Our First Official Appointment

Yesterday Dan and I had our first meeting with the Fertility Center!

We went to the Kalamazoo office, though we will probably have the rest of our appointments up in Grand Rapids.

It went really well! We really had no idea what to expect, so we weren’t really nervous. The thought that ran through my mind a few times was wow, I can’t believe I am going to a fertility center! Not that it is a bad thing by all means, but before I was married and was thinking about having kids, I never even considered the possibility that we would be where we are today. BUT. As we drove into the driveway, I was so THANKFUL for a place like the fertility center. It’s another piece of the puzzle and it’s a place that has given us the chance to fulfill our dream (of course GOD is the ultimate one to fulfill the dream and the center is just the avenue). We walked in, and the lady at the front desk was SO POSITIVE and nice! My goodness! I mean it was 8:30 in the morning and I had no idea what to expect when walking in. To be honest, I expected it to be kind of depressing – it’s not a place you necessarily want to have to go. But the lady was so nice and right away I felt like THIS IS RIGHT.

I had already sent in a packet of papers and lo and behold, we had another packet waiting for us! It all made sense though. We met with a nurse and went over our medical history, and then we met with Dr. Dodds. What an amazing man! He is SO OPTIMISTIC! That was what I needed. To be honest, when he was talking about some of the statistics, I thought “oh boy.” Yeah it’s not a 100% success rate – but God does NOT fit into statistics. We aren’t even going to think about them (or at least TRY not to). Since the beginning, we’ve told ourselves, if this is meant to be, God will make it happen.

Dr. Dodds went over the procedures, the tests that need to be done (sheesh there are a LOT of them!), the costs, where we stood with fertilizing embryos, and we ended up having a good “faith” talk. He is a strong Christian (we gathered that from meeting with him for just a short time), who is firm in his beliefs – what a relief! We just appreciated his willingness to talk about his faith openly because that made us feel understood – in a time where faith is the only thing that is going to get us through something like this, it’s a comfort to know that the doc performing the procedures, understands that. What happens medically – it is what it is. Of course they are going to do everything they can to try to make this work, but in our minds, it’s all up to God. Whatever He desires for our life, we trust He will make that happen. It may end up with us taking two children home. It may end up with us taking zero children home. We have learned that God is God and He will do whatever He wants – despite what WE think is right.

Oh how we would LOVE to just start today!!!!!!! But, we know we just need to take one step at a time. The next step is to get some tests done and to meet with a few more people from the fertility center. We were comforted when Dr. Dodds was talking about a lawyer and he referred to him as a he – we said, “well, we’ve already talked to “this” person…” and he said yeah, that’s who I’m talking about! So, ANOTHER God thing! We had already talked to a lawyer and it just so happened to be the one that Dodds works with all the time – so we took that as confirmation that we chose the right one! Another GOD moment!

AND…another God moment – we were talking about my heart and how that will effect what meds I can and can’t take during this whole process. Well, I thought it would be wise last month to see if my doctor would clear me to go through with something like this – she said that I am healthy enough to care for a newborn, etc. So, I was able to tell Dodds that and it was just one less thing we had to worry about when talking – God had led us to do that prior, and we are SO thankful He did! Now between Dr. Dodds and my heart doc, they have to figure out what meds I need to take – especially antibiotics. Apparently they are going to do things a little differently with me because of my heart, but at this point I could really care less! It’s not like I haven’t been through “different” medical procedures before 🙂 !!!!

I feel like we talked about a million things, like the history of gestational carriers, Michigan laws, the process (like I said before), and so much more. But I feel like these are the main things we talked about!

When I called my family physician and my heart doc, both of the receptionists, when I told them our situation and that Dr. Dodds was going to be in contact with them, were SO EXCITED! It made me laugh and I even got all teary eyed (again) when I got off the phone with them. One LOUDLY said “congratulations” and I had to pull the phone away from my ear a little b/c she was so excited. THAT IS ALL GOD! Again, only GOD could orchestrate something like this!

Through this whole process, and like I’ve said before, I just want to give all the glory to God! I do not want to make the same mistake I made last year when I was going through all those tests to see if I could carry my own child. I don’t want to put my hope in the SITUATION. I want to put my hope FULLY IN GOD. Last year I was just hoping too much that the doctors would say “yes, your heart is healthy enough.” I wasn’t 100% putting my hope in GOD’S will for my life. I wanted my OWN will done – I wanted my docs to tell me I was okay to carry. Then when I found out I wasn’t? We were BOTH devastated and to be honest, we really had no idea how to deal with it. And maybe that was how it was meant to be. BUT. God has GIVEN US A SECOND CHANCE and I tell ya, I don’t want to make the same mistake – we are trying in EVERYTHING to put our hope in HIM. By doing this, if it doesn’t work, it’ll be our faith that this is God’s will, that will carry us – not our hope that we lost. Yes it would be hard – BUT. If our hope is in the right place, God WILL carry us through. That is why I think we are so at peace. I’m not saying we are perfect – we have definitely had our blurps of doubt. Though each day we are trying to just lift this all up to God and say “it’s all Yours!” And yes we are so thankful we do not have to carry those burdens ourselves! Praise God!

I say all that because at noon I went over to Brenda’s house and I just rambled that all off to her! We both just LOVE talking about this process! We just LAUGH and LAUGH when we get together! I wish you all could be flies on the wall when we get together! It’s all pure joy of what God is doing in our lives! I am so blessed to know her, to be a part of her life, and to call her my friend AND now hopefully CARRIER of our child(ren)! I wish everyone in this world could meet Brenda! She is an amazing sister in Christ!

So, we move forward! We take the next step! And please pray that God would show us 4 the right time to start the official process!