Sitting in the doctor’s waiting room with Esther, I’m having flashbacks to a 
snowy Saturday afternoon in January when our lives changed.
I was prepping for the first race of a half marathon doubleheader weekend when Esther asked me to drive her to work. She usually drives herself to work on race days. This morning, she asked for a ride because she wasn’t feeling well that morning.
A few hours later, she called sounding horrible asking me to pick her up from work early and taking her to an urgent care center. If you know Esther then you know how rare this is, she’s never sick and doesn’t leave work early.
At Urgent Care, her pulse and blood pressure were taken and blood was drawn. Waiting for the doctor we talked about her skipping the next day’s Fred Lebow Classic. Imagine our surprise when the doctor said, “By the way, did you know you were pregnant?”
We were surprised but not elated. We’ve been here before. Twice.
I remember how happy I was when Esther called me into the bathroom showing me a blue stick and the disappointment a few days later when the baby didn’t have a heartbeat. We were referred to Northshore LIJ’s Center for Human Reproduction for IVF after a second miscarriage.
Three rounds of IVF treatments, thousands of dollars spent and multiple hormone injections only provided more disappointment. The first two rounds didn’t take and the final round produced embryos testing positive for Down Syndrome. I wondered if we were meant to be parents.
So we were cautiously optimistic when we visited the OB/GYN for more blood tests and wait and see. It wasn’t until we heard a baby’s heartbeat that we realized this might be real.
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