In case you couldn't figure it out, the result of our faith, hope, and perseverance is our beautiful daughter, Aria. For Justin and I, having children was always something we knew we wanted; it just didn't happen when we wanted. We were married on August 7, 2004 when we were both 22 years old. Being the planner and numbers person I am, I immediately began predicting when our first of maybe 3 or 4 children would arrive. I wanted to be 25 when I had my first child because that is how old my mom was when I was born and I think our age difference is quite nice. 25 came and went. So did 26. And 27. At that point I wondered if I would be able to have a child before 30. I knew that 27 was not "old", but it felt like it. Let me back up. When we were unable to get pregnant at 25 and 26, we began seeking out the reason why.
Our investigation began with me and several tests to see if all was working properly. Everything came back normal and functioning. My doctor recommended I have laproscopic surgery to further investigate. We were a little skeptical that my doctor wanted to perform surgery on me before we even checked to see if there was a problem with Justin. So, we had tests run on Justin. The results were earth shattering. There was a possibility Justin could not reproduce. We learned this news in November of 2007, age 26.
The first step was for Justin to have corrective surgery to hopefully improve his chances. He had the surgery in January of 2008 and we had to wait 6 months to see if it worked. I was at basketball camp the day in June when Justin called to tell me the surgery had not worked. We were referred to the University of Iowa and one of the best specialists in the nation. Dr. Wold was very sympathetic and helpful with our situation. He gave us the facts and provided suggestions. He said he could redo the surgery because he felt it could be done better, but he thought we should have some genetic testing done first to make sure there was not another underlying cause of the infertility. This was in July of 2008. We thought the genetic testing made sense and went forward with it.
A funny side story...Justin had to give 8 vials of blood for the tests and he went on an empty stomach. Not a good combination. He passed out. As we continued through the process we had many blood tests and samples and that lady always remembered Justin.
Anyway, the results came back with something we really didn't understand. Justin has what is called a balanced translocation of his number 1 and number 10 chromosomes. To better help us understand we met with a children's genetics doctor at the University. Basically, when Justin was created, part of the information on his number 1 chromosome switched places with part of the information on his number 10 chromosome. No information was lost in the switch, which is why Justin is perfectly normal. (Although we like to tease that maybe it creates excess body hair or excess gas!) However, when Justin tries to reproduce a large problem is created. For those of you that don't know DNA, everyone has 2 of every chromosome 1-23 and then the X and Y. When making a baby, the male passes along one of every one of his chromosomes and the female passes along one of every one of hers. So with Justin, the problem occurs if he passes the number 1 chromosome that has part of number 10 with it and not the number 10 that has part of number 1 with it because then, the baby would be missing part of the information from the number 1 (or number 10) chromosome. It's pretty confusing, but we learned quickly.
The good news was that we could have a child, created by the two of us. The bad news was that happening naturally was virtually impossible. When passing along his chromosomes, there are 16 options for Justin with his condition. Out of those 16, 2 have a chance of being a normal baby. The other 14 would have great genetic defects and only have a 2% chance of becoming a living breathing child, with great defects that would likely mean a short life. Therefore, math whiz kids, we had a 1 in 8 chance of creating a balanced child like Justin or a completely normal child. 1 in 8 is pretty grim, but you also have to take in to account that is AFTER conception. We had slim chances of natural conception, too. So we needed help in creating our child.
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