This made me smile in a way that I know I’ll be thinking about it later, and still smiling. Congratulations on your larger than expected family. I hope everything goes well for you!
When I was in high school, I was friends with two brothers. One day the younger brother showed me a photo of his elder sister, who was in college at the time. She didn’t look much like him or his brother, and he was used to explaining. “My parents were told that they would never have a baby and adopted. Two years later they had Fred, then a year later me.”
While I don’t think adoption is a magical cure for infertility, I think the reduced stress (just over conceiving, of course) sometimes helps. With up to twelve chances to get pregnant a year, though, it’s not surprising that there are a lot of miracle babies born even after Mom and Dad stopped “trying.”
I’m looking forward to the thread with pictures of your new babies next year 
Well, happy congratulations all over y’all!
May your laughter double and redouble soon.
Holy Moley, what a wonderful, hysterically funny, absolutely FANTASTIC twist of fate! Two for the price of one. I’m giggling and tearing up at the same time for you both right now 
Much congratulations!!!
Max…this makes me really happy. I…don’t want to criticize or anything. I’m really happy you might be pregnant, and wish you the best of luck. But so many parents then just drop the idea of the adoption. And I understand their point of view, too! But it’s nice that you will keep with it, and give a little Chinese girl a nice loving home.
Good luck with everything.
What a wonderful, wonderful development! My congratulations, and wishes for much happiness to you and your whole family!
So very wonderful, Max and Mrs. Torque. Congrats and best wishes!
Seconded:). You’re going to have TWO great kids and I’m thrilled for you!
E.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your wife’s condition? Is it just trouble conceiving, or is there more (puberty at 2! Her parents must have freaked!)
I am so happy for you guys. Do you guys have help lined up for when your household doubles in size?
I can tell you what I know about MAS, which is limited; as I understand it, the first overt indicator is what they call “cafe-au-lait spots”, which are big irregular-bordered areas the color of coffee with cream. My wife had a big spot on her thigh, but it faded as she got older.
Another hallmark of the disorder is how easily persons with MAS break bones. It’s not that they’re brittle, necessarily, but they may experience bone breaks in situations where others would not. My wife has broken a lot of bones in her life, including vertebrae, fingers, and both elbows. Her family used to just give her grief for being clumsy, but now that MAS is more thoroughly understood, it seems we should be a little easier on her.
And then there’s the “precocious puberty”. Yeah, I imagine that came as a real shock to her parents. As I heard it, they thought she was horribly injured somehow and rushed her to the hospital, only to discover that she’d had her first period. There are usually other signs of puberty as well, such as pubic hair. Can you imagine, before you’re even in kindergarden?
Basically, as I understand it, the real hallmark of the disorder is that the ovaries either don’t listen to the pituitary gland, or the pituitary gland doesn’t communicate properly to the ovaries. As a result, the ovaries do what they want; instead of ovulating once a month, they drop an egg when they please, and since they don’t really “please” all that much, the ovaries tend to just form cysts and not ovulate at all. I hear they’ve had some success with MAS patients when one ovary is removed, which usually kickstarts the other one into behaving normally, and we very nearly did that. When the surgeon had a look around, though, she thought the ovary looked too darn good to take out, so we opted to leave it in so that we’d at least have more options down the line rather than cutting our odds in half. Believe me, I’ve looked back on that decision now and patted myself on the back; if we’d gone ahead with the removal, I might never have started this thread.
As for help: my wife’s mother and her husband just moved to our town (she’s a nurse, and he’s retired), to a duplex less than five minutes away, and her sister (who has three kids of her own that she cares for full-time) is planning to move to town in the next year. Also, my parents just put their house in Colorado on the market, and they may be moved down here as early as October if they can find a buyer. Dad’s retired, and if they make as much from the sale as their agent thinks they can, Mom won’t have to work anymore either. My poor folks…they started planning this move before we found out about the pregnancy, and look what they’re in for now! hehe.
The very latest news: today, by which I mean the 13th, she had another blood draw, and her progesterone level is still on the rise, which means that things are progressing normally. Tomorrow I’m going with her for an ultrasound, the first, to see what can be seen. From what I’ve read, the heartbeat might already be visible as a teeny little blip. I’ll update y’all on how that goes.
I’m looking forward to the updates! This is such wonderful exciting news.
Wow, congratulations! That’s amazing news, and I think it’s great that you are going forward with the adoption. I can’t wait to hear how the ultrasound goes today!
Max and the Mrs. I except updates about both your children as they happen…sharing happiness and crappiness is what Doperville is all about, understand!
Let us. who have No Lives, live vicarously through you.
Max,
This could not BE better news. Jadis just told me that your wife is pregnant and I couldn’t believe it. She and I both send along congratulations and all the best wishes!
Zette
Congratulations! mwah
Congrats.
You’ll stop laughing when Homeland Security and the FBI learn of your little scam of importing babies under false pretenses. 
Congratulations!
Here’s hoping for an easy and serene pregnancy, a healthy biobaby, smooth sailing with the Chinese authorities, a lovely adoptive daughter, and a complete Torque family at the end!
Best wishes, and lots and lots of hugs for you all!
With trans-vaginal ultrasound you can see a heartbeat at 4 or 5 weeks, it’s usually 6-8 weeks before a heartbeat is visible trans-abdominally. So…here’s hoping you see something (it’s really, really cool when you can).
Well, what we saw yesterday was: a sac in the uterus, containing a yolk sac, together with a tiny grain of rice that might possibly be babylike, but it’s still too small to see anything definitive, like a heartbeat or a baby shape.
Needless to say, my wife found this discouraging. I, however, feel that this is positive. Her HCG is still rising rapidly, and we appear to be right about where we need to be for being 5 weeks along. Plus, since I don’t make yolks, there’s no question that she ovulated, and that her egg is up to something major. So, I’m staying positive and keeping her spirits up until the next ultrasound, scheduled for the 28th. I just hope I can keep her from stressing out before then.
IANAD (and Irishgirl is a doctor and has rather more current knowledge than I!!!) but back when I was still in reproduction mode 10 years ago, they did the transvaginal ultrasound at 6+ weeks from LMP, and that (I was told) was the earliest they’d routinely expect to see a heartbeat. Irishgirl, did you mean 4-5 weeks LMP? or 4-5 weeks post-conception? If you mean post-conception, then that meshes exactly with what I was told (and Max, I’m assuming you mean your wife would be 5 weeks from her last menstrual period, 3 weeks roughly post-conception).