Will we ever be parents? A couple of weeks after our failure, we were back in the doctor’s office ready for the next round of IVF.

As we waited, my legs were hurting from trying to keep them from bouncing. Then, as the doctor called us into his office, I started to tear up (again). I still can’t believe how lucky we were to find our doctor; he always had time to listen and allow us to process the next steps we needed to take in our IVF journey. As soon as we sat down, he stopped and asked with care, “How are you?” Hello, more tears.

After another session of Lauren crying, we finally got down to the consultation. Our doctor explained that sometimes when doing IVF, some embryos don’t do well in the sterile environment. Our embryos had all made it to day 3 (winning), but after that, they had stopped growing, which leads him to believe ours was one of these.

Again I cried. If we couldn’t get our embryos to day 5, that meant we wouldn’t be able to freeze them. It was all over. I would never be a mother!

Yes, I started to spiral, but once again, the calm reassuring face of our doctor started to explain that in these circumstances, rather than freezing, we go straight to a day 3 transfer. I can still feel the scared excitement. I might be a mumma and sooner than we thought. The doctor then went on to explain that his recommendation was going to be to transfer 2 embryos at day 3; it would increase our chances that one would survive, but also increase our chance of twins!!!

This time I just said yes, give me the paperwork. I was so worried he was going to realize this was actually the strategy for another couple, and that he was going to suggest we just give up. I was broken, and we would never get to build our little family.

It wasn’t a dream; we were going to create our embryos and transfer them. There was hope, and I was going to start the next round of IVF in just days. It was time to get the medication and prepare myself for all the needles.

That night I went home and cleared the IVF shelf in our cupboard again, organized all the medicine, printed off the instructions, and got myself ready. I was trying to find some type of control in a situation where I honestly had none. The hardest part of this process is always that I had to give up control over so many things. From building my own successful business, I learned that if I work hard, learn, create strategies, I could make anything happen if I wanted it. Except for making a baby. I couldn’t work hard to make a baby; I had to ask for help, give up control, and find a lot of faith that it would happen for us.

Now was the time to lean further into that faith again and hope that this was our cycle.