It was January 2002.
We had failed our fresh ivf attempt—our 5th ivf and 14th embryo transfer
We were almost out of money and our credit was maxed out. Equity tapped in house.
But there were two frozen embryos in New Jersey waiting for us.
St Barnabas wouldn’t even give us odds of success. They had tried to encourage us to discard those poor looking embryos or donate them to science.
Thankfully we had declined the offer.
Those microscopic embryonic snow balls represented our last chance at parenthood.
The odds were clearly stacked against us.
Now 16 years later my formerly frozen embryo is almost 16 years old.
And now we live across the river from the clinic where she was frozen in New York City
Our baby girl is a blossoming teenage singer songwriter, who got accepted into one of the best high schools in nyc, against all odds.
We moved our life up from the suburbs of nyc to take a gargantuan risk so our daughter has the best education and opportunity possible.
It was a huge gamble and it happened in a flurry of frantic scrambling.
Quite honestly, I’m scared shitless.
I work in one of the most unstable fields of work since 2008–the mortgage world.
The fact that I stuck it out is not a testament to my persistence. It’s a reflection of my fear of trying something different.
I’ve forgotten the lessons that infertility taught me. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.
We kept failing with our local clinic and made the decision to fly across country—a month after 9/11 to change it up.
The clinic had very high success rates for the combination of issues we had. Some people said we were obsessed. Reckless.
Maybe that’s true.
But if we hadn’t gone back—twice—we wouldn’t have had the last 15 years of parenthood.
I’m writing again because it’s time to leap again.
Playing it safe with a local clinic we knew in a town where everything was familiar just created a slow bleed of emotional, physical, spiritual and financial resources.
But when we took the risk on the big fail—we failed the first time.
The second time we took the big risk with even higher fail odds, and won big.
My goal is to help you through your infertility and life journey.
I’m rekindling this blog to provide inspiration. And because I need the inspiration of your stories.
I know this a woman’s issue. I mistakenly thought a book written by a man would be a huge best seller since at the time I wrote it there wasn’t much out there.
But looking back on my journey I realize it was never really about the book. It was about being “almost a father”.
Fatherhood is more complex and demanding than at any other time in history. Being a substantial provider and an emotionally available dad and husband doesn’t come easy as the days of college to retirement employer are over.
But today is February 1st.
A day that has been lucky for me twice, when I took the leap.
It was the day I proposed to my beautiful wife of now 27 years, and she said yes.
It’s also the day that began a new journey for us from infertility to finally journeying outside of the world of “a little pregnant” into the world of “holy crap this worked and now we have 9 months to figure out how to do this parenting gig.”
It’s time to take another leap. If you’re still in that place where you’re afraid to take the jump, I will tell you this:
Don’t be afraid.
It won’t be easy, but my God will it be worth it.
Happy February 1st to my beautiful bride–I’m glad you said yes.
And Happy February 1st to my formerly frozen embryo now teenager–I’m glad you decided to say yes to being our soul baby.
And now–it’s time to leap again…stay tuned….