Back from the NEDC w/Our Babies!

First off, let me say that God was so gracious to us in every way! We had originally reserved a hotel room for $95/night, but on Monday 2 hours before we left for Knoxville, our future-sister-law (who is a hotel employee) was able to book us a different hotel in the Knoxville area for only $35/night! We had beautiful weather driving down, I-40 was now back open (it was closed off due to the rock slides when we traveled in March). Ashley & Dusty met up with Aaron and me for ice cream the night before our transfers, so we were able to meet in person which was awesome! So, in just these things alone, God richly blessed our trip.

Arriving at the NEDC at 9:30am on Tuesday morning! (The sun was definitely in our eyes.)

Now, for the babies' transfer details...

First off (again for this section) - The NEDC staff is wonderful! They took such good care of us and our babies. I know you Snowflake families are biased to the Snowflake program, but the NEDC totally outdid themselves for our embryo adoption - they, I say again, were just fantastic! :)

God answered our prayers in that our first two babies survived the thaw. Not only did they survive the thaw, they looked really healthy. We had one expanded blastocyst graded a 5AB and one hatched blastocyst graded a 6AA! We don't take "grading" to mean too much, because we know that God chooses which lives to continue growing on earth and which He decides to usher into Heaven. All embryos equally need a chance at birth no matter what their "grading" may be. However, what parents wouldn't want to hear from the doctor that their babies looked healthy!? - We were obviously very thankful. Our hatched blast had actually already hatched prior to freezing and in Dr. K's words "this one is wanting to attach" followed by him saying "but, there are no guarantees, it's out of my hands." To which Aaron replied, "But, we know Whose hands they are in!" Indeed we do. Beta is on July 29th - Praying for strong numbers! :)

Our expanded blast is on the left and our hatched blast is on the right. The darker areas are the actual babies and the lighter areas are what will (Lord willing) become their placentas. As you can see from our picture, the hatched blast baby had completely broken through his/her shell. :)

Ashley & Me

A rainbow across the shopping center where we enjoyed ice cream - Ashley and I decided to take that as a good sign! (Haha - I'm not really superstitious) But, it was a gorgeous rainbow.