Our reason for being here...

On June 26, 2009, after a wonderful pregnancy, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy whom we named Noah. He was a joy. He was beautiful and perfect and we were just beside ourselves with how amazing parenthood was. We had waited seven years to have a baby. Why? Because we wanted to. We enjoyed having life be all about us for a very long while. Once baby fever hit, and Noah arrived, we just couldn't believe we had denied ourselves this kind of love for so long.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, on the evening of Noah's fourth day of life, he passed away. We had no idea what had just happened. The day after he passed, we learned that he suffered from a very rare genetic metabolic disorder called MCADD. The symptoms were very subtle - he had been seen by at least four doctors, and countless other nurses, lactation experts, and others within the medical community during his four days of life and no one saw a thing. From everyone's examinations, we had a perfectly healthy and normal baby boy.

We have since been through genetic counseling, and have learned that both Chris and I are carriers of genetic defect, and therefore have a 25% chance of creating another sick child. We have a 50% chance of creating a child that is a carrier of the illness, and a 25% chance that we end up with a child that has no incidence of MCADD whatsoever. To help guarantee that we do not suffer this agony again, we are pursuing in vitro fertilization. They can test the embryos before they are implanted to tell which ones are the healthy ones and which ones are not. This whole journey learning about the world of infertility is stressful, confusing, invasive, expensive, exciting, scary, and overwhelming, but worth it. I am learning a lot and have a lot of thoughts and emotions to process through the whole thing. This blog serves as an outlet for all of the above.

At the end of the day, it all started with Noah, and how he showed Chris and I a new kind of love that we never even knew existed. We are carrying it forward to his future siblings. Come join in this amazing journey with us.