long sword of a needle that goes all the way into her muscle. This is what I was referring to before with "yikes." She's my hero. :)


Jason and I went in for my egg retrieval early in the morning on March 4, 2010 after about two and a half weeks of stimulation. In all they were able to get 21 eggs; 18 from my right ovary and 3 from my left. (I actually had many more than 3 on the left side, but because of its position they were only able to extract 3.) So let's think about this: the majority of the time a woman takes two weeks to ovulate one egg. In two weeks I ovulated over 21 eggs. Needless to say it was not a very comfortable week following the egg retrieval, but about 10 days after the procedure I was back to normal. In fact, three weeks after the retrieval Jason and I ran a half marathon in Dallas with Andrew and Kelly!


Poor Rachel was sick as a dog during the weeks leading up to the embryo transfer. If there was a side effect associated with the medication, she got it. Jason and I felt bad that this was making her so sick. She was wonderful about it though, saying that the discomfort involved for her to help us was worth it.


The same day as the egg retrieval (March 4) the embryologist took a syringe that contained Jason's sperm and injected each of my 21 eggs with an individual sperm. They then watched the embryos develop for 5 days, and on the 5th day the healthiest two of the total embryos that had developed were transferred into Rachel's uterus. Because of our ages, Dr. Dunn wasn't comfortable transferring more than two embryos per attempt. So on March 9, 2010 two of our little embryos were transferred into Rachel's uterus. In all, 8 more embryos had developed normally and were frozen. These embryos could be used if this first transfer wasn't successful or at a later date.

Below is a picture Dr. Dunn gave us of the actual two embryos that were transfered that day. Don't they look great? :)

And here is a shot Jason got of Rachel and I right before entering the procedure room for the transfer. She was allowed to have one person in the procedure room with her, so I got to be there to watch on the ultrasound screen as the embryos entered her uterus-what an amazing experience that was! (Oh, and she had been instructed to drink a lot of water before the transfer, so that explains to venti from Starbucks!)

God is great! One of the embryos successfully implanted into Rachel's uterus, and Jason and I are expecting another baby (Andrew and Rachel a niece or nephew) on November 24. The day before Thanksgiving. How perfect is that? What a miracle! As I type this I just can't get over how amazing this all is. I have already been blown away by the joy that this has brought to all of our families. We have grown so much closer to Andrew and Rachel through this so far, and I can only imagine with excitement and anticipation what is in store for us in the coming months. Our families are all so excited-we can't wait for this new little baby's arrival!

We had our 12 week appointment today with our OB. Everything checked out great! On the doppler we heard the baby's heartbeat and heard him/her kick a couple of times. It was great to get to go back to the doctor-I have a special relationship with my doctor. She's been through a lot with us and is such a sweet lady. Her staff was so happy for us, and they were so impressed with what a selfless thing Rachel and Andrew are doing for us. We scheduled our next appointment for June 24, when Rachel will be 17 weeks. At this appointment they will do the diagnostic ultrasound and we will get to find out if we are going to have a little boy or a little girl. I can hardly wait!

I know all of this can be confusing. If you have any questions at all for us, feel free to email one of us or post it in the comments section.

To Rachel and Andrew, our love and thanks are deep and endless.