The one thing our family has is love. Love for each other, love for our friends and family, love for all of God’s creatures. When my husband and I first got together, we began discussions on growing our family and what that would look like. We explored foster, adoption and biological children. We prayed and watched for signs.

We started toward foster care and adoption to see if that route had anything fall into place for us. Orientation was completed, certificate was obtained for the education and case study component, and Covid hit. This not only made the system difficult to navigate, there were fewer children entering care. Though we are still passionate about this and may return one day, it was obvious that the timing wasn’t right.

We had discussed having a biological child before all others and continued to go back to that as our first choice. This is not an easy option for us. I had a tubal ligation several years ago related to factors in a previous relationship. Reversing this with the type of procedure done, does not give high chances for positive outcomes. So In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is our option.

With IVF, there are so many factors of timing, emotions, procedures and extremely high cost. With all of these we decided that we want to, but we will wait until life settles down, we have more money, work isn’t so crazy, etc, etc, etc. HELLO….. We aren’t spring chickens. I woke up one day and realized I am now considered ‘advanced maternal age’ and with every passing year, our probability for success declines quite significantly. Oh, guess what, it turns out that life doesn’t settle down, money doesn’t grow on trees, and work is always crazy. We spoke with a friend who is pregnant with an IVF baby now that helped to ease some of the worries and recommend a fertility clinic. So… we are doing it NOW!

The OB/GYN we scheduled with had cancelled due to medical issues so we got in for a new patient appointment with a doctor we didn’t anticipate and guess what… She was a patient of the same fertility clinic we have chosen. This is a sign!!!

We had baseline labs drawn, ultrasound completed, genetic carrier screen sent in, and male fertility evaluated and we both have excellent numbers for a successful pregnancy. We are awaiting the results of the carrier screen, though this does not have any effect on our chances of attaining pregnancy.

We had a consultation with the Reproductive Specialist who agreed that IVF is the best option for us. She recommended a few more labs, a saline infused ultrasound with a mock transfer, then one more visit to finalize a treatment plan. It is looking like we could possibly do egg retrieval as early as August 2021.

We will be sharing our story in more ‘real time’ on the Facebook page, Becoming the Joneses. Feel free to like and follow along our journey. https://www.facebook.com/BecomingTheJoneses.blog

If you are interested in supporting this journey there are many ways. Please know the best support we can receive is in the form of prayers, thoughts, and well wishes.

If you would like to support financially, here are a couple way to do so:

• Meadow Lake Soaps are sold on this page and all money from that platform will go to support the funding of procedures. http://meadowlakehomestead.com/meadow-lake-soap
• If you are interested in dietary supplements for increased energy, stabilizing metabolism, and other benefits check out this link where all money earned will assist in funding procedures. http:www.revitalu.com/camillejones