I’m a fan of celebrating little milestones of, of sorts. I love these little celebrations that range from Shelby hugging the porcelain god with her first real bout of morning sickness, to our little guy, who is 1/2 way done with the best hotel stay of his life (Hey, it even has 24/hour room service!), to Shelby’s baby bump, and to last week, where I received my first annoying pregnancy comment.

I bet you can guess the question… I rank it up there with the ignorant, “natural twins, or [voice quiets] fertility twins?” when someone finds out you are having twins. Yes, you guessed it, I got the “was it planned?”

Really, what kind of question is that? In the millisecond after it was asked, a few things occurred to me when that question is asked. I take it two ways 1.) I’m a responsible parent by planning the creation of a human being, or 2.) I’m a drunkard who didn’t want to use a condom, it broke, or we’re just TOO fertile. Ha, TOO fertile, imagine that. Sure, there are exceptions to that, but really, you’re asking me a pretty damn personal question. I mean, think about it, that’s pretty intimate. They are really asking what my (and Shelby’s) mental state was as at the time Shelby and I did the horizontal tango. What’s your next question? What position got Shelby pregnant? Ahh, the questions of the fertile.

Well, in our case, there was a lot of FUTILE horizontal tango going on. Fun? Sure. Productive? Not so much.  Actually, I believe the position we were in was begging on our hands and knees, praying for our IVF to work.

I know it’s an innocent question, but how should it be answered? I carefully considered my question and responded to “was it planned” with the answer of “Yes, very much so” and left it at that. I know I could have answered with a simple yes, but at that moment, it seems to cheapen how much we’ve gone through. Hell yes it was planned. And we have 5 years of a monthly payment to continue to remind us of that fact.

To answer any other way would seem to dishonor my little bean that is budding. We worked hard to get to this 21 week mark. We worked hard just for the chance of getting here, and I simply cannot turn my back on that effort.

I’m proud that we have an IVF baby. Simply put, I’m proud of us. We have gone through the hardest 5 years of our lives, and we’re coming out happier, more in love, and closer than ever. Even, in some way odd way, I’m grateful that we’ve worked so hard to get here. It’s made me a better  lover, husband, and soon-to-be, father. So when people ask “was it planned?” the answer should be “Planned enough that it took 5 years, a hundred appointments, heart break, tears and $60,000. Our baby, that we fought so hard for was indeed, very much planned.”

Until I feel comfortable enough to say that, I will for now remain, half way in the closet and simply answer, “Was this baby planned?” with “Yes, very much so.“