Background Part 5: Almost up to speed...

After that day, we hustled. Here is the general course of events:

Starting June 2008:

• The process is under way. We go through the aforementioned sequence of medical, legal and psychological steps. Quickly.

• Hormone therapy begins to get Betty and Sonia's bodies in sync. This requires multiple courses of (to say the least) uncomfortable and inconvenient hormones as well as multiple appointments with our fertility specialist. Both Betty and Sonia have to brave needles, every day!

• We get ready to start the actual implantation process, but after seeing our specialist we learn that Sonia is SO fertile, that the intended affect of the hormone course she was taking (to suppress her normal ovulation) did not occur! Our specialist tells us that she must be "clamped down" with a double dose (a true rarity, he says).

• We planned to do what is called a Day 5 implantation, which means that egg fertilization happened in vitro 5 days ahead of the planned implantation date. We had planned to put in 2 fertilized eggs, but out doctor warned that if the quality of the eggs were questionable, he wanted to put at least 3 on Day3. This complicates things because the likelihood of having twins (or even scarier, triplets, etc.) goes up so we wanted to do a Day 5 implantation. This put the fertilization date at Dec 7 and the planned implantation date on Dec 12. Dec 7 came and the egg extraction and fertilization went very well. Betty required a surgical procedure to extract the eggs. She did an awesome job... we got 11 eggs!

Betty recovering after the egg harvesting surgical procedure:

Our fertilized eggs:

• After waiting 3 days, we were told that 8 of the 11 eggs had successfully divided and that we were going to be able to wait until Day 5. Day 5 came and we were told that out of all of the fertilized eggs, 2 were of truly good quality and that the others had failed to continue to develop. Exactly what we hoped would happen occurred. Sonia was ready to go! Unfortunately, Betty got a cold and was not allowed to be there with Sonia the day of the implantation, but I was. Sonia, as always, had a great attitude throughout all of this, which was also noted by the doctor as unusual.

The next couple of pics were taken right after the implantation:

This is the done ultrasound right after the implantation. The tiny bit of light in the middle-left that looks like a finger nail is our kid...

• After this, all we could do was wait for the first post-implantation pregnancy test. This would indicate whether Sonia was pregnant or not (or at least had been at some point). On Dec 26, Sonia tested positive! Woo hoo!

• The moment of truth came on Jan 12. Sonia had an appointment with our specialist to check her hormone levels and do an ultrasound to see how many buns were in the proverbial oven. Betty, Pablo, our doc, and I all gathered around Sonia and the ultrasound machine in the dark and saw one rapidly beating heart beat. One tenacious baby, conceived Dec 7!

Here we are cramped together in front of the ultrasound with the doctor. Sonia, one of the heroes of our story, is just barely visible, but she's there, and Betty took the pic.:

Here's me holding a garbanzo bean, a reminder from Betty how big the child is up to this point:

Another one of our heroes, my brother Pablo, sits patiently with me in the waiting room:

The pic's a little shaky, but (drum roll) the little spot that looks like a rubber ducky is our progeny!

Sonia is so awesome that she told us that she would be willing to carry twins (twins!), but this came as bit of a relief because of the increased complexity of that scenario, although that too would have been a great blessing. The doctor told us that the baby looks healthy at this point and that things are going well. The likelihood at this point for complications is about the same as the general public which makes the likelihood of the baby coming to term high, with improving odds as time passes.

We feel SUPER blessed that we have come this far and experienced what we have experienced and believe that God has been very gracious to us. Many thanks to those of you who have supported us, encouraged us, and prayed for us throughout all the ups and downs of our "covert operations". Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel especially have been unbelievably patient, gracious, and generous with us. We cannot thank you enough (but we'll keep thanking you...).

NEXT

-Alvaro