Doug and Rebecca Walker

Hey guys.

Well, we thought it appropriate to send another update regarding the adoption. Things are progressing!

Choosing the donors proved to be more complicated than we initially thought. We made 5 selections in order of preference, each totaling 6 embryos. We were granted our first request and immediately others couples snatched up our 2-5^th choices. After closer examination, Doug and I decided we should revise our decision because new things came to light. Changing our decision was tricky because so many donor options had been chosen by other couples. We have 6 embryos now ready for us! That is great. However, they come from 4 different families, so we have to pay the shipping costs for all 4 families’ embryos to be shipped across the country to us. Oh well.

It’s a super long story, but the doctor and clinic somehow overlooked us and I didn’t get started on all my medicine at the right time. For 3 days, things were super frantic and confusing as we went into overdrive trying to find the medicines somewhere in east TN! There were doubts that I could even participate in the November round of implantations. But we finally got it smoothed out – after many phone calls, being on hold, scouring the internet, driving all over Knoxville….and much crying!

So, I’ve begun injecting my stomach twice a day. Big time fun. After having the flu, all the confusion of this whole thing not working, going off my Fibro meds, I’m now on a crazy brew of hormones. I may be a smidge volatile these days! Haha! I’m pretty sore and achy, nauseas all the time, and have a strange nervousness about me. I feel pretty tired!

The next few weeks involve lots of pills, injections, blood work and ultrasounds. But we have a date nailed down! I will have the embryos implanted November 17. For a day or two I will need to be on bed rest. Funny, since my birthday is on the 18^th. We chose embryos from healthy couples in their 20s. Also we chose embryos that are a little further developed. This should increase our chances that the babies will survive the thaw. The reason for having 6 ready for us is just in case any of them die in the thaw, We will only first thaw 2, hoping they both survive and then have them both implanted. If they die, we have the others there and ready to be thawed. Right now, the doctor, embryologist and we think it best to only implant 2.

The national average for success in an in vitro procedure is about 32%. This clinic has been having a 45% success rate for a few years. Chances for twins are about 35% and triplets about 8-10%. We are trusting God that He will not give us more than we can handle! Given these averages, this came to weigh in on our decision to only implant 2! We’ll see how that goes. If we thaw 2 and one survives, we’ll again begin thawing our reserves. Depending on the order, there’s a slight possibility that we could end up with 3 healthy thawed embryos. At that point we need to make a decision about how many to implant. The clinic can refreeze one of them if we decide we really shouldn’t implant 3. It’s weird to think about refreezing. So in that case, we MIGHT decide to have all 3 implanted, since our risk of one or more dying in the womb is still pretty great.

After the embryos are implanted it’ll take 2 weeks or so to know if the procedure resulted in a pregnancy. And if one or more implants successfully, obviously I could still miscarry. It’s a strange thing to have so many folks so intimately involved with us on this journey, as so many folks want frequent updates and are chomping at the bit to have everything work out. So, I’m sure after implantation, many many folks will be asking me how things are progressing: do I feel pregnant, did I miscarry, how many babies are in there, etc. Kinda funny. More traditional ways of conceiving allow you to keep things a secret and control the info to friends and family. Endure with us through those weeks! Although I wish I could disappear for a few weeks and wait it out, but life will need to go on.

Sooooo, again: PRAY PRAY PRAY! Pray for our emotions. Pray that I can endure the physical stuff going on – with a happy heart! We’ve been studying James 1 at church and have been learning about how every difficulty we face is an opportunity to become more like Christ. Pray that we will look more like our Savior as we work through all the waiting and feeling yucky.

And pray for these little babies. These so desperately need a momma and daddy.