Rainbow Baby

Adam

I made a post on Facebook about my wife and our TTC Journey, but I think that this wonderful community would appreciate this even more. Please excuse the definitions that the majority of us are already well aware of, this was for people who have no idea how difficult it is for some people to get pregnant.

My amazing wife and I are expecting a baby next February.

What you may not be aware of is that we have spent 5 years trying to have a child with no luck. We went through what seemed like 1000s of pregnancy and ovulation tests to where we each got "line eyes" (seeing a colored line on the pregnancy test that wasn't there). She did daily tracking apps to chart every little thing we could. Except each month ended without luck and eventually we were at 6 miscarriages.

Each month a new let-down, a new disappointment.

We have gone to fertility specialists and doctors to try and have a child. She had laparoscopic surgery and ended up having to have one of her Fallopian tubes removed giving us even less of a chance of conceiving; that was January of last year (2018).

We tried two more rounds of treatments after the surgery, that didn't take.

We were at the end...we couldn't afford any more treatments, <a href="https://glowing.com/glow-fertility-program">IVF</a>, nothing. We started talking about adopting thinking it would be our only way to have a child.

In 2019, I started going to church with her and even bought my own bible. I use to pray a long time ago and it always felt like I only prayed when I needed something My new prayers weren't about me anymore. They were about my wife, how hard this has been on her, and to just help give her the strength to get through this. Courtney signed up to receive an Ava Bracelet (side note: it's a pretty awesome piece of technology, check it out if you are trying to conceive. I highly suggest it). After a lot of prayer we decided to keep trying. In late April 2019, Courtney was Baptized and we made a vow that if she was to get pregnant, we would raise that child to know and love God. May 17th, 2019 we found out that she was pregnant (my Dad's birthday) and on the 20th we got the Doctor's confirmation (my Mom's birthday); over one year from our last set of treatments.

Courtney is now 8 weeks and 3 days (as this post on Glow she is now 10 weeks and 1 day) pregnant with our "Rainbow Baby" (a baby conceived after miscarriage, stillborn, or infant loss. That after the darkness of a storm there is a rainbow). On this trip we have seen 6 rainbows...but none as awesome as the double rainbow we saw as we were coming back to Texas. I like to think of this as a sign. I know that the vast majority of you won't probably read this and that's cool (I probably wouldn't either), but if any of my friends or family are struggling with infertility just keep looking for your rainbow.

As I reread this post before submitting it to the Glow Community, I literally started tearing up. It has been such a long journey that I never saw an end to. We both almost gave up so many times and it tore us apart more and more as the months went by.

To everyone going through these trying times, you are not alone!