I agreed to write about our experience at The Center for Reproductive Health with pleasure, but not only because we had two sweet twin boys with their help. I agreed because I am one of a growing number of women with chronic illnesses who are now able to have a family of their own. I want to add my voice to theirs, saying, yes, it's not a totally extraordinary event anymore. Many people with chronic conditions -- I have a kidney transplant -- have been told to learn to face frequent illnesses and loss of opportunity as a matter of course, to expect to live at best "an almost normal life". Yet, at least for us, chronic illness wasn't the barrier to having a child it used to be.

My husband and I married late, and I had been dealing with the kidney issue for going on a decade. Repeated failures when we tried for children wore at us, becoming an ever-present underlying stress. I began to really dread sitting in the OB/GYN waiting room, where so many already-parents brought their children. Frankly, I found the situation as bad, if possible, as dealing with kidney disease, for like that condition, it involved a never-ending strain to maintain hope, and continuous watchfulness over every aspect of health to make sure nothing slipped.

At last, faced with the certainty that we would either adopt or try IVF, we decided to do both. On the IVF end, we researched clinics heavily. From a short list of centers, CRH was second on our short list, and we stopped there. That might seem like making a snap decision, but it wasn't. Our list had only contained clinics with a good track record. What set CRH apart was heart. The first clinic we had visited certainly treated us professionally, but it seemed as if we were just one of many patients in a long, long queue. Having been ground down by failure, it was a big relief to talk to people who were warm and interested. Dr. Vasquez was genuinely concerned and dedicated to helping us succeed.

We did get to know a group of warm, friendly people. Going through IVF is emotional. If you're like us, you perceive each part of the treatment as terrifically important. Because IVF involves starting a family with laboratory help, you must consider your beliefs. Then there is the financial factor. To top everything, we had to add an hours' long car trip to each clinic visit. I don't know if we would have responded so well to meeting all our appointments, to taking medications right on time, to surmounting nervousness, if we didn't know that when we walked in the clinic door in the morning, we'd be getting ready to talk to friends as well as to be treated.

It took three tries for our twins. The process is step-by-step and because timing is critical to success, we followed our treatment plan to the letter each time. Faith that something would work out at last, and good friends to talk to, helped us deal with the inevitable worrying. Last but not least, I had tried to become as fit as possible to help my body be at its best for having children.

At the beginning of this piece I said that women with chronic illness who have children are no longer magazine-extraordinary. I look at what we did to help bring the two little boys into the world who are now grunting and cooing in their sleep in the bedroom next door. They are all ordinary things: exercising, planning, following doctor's orders. Thankfully, with the help of Dr. Vasquez and his qualified staff, a dream came true for us! On May 31, 2007, Christopher and Noah were born! They are truly extraordinary gifts!

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