Why I Love Easter Eggs

Last year I posted that I Love Easter Eggs. This year I'll tell you why.

One year ago today, I officially became pregnant with Alex and Tony, although we wouldn't know for sure that they "stuck" until the 25th, when I'd alert Striker via BBM that we were pregnant. I kept our struggle with infertility very private (unlike my diagnosis and surgery for Chiari Malformation which I created a whole separate blog about), but feel like I should share our story and make a record of it before it starts to get fuzzy.

I stopped taking The Pill in April of 2006. When I still wasn't pregnant in April of 2008 (and was 6 months post-op from my Chiari surgery) I decided it was time to get things checked out. We did some testing, found the issues were "something' with me, but "unexplained" nonetheless. We tried a few months of Clomid, before we went to a wonderful Reproductive Endocrinologist for further testing and treatment. We did 2 rounds of IUI, and a fresh and frozen cycle of IVF, before we had just enough insurance coverage and funds to pay for one last (fresh) IVF cycle. In other words, it was now or never time.

For some reason, I approached the last round differently than I had the first two. I let everyone know what we were doing (just didn't post it on here) and wanted all of the happy, sticky thoughts we could get. I spent Easter at home in bed resting and took extra time off work. I knew that it would be the last round one way or the other, and did everything I could to improve our chances. I didn't want to look back and wish that I'd stayed in bed just one more day.

We were due to have the big blood test on the 28th, and Striker was out of town the 25th-27th, so I was supposed to be "good" and just wait for the blood test since we'd already spent a small fortune on home pregnancy tests over the years. He was boarding the plane for his trip when I cheated. The first 5 million times I'd hoped I was pregnant, I had all sorts of cute ways planned to tell him. The first time we did IVF, I had a cute way planned to tell our family. When I actually had a postive test? I sent him a BlackBerry Message. I didn't even call, but at that point I thought he might have wanted to keep the news a secret until the blood test results and didn't want him to have to explain the call. (Clearly I wasn't thinking logically and was overwhelmed with joy...as was he when he found out). Completely not the way I thought it would happen, but then again our road to get that positive test wasn't the one I'd planned either.

Last year Easter was on April 12th, our retrieval was the 9th, and the transfer was the 14th. Since we'd given each round of embryos a seasonal name, they became the Easter Eggs. And THAT is why I love Easter Eggs.

This year Grandma Barbie and Auntie B dyed special eggs for the boys:

And yes, if I look at the pictures of those eggs for more than a few seconds and think about all that they represent, all the heartbreak, pain, hope, patience, and love, I get teary eyed. Apparently motherhood makes me a crier. I'll take it!