Two Parallel Lines

The Engineer's Perspective

For an engineer, two parallel lines aren’t all that significant. But I suppose for an engineer and his wife who’ve been trying to have kids for 5 years, two parallel lines are the ultimate goal. When Samuel came as fast and as sure as he came through the adoption process, we knew the Lord’s path was sure for us. We know Sammy was meant for our family, and through the last 18 months there have been so many personal witnesses of this reality. He has been more than worth the wait, and as we look back, we know the path has been in the Lord’s hands.

But now the question, “We know how the Lord wanted us to get #1, but how is #2 going to come?” We never received an answer from the medical community on why we haven’t conceived. Every test and check has come back as, “things look normal.” It wasn’t as though they told us that we wouldn’t be able to have kids, apparently the Lord had just exercised his birth control until our first born could come to our family. Another tender mercy of the Lord was Michelle’s friend Carrie as we moved into a new ward. She suggested we go visit Dr. Johnson in Layton’s tanner clinic. He had worked as a fertility doctor at U of U hospital previously and now was a very popular gynecologist. So popular in fact, that a new patient check-up wait was nearly a year. Well Michelle took the appointment, and in the mean time Samuel came into our family. So when the appointment came, we got some practical advice as a friend and physician. He recommended exploratory laparoscopic surgery to go in and look at the inner workings of Michelle to see if there was anything that could be seen and fixed to help the process run smoother; reboot the system if you will. At the time we weren’t ready to think about child #2, but decided that when we were ready to start, we would start there.

As Sammy approached a year old, we decided that we would get going again. After all, who knew how long this would take? In July, Michelle set up the surgery date. Dr. Johnson went in with cameras with “frickin lazers on their head” and cleaned things up, including zapping all the extra cysts on the ovaries, and extra buildup on the uterus as well as some guitar-string-looking-thingys that weren’t supposed to be there. TMI right?! Anyway, he came out of the surgery extremely positive and hopeful which was quite contagious. Well Dr. Johnson was awesome and stayed very involved: he gave us some fertility medication, and then had Michelle come in on day 14 of her cycle for an ultra sound. So we did, and during that visit he could tell there was at least one good egg, so he gave a progesterone shot to release the egg, assigned some homework, (Amy, I hope this is vague enough for your virgin ears!) and then wanted to hear if she missed or had a period so they could go on to something else.

So a couple weeks later, we were to the point where the next cycle should start. She didn’t. Realistically, normality hasn’t ever happened, so we didn’t dare get our hopes up. We didn’t really have a clear mind for what a true cycle was. After a couple more weeks we determined that it was time to go in search of parallel lines. It’s interesting, when we were first trying, it seemed that every month we were hoping for a second line. The emotional investment is brutal. After so many negatives, you really don’t have very good feelings towards the stick, and in the last couple years every time Michelle mentioned she was going to take a test, I had to prepare for the letdown and breakdown that followed. Mascara doesn’t come out of a white shirt, so I prepared appropriately.

Despite all the negative vibes the stick surely must have felt, it produced the results we never thought we’d see. Two lines. Distinct. Well of course we didn’t believe it, nor did we dare hope to believe it. I don’t know if it’s a matter of having become hardened? After so many let downs, you just aren’t willing to put emotions on the line. This is partially why we have kept so mum about the whole thing. What if it isn’t for real? What if something happens? If we tell people, the let down would be even greater. Of course we wanted a second opinion. Dr. Johnson confirmed via ultra sound and blood work that we were pregnant. Even so, nobody would find out. What if? A few weeks later, we had another visit, and Dr. Johnson did another ultra sound and we heard a heart beat. I think that’s when we started to break the shell and start to believe. We began discretely telling family. But Mum was still the word for a number of reasons. First of course was “what if?” and second was that we wanted the news to come from us.

The concept slowly started to grow on us. This announcement is more than just us announcing to all our good friends and family that we are pregnant. It is also a step of hope and faith for ourselves to forget about “what if” and acknowledge and appreciate and be excited for the wonderful blessing of our new little girl. We’ve been chosen again, but this time around Michelle is also the birth mother!