My Life

I don't know how many girls actually get to live that dream but I do know that I am one of the lucky ones. I am so grateful for the life I have been given. I have always had a loving and supportive family and then I met Brett. He is truly the love of my life and he came into my life so unexpectedly. We had our first date on June 7, 1997 and haven't spent more than a few days apart since then. When we got married in 2000, he was just starting his financial advising practice and I am not going to lie, it was TOUGH! Getting used to sharing everything with another person and struggling financially lead to some very trying times but we managed.

When his practice turned for the better was when we decided to start trying to have a baby. In my heart, I always knew there was going to be a problem. I didn't know what it was but I just knew. After a couple years of trying on our own, we decided to talk to a professional. I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and was told that there was a very little possibility of me ever getting pregnant on my own. So began the series of fertility treatments...pills, injectables, IUI, and finally In Vitro. It was a very overwhelming process. Several injections every day and daily ultrasounds! I don't know how we did it but each time we got a negative result, we mourned for a few days and were ready to start the next cycle with the same optimism we had the very first try. Meanwhile, everyone around me was getting pregnant. I told Brett once that I thought my fertility treatments were working on other people! I never had negative feelings towards anyone for getting pregnant but I will admit, I often asked myself, why not me? We wanted a baby so badly! After I had an ectopic pregnancy, we decided to look into adoption. We went to a local agency for an orientation. I had my little notebook and was ready to really consider it. We knew immediately this wasn't the agency for us. They strongly encouraged an open adoption and that wasn't something we were comfortable with. On the way home, we decided that we would give In Vitro one more try. We called the doctor the next day and informed her it would be our last try. Because we waited until the last minute to start the cycle, our medication wouldn't arrive in time. We almost had to cancel the cycle when another patient of the clinic got a positive pregnancy test and donated all her extra medication! We began the cycle and several weeks later we got the happiest news we could have ever received. We were pregnant!!!! We in turn donated all our extra medication to the clinic! Three weeks after that we learned we were having twins.

Cut to my life today. I am lucky enough to have the option of staying home with my beautiful little girls. My husband has two successful financial advising practices in Illinois and Indiana and is able to spend a ton of quality of time with his family. We do not take our life for granted for one minute. We know not everyone is as fortunate as us and we share our love with each other and our children every day.