An Update on Life | Personal

It’s been a while since we have been active on the blog and social media. Michael and I have been keeping some things from you guys, but we have news and are ready to share them with you! Although, if you know us personally, you already know what it is. This blog post is going to be long, so please read the whole thing and bare with us.

Michael and I have always wanted to be parents. We started trying for our first baby on our Honeymoon back in 2016. We really want to be young parents with a large family. Unfortunately, we struggled to conceive for the past 4 years….2 false positives, 53 negatives and lots of painful holidays and an endless amount of tears. I saw an OBGYN in Virginia Beach when we first started trying and asked for advice. Her only advice to me was that I needed to lose 150lbs. She didn’t order any hormonal tests or ultra sounds to see if I was ok to have a baby. We had only been trying for 4 months at that point. When we moved back to Manassas in 2017, I saw my old doctor and she ran all those tests and assured me that I did not need to lose that much weight. Many years passed and in June of 2019 we decided to go seek help from a Fertility Clinic. We had some friends who were successful in conceiving from Shady Grove Fertility (See their maternity session here). After multiple months of testing it was determined that we had Unexplained Male Factor Infertility. We had no choice to do IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) with ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) Fertilization.

I did actually have to lose weight to be able to do the IVF process. I lost 50lbs – which was more than I needed to, and I am so proud of myself. The first embryo transfer we did was Fresh, which means the embryo was not frozen, it made it to the Blastocyst phase on Day 5 after the Egg Retrieval and transferred into the mom. Unfortunately, our little Embaby – Baby Z did not make it. Below is a photo of our Baby Z.

We had to wait a few weeks after loosing Baby Z to be able to try again. We had 7 embryos in the freezer. We proceeded with a FET Cycle ( Frozen Embryo Transfer Cycle) and we transferred Baby T. We call them Baby Z, T… to give them their own identities. Below is a photo of Baby T. I think the coolest thing about IVF vs. Natural Conception is that we get to see our babies at their earliest stage of life.

Well….

…..And, It’s a …..

HUGE THANK YOU to Taylor Peevy Photography for capturing these milestones for us! I cannot wait for you to capture our maternity photos in a few months.

Here are the links to the full gallery blogs on her website:

Baby T Announcement: – Here
Gender Reveal – Here

Unfortunately due to COVID – 19 Michael has not been able to come to our prenatal appointments. Luckily it is looking like he will be able to attend the birth, but being pregnant for the first time after all these years, to be pregnant during a pandemic has been kind of scary and it has been hard on us to not have Michael included at the appointments. Luckily all the 3D places are private and he is able to attend those and see our little girl.

I hope you can understand our reasons for being a little radio silent, BUT we are back in FULL swing now. We have some fall weddings coming in October and a few more sessions in between. Also the 2021 Senior Spokesmodel Program will have spots opening soon.