Huffington Magazine Issue 17 | Page 43

HUFFINGTON 10.07.12 UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES MIRACLE BABIES pregnant. She was not. A month after returning from the failed trip, Matt and Cortney started pre-adoption parenting classes at their local hospital. They planned to return to Las Vegas in January for another IVF cycle, the final one that would be covered by insurance (her company’s plan covered a portion of her treatments), but they were beginning to wonder if conception was even an option for them. The adoption classes were almost over when, on a November day in 2006, Cortney took a home pregnancy test. She watched the line start to grow, tossed the test on her bathroom counter and got in the shower. “At that point I was so used to negatives, it was like ‘Whatever,’” Cortney said. A few minutes later she stepped out, looked at the test and called her husband in tears. A blood test hastily scheduled for that afternoon confirmed what the home kit had told her: Cortney was finally pregnant, all on her own. And two and a half years later, she gave birth to a second child who was also conceived naturally, this time a girl. The process of in vitro fertilization is hit or miss for some women hoping to conceive.