My favorite story

Everyone has a favorite story, right? Here is mine.

Preston and I got married almost two years ago. Can you believe it? I, for one, can not. After six months of marriage and lots of prayers, we decided to start trying for a baby. We were so excited. At first, we tried to keep it a secret, but we were so excited, we couldn't wait to tell all of our family and friends. Patience and privacy have never been our strong suits.

After six months, we still weren't pregnant and I had a sneaking suspicion something was wrong. Everyone and their mom told me that it takes a while and of course, and of course, everyone has a story about their friend who got pregnant after a year but I just knew that wasn't going to be us. I asked my doctor to start fertility testing on me and she refused, saying it was too soon. She said, at my age, I needed to try for at least 12 months before she would do any testing. That was not working for me. I wanted answers now! Not in another six months! One night, right before our first anniversary, Preston's uncle, who is a retired OB, was in town and after a day of hanging out at the beach with all of his family, Uncle Steve decided to walk us to our car. As we walked, Preston mentioned to him that we had been trying for 6 months and my doctor wouldn't do anything for us and he agreed with us that this would be an appropriate time to at least start doing some preliminary blood tests and suggested I find another doctor.

The next day, I called a fertility specialist in Newport Beach. I made an appointment for a consultation the day after our first anniversary. I loved the doctor, Dr. Moayeri. She is beautiful and warm and exactly the kind of person I needed. Seriously, she looks like Eva Mendes. After several months of some icky and sometime painful testing, we finally found the cause of our problem. One day in September, Dr. Moayeri called me to give me the results of our very last test. We had less than a 1% chance of ever conceiving naturally. I will never forget pulling over on the side of the road to call Preston and give him the news. In retrospect, I probably should have waited till we got home from work, but there was no way I could get through the day, keeping that information all to myself. It was a very sad period of time for us but we have awesome families and friends that were tremendously supportive. I have never been so thankful for anyone, other than Preston, as I was my sisters in law and especially my parents. Oh my gosh, my parents are amazing.

As sad as we were that we would not be able to conceive naturally, we were blessed with the really wonderful news that our problem was as fixable as infertility gets and with in vitro, we had about an 80% chance of getting pregnant. I'm not going to pretend that we still weren't pretty devastated at the thought of having to go through ivf (from the astronomical cost to the emotional and physical stress,) but there was definitely a ray of hope in this situation! It took a couple months, but we eventually came to terms with our situation and actually became really hopeful and excited.

We had some hiccups here and there as we prepared to start fertility treatments but we prayed and fasted with our families and friends, and they always seemed to disappear. We were finally ready to start our first round of IVF in December, but with the holidays the lab was closed for a couple days and we didn't want to chance it so we opted to wait until January. You can only imagine how many fertility blogs I read in the interim and how much I freaked myself out. The internet is not always our friend! I read story after story about failed IVF attempts and I made myself completely crazy. Word to the wise: STAY OFF THE BLOGS.


On January 14th, we started our first round of IVF. Preston earned an honorary medical degree by giving me shots night after night. It was so overwhelming, mixing solutions and using multiples needles every night. I was so grateful to him for being such a champ. He really is a rock. I was so wrapped up in how all these shots and medications were affecting me (oh, and believe me, they were.) but being the one in charge of giving all of the meds was really stressful. I didn’t even attempt to understand it.





We had a couple more hiccups throughout the cycle and at one point, were afraid it might have to be cancelled mid-cycle, but after a family fast and a blessing, we made it to the egg retrieval on February 10th!

I have never been so nervous in my entire life! I woke up early that morning so completely sick that I thought I had food poisoning. This would have been the worst possible thing to happen since once your retrieval is scheduled it MUST happen at that exact time because of medication you've taken leading up to it. If surgery was even delayed by an hour, the whole cycle would be a bust and they couldn't go through with it. Every time I got back in bed that night, I would make Preston say a prayer with me. I was terrified but determined to have the surgery if it meant I was puking while anesthetized. By the time we were ready to leave for the hospital, I didn't feel great, but I felt good enough!



The surgery ended up being a complete breeze and I felt so good afterwards that we went to Mimi's for lunch on our way home. Only we would still go to lunch when I'm hopped up on anesthesia and an hour out of surgery! Hey, we were hungry. I was truly stumbling through the restaurant like a drunkard. The doctor called later that day to tell us she was able to get 17 good and mature eggs! And the next day, she called with the fertility report and said 15 of those fertilized normally. We had 15 embryos! If you're not familiar with IVF, these are stellar numbers. The kind of numbers you only get when you pray like crazy people.

The doctor said the embryos looked so good, that she wanted to wait and do a 5-day transfer, instead of a 3-day. This can be a little risky because you lose embryos along the way, being outside the body for so long, but the theory is the strongest will make it to 5-day blastocysts and that tells the embryologist which ones have the best chance of becoming cute little babies.

My mom flew in on Valentine's night, the night before our transfer. I had to be on complete bed rest for 7 days (so sad ;) and she came to take care of me so Preston could still go to work. She was a complete angel.

On February 15th, Dr. Moayeri called a couple hours before the transfer to tell us we had 9 really good looking blastocysts, and two that were darn near perfect to be transferred that day. My mouth was on the floor. I couldn't even believe it. Again, those are amazing numbers. I was SO nervous (again) so she prescribed me some Valium before the procedure. I was a lot of fun to be around that morning! Seriously, it was a good time. When we got to the office, the embryologist and Dr. Moayeri met with me, Preston, and my mom and showed us the two perfect little blastocysts they had chosen to transfer that day. (Turned out we had five more that were perfect, too, and we were able to freeze them for future use. What a miracle.) They gave us a picture of our little embryos and my mom became a blubbering mess! It was so special to have her there with us that day. The embryos truly looked like Café Rio tortillas (no surprise there) so I affectionately named them Café and Rio. Preston and my dad have since renamed them Sparky and Sebastian for the ASU and Miami mascots. Ha!

Seriously, don't they look like tortillas? Free meal!


The doctor and the embryologist explained that our chance of success with this transfer (meaning that one of the embryos would implant) was 60% and the chance that both embryos would implant was 20%. A slim chance, but we had to sign some papers to say we were ok with possibly having two babies. Are you kidding? Ok with it? That's what we were hoping for!

A few minutes later, they took Preston and I into a comfy, dimly lit procedure room and the whole thing was done in five minutes. Didn't feel a thing. Dr. Moayeri was so pleased with where the embryos ended up being deposited inside my uterus. She said our two perfect little embryos had landed in the absolutely perfect place. Such little over achievers!




After she left, we were instructed to lie still on the table for about 30 minutes and then we were free to go. As soon as she left the room, Preston gave me a blessing. That was the most special time of our entire marriage to me. The Spirit was so strong and I just felt this overwhelming love for Preston and gratitude to my Heavenly Father. It was such a neat experience that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.



We went home and I became one with the DVR for the next 7 days. It was actually super fun. I loved having my mom to lay in bed with me and watch American Idol and Grey's. We had such a good time talking, playing Rummikub, and crafting. She even brought me trays of snacks, complete with a new US magazine. I just love her. She's the best. By the end, I was desperate to get out of the house and just being able to move to couch from our bed, was a treat. I also spent the better part of the week staring at the pictures of those little embryos and begging them to set up shop for the next nine months. I might have even played them some Coldplay and Killers to entice them.

On February 25th, I went in for my pregnancy test. If we're being honest, I had already taken a pregnancy test at home two days before and had seen the faintest (and I mean faintest) of lines. I thought I was going to pass out. In all the pregnancy tests I've taken, and there have been MANY, I've never seen anything close to a second line. When we went in for the test, the nurse said an HCG number of 5-10 would indicate I was pregnant. Dr. Moayeri was on vacation that week so we waited all dang day for a phone call from the nurse with the results. Around 2 p.m., Dr. Moayeri, herself, called from vacation and said, "Congratulations!!" I was able to keep it together while I was on the phone with her but as soon as I hung up, I looked at Preston and said, "We're pregnant and she thinks it may be twins," and we both started crying. This was such an answer to the fasting, blessings, and zillions of prayers offered by us and our friends and family. Remember how I said they were looking for an HCG number between 5-10? Well, mine was 519. And can we talk about how cool Dr. Moayeri is for calling us on her vacation? Who does that? This is why I love her.


We had to continue to go back for testing every other day to make sure my number was doubling and it was. I had my first ultrasound at 5 weeks and just like I already knew, it revealed TWO perfect embryos had made a little home in my belly! It was really interesting, because I knew she would find two gestational sacs that day. I just knew my little guys were a package deal. I couldn't imagine one of them and not the other. I knew they would stay together. We saw the heartbeats for the first time at 6 weeks.



So here we are, with a due date in mid-October. I still can't believe it. I finally started to wrap my head around it at my 9-week ultrasound when we saw the little guys wiggling. Be still my heart. It finally registered to me that I'm pregnant. One of them was even bopping his little head all around!

These are from our most recent ultrasound.

Baby A


Baby B



Words can not express how grateful we are for this INCREDIBLE blessing. Not just for twin babies, but this whole process has been the most uplifting and testimony building experience of my entire life. I thought I had faith before this experience and I thought I had a good relationship with the Lord, but it pales in comparison to now. I have learned so much about prayer, fasting, faith, the temple, and marriage. Preston and I have such a strong relationship and I know it is a direct result of this trial. I lean on him and trust him more than anyone in the world. I am so thankful I married such a worthy Priesthood holder. He has such an incredible understanding of the Gospel and he is so, so good. He has given me countless blessings throughout this experience and he has been my comfort when no one else could understand what I was feeling. If you know Preston, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. He’s amazing. Let’s be honest, when we got married, I was not envisioning poor Preston putting a giant needle in my butt every night…talk about bonding! I am not going to pretend this has not been an excruciating process, because it has, but at the same time it was so easy and exciting! As difficult as this has been, it is definitely one of my favorite times of my life. We went through some seriously dark days but I know that will make us so much more appreciative of our little family.

If anyone ever needs help in the baby department, I (obviously) highly recommend my doctor! It is truly a miracle that we got pregnant on our first ivf attempt and both of our little embryos implanted. There are four other couples in our ward who have used this same practice, Southern California Center for Reproductive Medicine, and everyone could be a walking advertisement. We all kiss the ground they walk on. They are the best doctors I have ever experienced. Proactive doesn’t even begin to describe this practice. Everything is personalized and NOTHING is left to chance. I could never say enough good things about them. They were truly the answer to our prayers. It is so much more than just a job to them. Dr. Moayeri gives me a hug after every ultrasound and she is so genuinely happy for us! She also has to be a little stern with me every week when I tell her I think the babies are going to fall out and make her check again to be sure their hearts are still beating. I’m a worrier. Can you blame me?

I got to make my appointment today to go back to my regular OB and I feel like I am graduating and becoming a real, live pregnant person! I’m even finally off my shots! Happy day. No more human pin cushion. I’m so excited to be just like everyone else now but I will seriously miss Dr. Moayeri. I begged her to keep me and be my OB too, but alas, it’s almost time to move on. I am also highly addicted to weekly ultrasounds so I am going to go through some major withdrawals.

We are so, so, so, so excited for October. I can’t wait till our kids are older and we can tell them this story. It’s definitely unconventional, but I think it’s so cool to think about how much they were wanted and how many friends and family members prayed and fasted and sacrificed for them. Isn’t that neat to think about? They were so loved before they even came to be and everyone was rooting for them. My favorite part of this whole story is our 13-year old niece who fasted for us, all on her own, on a school day. Can you believe that? Trust me, I work with 13-years olds and they aren’t skipping a meal for anything. That Sydney is a gem. I am really hoping for one boy and one girl but I think we’ve got two little boys in there. I had a dream one was a boy and then I found the highly scientific Chinese Gender Predictor website and it also said boy. Can’t argue with the internet, right? I kind of like the idea of two yummy, little boys though to be best pals. Plus, we really only agree on boy names so that would probably make life a lot easier for us!

It’s still early and it took so much to get our little babies here so we’re still praying like crazy. If you get a chance, will you pray for them too? Café and Rio will love you for it!