It doesn’t take a village to raise a child; it takes a village to create a child

For most couples, it’s just that – it takes a couple, two people, to conceive a child.

Not in our case, or in the case of other couples in our position. It can take many, many people to conceive a child.

Let’s see…

Obviously, there’s the fertility doctor, who performs the tests, procedures and other baby-making magic.

There’s the fertility nurse, who does the daily ultrasounds to check how my uterine lining looked, how my ovaries were growing, etc.

The phlebotomist, who drew my blood on a daily basis to check hormone levels, which determine the best time to do an IUI, IVF, TI, etc. In our situation, our phlebotomist doubles as the person who took the super sperm sample once Jack Bauer produced it.

The lab technicians – I don’t even know how many people have touched my eggs, JB’s sperm, the embryos, blood, etc. Let’s just guess and say “10.”

The pharmacist who filled my hundreds of dollars worth of prescriptions.

The acupuncturist who placed several needles all over my body to prepare it for the IVF transfer of embryos.

There is also a myriad of other medical people, including anesthesiologists, schedulers, ultrasound technicians, more nurses, etc. who aid my fertility doctor by helping him with some of the fertility procedures. Let’s say there are another “7” of these healthcare professionals.

That’s a total of 22 – and doesn’t include other key people like the massage therapist, who helps to relax my worried body, the teenager at Steak N Shake who makes those killer milkshakes that ease the stress, the spin class instructor who helps me get rid of the weight I gained from the fertility drugs.

And now that we’ve enlisted the assistance of our Nest, there are even more people that are helping to bring a blessed child into our lives.

My family – from my amazing sister who offered to be a gestational carrier years ago before she had to have a hysterectomy and before we knew that we would have so much trouble conceiving, to my dad who drove the Nest 100 miles to our required counseling session (sure, require it for us, but any ol’ teenager can get knocked up without having to tell someone why they want a baby), to my mom who brokered the whole hook up with the Nest, buys the Nest pre-natal vitamins, and delivered the Nest to the first appointment with our fertility doctor.

Nurse mom who helped the Nest with her fertility drug injections.

And, last but not least, the most important person to date, our wonderful Nest and her supportive and amazing family.

And, we’re not even finished yet. So, so far, we’re up to more than 33 people and counting, stretching across two different families and three generations of people…

So I guess it doesn’t just take a village for our baby; it's taking an army.