9 1/2 years

Nine and a half years ago, in March 2003, I had a message on our answering machine that changed my life.  It was Jennifer, calling from Dr. Young's office.  When I nervously returned her phone call, she told me that our IVF procedure had been successful, and I was pregnant.  The following week, after a few more blood tests confirmed a baby was definitely on the way, Dr. Young called and left a message, congratulating us.  Bill and I vowed to never delete those messages.

In November 2005, we added a third special 'do not delete' message to our answering machine.  Dr. Young called to tell us he had heard the good news that Sam was on his way.  He sounded surprised and pleased in his message, because none of us were optimistic that the frozen embryo transfer would work.

For years, Bill has said he was going to somehow preserve those messages.  But we never got around to figuring out how to back up answering machine messages.  And it's easy to let time slip by.  Reality hit us hard this week when my overly helpful almost nine-year-old deleted those precious messages.  Just like that, they were gone.

When I told Bill, he looked like he'd been punched in the stomach.  I was upset too, but not as upset as I thought I would be.  The messages will never be forgotten, and honestly, it's much better having three noisy, rambunctious, sometimes argumentative boys right here with me.

And I figured I could blog about it, so that some day, the boys will know just how overjoyed we were to learn that our prayers had been answered and they were on their way.

There was no phone call with Nolan.  Just me, standing in the bathroom, staring in disbelief at a positive pregnancy test.  I'll never forget that moment either.  I actually had enough presence of mind to take a picture of the pregnancy test.  TJ can't delete that one!