The Very Best News

Greg and I are so thrilled to finally share our happy news with you: Our embryo transfer was a success. I’m pregnant! Sweet Baby Thilgen is due to arrive in November!

As open as we have been throughout this process, we so appreciate your patience and respecting our privacy in the weeks after the transfer. It’s been hard keeping this secret, and while I feel slightly nervous revealing my pregnancy to the world, we want to celebrate the little life growing inside me and rejoice with our friends and family.

I’m about 9 weeks along, so we still have a few weeks to go before we are out of the first trimester. We decided to share now because Greg and I are so incredibly grateful for all the love, prayers and positive vibes that were sent our way before, during and after our IVF cycle, and we humbly ask for that support again. My next ultrasound is a month away, and pregnancy after infertility can be an emotional ride.

We'd already received the good news from the clinic, but I'd always wanted to see 
one of these tests turn positive. (And I did not #POAS after our transfer!)

While this moment is over two years in the making for us, I know that pales in comparison to the waits other couples have faced, and we don’t take for granted how incredibly lucky we are that our first IVF cycle worked, especially given the low number of eggs the doctors were able to retrieve. It truly is a miracle, and I know God’s hand — as well as all your prayers — played a role in that success. We are so thankful for assisted reproductive technology and our knowledgeable (and compassionate!) medical team, but God is the ultimate Creator. He just needed one good egg to make our little embryo, our little warrior as Greg likes to call him or her.

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. 

Before you were born I set you apart.” 

- Jeremiah 1:5

For those in the trenches of infertility, I know how painful pregnancy announcements can be. They’re a reminder of that thing you want so desperately and have been striving with such dedication toward. It wasn’t that long ago that I was there. Even now, reading about couples who conceive easily — the ones who don’t realize how lucky they are that they never had to taste the bitter longing of infertility, or face its steep financial costs — it still stings. Yet, I hope you’ll find encouragement and hope in our success, to know that the unlikely or impossible is possible, and know that I am praying for your miracle baby, too.

On this Easter weekend, I reflect on our journey and am reminded of His goodness and faithfulness, and the importance of never giving up hope. We don’t always understand, but His timing is perfect and His plans are always better than our own.

“For this child I prayed, and the Lord 

has granted the desires of my heart.”

 - 1 Samuel 1:27

Baby's first sonogram. Six weeks, the size of a pea. So worth the wait.