Emotional Last few days

So off we went to Cape Town for our big scan. The 13 week scan of the IVF pregnancy to make sure all is fine and that the little monkey doesn't have any abnormalities. Were we nervous?? YES! But not as nervous as we were for the previous scans. We knew the pregnancy was there and the baby was alive because of those lovely 1st trimester symptoms, but we were in for a shock when we saw that little one moving around inside. All that tumbling and turning, punching and kicking, Alex was worried it was going to get all tangled up in the umbilical cord. After a few minutes of tears, i finally managed to keep my eyes open long enough to watch our little gymnast. We were lucky enough to have a Gynea in training scan us, taking all the measurements of all the bones, heart, head, stomach, bladder, fingers, toes etc and then she called in the Prof who took all the measurements again. A whole hour of our beautiful (alien like) little baby. Every measurement came out normal and we're all on track. What a miracle. Its still incredible to think that this time last year we found out that our chance of conceiving naturally was 0.01%. A few months later our chance of conceiving with IVF/ICSI was between 30 - 40%. And now here we are, not even a year later 100% pregnant! I will forever be grateful to the amazing Doctors, Nurses, Scientist and Embryologists who all had a hand in creating our family. Not to mention the fantastic support we've had from family and friends. We are so lucky.

The following day we met with Dr Thabo, our Fertility Specialist, mostly to say goodbye and so he could have a look at the scan results. He was just as thrilled as we were with the outcome although very sad to have to hand us over to Hermanus for further monitoring of the pregnancy. He has been the most incredible man to have entered our lives in this infertility struggle, supporting, counseling and mentoring us through our difficult journey. To have met a man like that makes all the pain and suffering worth it. We hope to keep in contact with him for a long time. Sob sob.

Now back on the farm life goes on. I dare say today we are preparing to castrate the piglets. It will be our first time and we're struggling with the whole karma thing. How can we do this when we ourselves were infertile? But its for the best as the little buggers keep mating their moms, and we really need to introduce some new blood.  Now for the hard part - catching them! Wish me luck, i'll update tomorrow with the gory photos!