I sat in a chair a few feet away from my wife as we stared into a black monitor. My heart was secretly racing as we awaited patterns indicating success. And then it happened… a small congregation of pixels came in to focus exhibiting a pulse. I sat there in amazementImage may be NSFW.
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and began to tear up.
It had been a little over two years since my wife and I had tied the knot. Given our age – early to mid thirties – we decided we should get started on having kids. After several months of no success we decided we wanted to speed up the process with IUI. Our doctor described it as removing all the non-varsity players from the team. So we tried that a good three times (as allowed by our insurance) and no success. After regrouping with the doc, she provided alternatives and we chose IVF.
What an experience. If you’ve known anyone who’s had their kids with the help of IVF, they’ve been through a tough experience. There are A LOT of needles, a lot of dollars, and a lot of medicine involved. Unfortunately, our state doesn’t cover IVF. This means we have to foot the bill. All in, we probably spent between $25,000 and $30,000Image may be NSFW.
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Clik here to view.. You get nickel and dimed for everything. For us, there also included a lot of heartache but also a grand finale!
So those small pixels were our baby’s heartbeat at 6 weeks! AMAZING!!!Image may be NSFW.
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Clik here to view. Two years of hard work and dedication paid off. I can’t give my wife enough credit for this. She learned how to inject medicine into her belly on a nightly basis which is insane.
As soon as we left the fertility clinic, my mind started thinking about all the things I’d do with our soon-to-be son or daughter. Trips to the zoo, museums, Disney World, Europe, etc. A fully stocked 529 plan? Private school. Organic food. My mind began to wander off on experiences and reflections of how my childhood could’ve been made better and how I would do this for our child.
Given prior disappointments, we kept our miracle a secret!
A couple of weeks later, we went back to the fertility clinic to check up on our budding cherub. Again, black screen, white pixels emerge into distinct patterns. We see our growing baby with his/her heartbeat. Wait, what? “What’s that over there” my wife asks. “Well, sometimes this happens… You’re have twins!” Queue the waterworks! HOLY CRAP WE’RE HAVING TWINS!!! Image may be NSFW.
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And here we are, just shy of 21 weeks with 16 weeks to go (they’re coming early). Although my wife wanted to have a gender reveal party (insert eye rollImage may be NSFW.
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), I caught the gender right away in one of our sonograms, and my wife couldn’t take me knowing and her not knowing. Boys! Dirty ol’ boys. Maybe. TBD on that. But exactly what my mom wanted.
Each month I posted numbers with details on our assets and liabilities as a result of market fluctuations and investment/savings contributions. We were set close in on the magical $1,000,000 net worth milestone by December 2020. I’m sure this will push back some milestones and goals, altering our path forward. But in a good way.
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PS: Shortly after we saw that first heartbeat, I looked up all the things we would need and associated costs for those items. When we found out we were having twins, I saw those numbers double in my head and pictured myself passing out. I didn’t really tho. ha!
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