I must first confess that last week I became worried when Brandy said that her Doctor would not induce her labor and that her next appointment was on December 24. Ten years ago, shortly after we were married my wife became pregnant. We were excited and ecstatic, and began to prepare for our first child. My wife went for a routine ultrasound on Dec 24 to ensure that everything was alright. However, the ultrasound detected complications, and on the following day, Christmas morning, as a result of emergency surgery we lost the baby and the ability to have children. We were devastated. It is often said that Christmas is for the children, yet we lost our chance to have children on Christmas.
It took some time to recover from our Christmas tragedy, but we were undaunted in our desire for a family. We applied to adopt, but were unsuccessful. We then tried invitro-fertization, but after several attempts, were again unsuccessful. We were ready to accept the fact that we may never have a family, but we decided to give it one last try with surrogacy. We met with a couple potential surrogates before we decided to try with Brandy. Even still, we were unsuccessful in our first attempts at conception. Since we had become accustomed to the disappointment, we weren't as disappointed as Brandy was, and when she finally did become pregnant, Brandy was much more excited than we were because we were still afraid that our luck may not change. However, the birth of two lovely babies has made the disappointment, the agony, the anxiety, and the wait of the last ten years all worthwhile.
Christmas has never really been a very happy time for us, because it always reminds of "the Christmas from hell," as we came to call it. However, now we can celebrate the holiday again as a result of this "Christmas from Heaven," and the help of an angel. There are not enough words in the English language to adequately convey the gratitude we have for what has transpired, the greatest Christmas gift possible, so I will keep it simple and make use of the two words which say so much. Thank you, Brandy.
Kay, Doug, Michelle, and Michael
ps: We would also like to extend special thanks to Jason, his family, Brandy's family, and anyone else who gave Brandy the support, strength, and courage to help us have a family.
