Christine and Jason chose Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco which provides the "patient" with a ton of material to read and learn about the whole process of IVF along with state-of-the art scientific procedures; they also provide phenomenal support.

In order to respect Christine and Jason's privacy, I won't be going into a lot of detail.  Suffice it to say that it was necessary for Christine to undertake strict and detailed self-monitoring; she was also required to take a lot of injections.  Most were self-administered in the tummy, but one of them was administered by Jason because she would have had to be a contortionist to reach the stipulated injection site.

Along with the injections, she also took oral medications.  All of this concerned me because what she was doing was altering her body chemistry.  It wasn't that I didn't have faith in the medical community (well, I did have some reservations).  It was more about watching my healthy daughter introduce chemicals into her body that had a small potential for creating adverse effects.

One of the visible effects of the injections was bruising around the injection sites.  As the process progessed, her poor tummy became covered in bruises and they hurt.  She never once complained.  Once a day, an injection had to be given by Jason - I think this hurt him as much as it did Christine, if not more.  The goal of this whole process was to stimulate ovulation.

After a few weeks, the time came to harvest Christine's ovum.  This procedure was done under general anesthetic.  I didn't much care for that idea.  The eggs were then fertilized with Jason's sperm, and the waiting began.  The waiting lasted 10 very long days.

The next step was to take 3 of the most viable fertilized eggs and place them back into Christine's body - and then wait some more.  (The injections continued for approximately 12 weeks - these were to prevent "rejection" of the implanted eggs.)

On May 26, 1999, I received a phone call from Christine.  She said, "Hi, Yiyiá."  Of course, I started blubbering and sputtering.  Even though she had begun almost immediately exhibiting signs of a pregnancy, it was still a surprise!  And being a typical mom, I took up a whole new set of worryings and anxieties - I was still doing my job.

In September, a follow-up ultrasound showed there was one baby and that it was a boy.  A miracle was happening.

I think that's about the time I left my body and I'm still floating around out there in the Universe.