This Mum shared the hard reality of what her pregnancy announcement really entailed.. 452 needles and 953 days.
When Lauren Walker (USA) announced her pregnancy on Facebook, she didn’t do it with the same old ultrasound pic that you see all of the time. This awesome announcement included needles. Yep, needles. Actually, it included the 452 needles that Walker used during her fertility treatments.
In her Facebook post, Walker writes, “We thought about how to announce our two miracles to the world. Everything we could think of fell short of doing them justice.” As the mum notes, the couple’s baby-making journey included, “452 needles, 1,000’s of tears, 1 corrective surgery, 4 clomid/letrozole attempts, 2 IVF rounds, 3 failed transfers.” That’s a lot – for anyone.
Infertility isn’t easy. But, it’s also fairly common. Roughly one in six couples suffer from infertility. When a women gets to age 35, the stats say one out of every three has some sort of fertility issue. There are an array of reasons for infertility. In some cases it’s the women who has issues, and in others it’s the man. Whatever the reason is, no one is at fault and no one is to blame. That said, it’s easy for even the happiest of couples to lose sight of why they started the road to parenting in the first place.
Walker writes about their struggles and how hard each failed attempt was. Disappointment after disappointment struck the couple.
Of the needles, Walker posted, “There was a lot of pain, hope, and fear behind each of these needles. Each one represents a different day, a different path, a different emotion.” She goes on to add, “It’s a lot to take in. After a good cry, the more I looked at it, the more the needles started to blue together.” What a journey!
The Walkers went through their ups and downs along the way. Despite miscarriage after miscarriage (they lost five embryos), the couple kept on trying. And now their efforts, hope and faith have paid off, and in a major way. The soon-to-be mum and dad are expecting twins (they’re decided to name them Duke and Diana) in August of 2017.
Congrats to the happy family!
