Announcement

Well, two days ago we hit twelve weeks, the requisite number of weeks before "safely" announcing your pregnancy to the world.  I have been toying and agonizing over the perfect way to announce it.  If you know me at all, then you know that only something perfectly unique, and perfectly us, would work.  I have been collecting ideas for over three years, waiting for that moment when I would need them.  And now that that moment is here, I can't decide.

I mean how do you adequately capture our journey over the last four years into a single picture?  How do you impart the trials, the struggles, the joys, and the faith that went into this process?  For obvious reasons, we didn't share these with many people, so for most this will be their first, and only, glimpse into what we went through.  So, it has to be just right.  But it also has to be just us.

UPDATE:  Okay, I finally finished the announcement and sent it to practically everyone on our contact list.  I'm sure back in the day, phone calls were the thing to do, but this allows us to reach more people in a shorter amount of time.  The response and outpouring of love has been amazing!

So, without further ado, here it is...

I had two main ideas in mind...a movie-poster style and a gaming connotation.  So, I first set up a photo shoot with my wife and I holding gaming controllers.  The third controller is empty to insinuate that that player has not yet joined the game.  The title of the movie, "Loading Player Three," also ties into the gaming theme that while that player has not yet joined the game, he is currently loading.

The second step was to pull in various images that capture our journey through the process.  So, starting with the top-left corner, you'll see a heart made from syringes.  That constitutes all of the needles that we used for one cycle of injections in Greece.  Moving to the top-right corner, you'll see our "hatching" embryo as it appeared on the day of its insertion.  And then finally moving down the right-hand side, you'll see the baby, showing off his little Buddha belly in his sonogram.  He is overlayed on our pictures to once again tie back to the theme of loading player three.  All of this is placed on a background featuring strands of DNA, illustrating the miracle of how God brings all of that together at a molecular level, and as a shout-out to my wife's passion.

The final step was to organize it all into a movie poster style.  The title of the movie, "Loading Player Three" is displayed in the center.  The tagline, "It Takes Three to Make a Baby" is at the top, a shout-out to God as the orchestrator of all of this.  Without Him we would be nowhere.  The due date of "February 2019" is at the bottom, just below the credits.  I give all of the credit to God.  I wanted it to be clear to everyone that that is where it is due.  Despite the wonderful people involved in every phase of the process, none of it would have been possible without God.  We tried many times on our own and failed.  It wasn't until God decided it was time that we finally had success.  We started this journey with Him, and we got to this point with Him.  It has always been about three (God, my wife, and myself) becoming one (the baby).

Overall, I am very pleased with the final result.  It definitely took on a life of its own after I started.  This was not at all how I imagined it, but I very much believe that God brought his paintbrush to the canvas to help me make it better.

So there it is.  World, we are having a baby!