Certified Babymakers: Peyton & Christopher

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For anyone meeting you for the first time - tell us a little about you both?

Christopher: I'm Christopher, 28 and an attorney in my third year of practice.

Peyton:  And I'm Peyton, 26, a Pre-K teacher.  We first met in college when we were on the swim team together and started dating.  We spent a few years doing long-distance while Christopher was in Law School and I was finishing up my undergraduate degree.

Christopher:  We then both moved to Houston, where we got engaged and then married.

Take us back to the start - what has your babymaking journey looked like for you both?

Christopher: I grew up in a large family of seven and has always dreamed of having children of my own. After watching my sisters bless us with nephew and nieces (and another one on the way), I was eager to start my own family.

Peyton: And I have two nephews who I adore and cherish as part of our family. We both knew we wanted to have kids at some point after getting married, but we just didn’t know when. After a lot of prayer and consideration, we began our journey to try for our first.

Christopher: I told my sister, OVA co-founder, Katherine about our decision and she stocked us up with OVAHim and OVAHer, which we began taking right away. And happily, after only a couple of months, we found out that Peyton was pregnant with our baby girl. Since then, we have just been taking the process one day at a time.

Looking back, were there any small or simple changes that ended up making a big difference for each of you?

Christopher: Although we had seen our siblings have successful pregnancies before we began trying for our own, we were both fairly naive about the process. We were both aware that there was no certainty in our attempts to get pregnant, but yet we still felt a bit discouraged after our first month when we found out Peyton was not pregnant.

Peyton: At that point, we decided we were just going to try and be more thoughtful and deliberate about the process, making sure to check the calendar, pay attention to our stress and diet, take our OVA vitamins regularly, pray regularly, and above all, we were going to remain positive with ourselves and each other.

Christopher: We realise that our pregnancy occurred much faster than others, we genuinely felt that the steps we gave ourselves would have helped us in the event that the pregnancy didn’t occur so quickly, and we know that going forward in our future attempts, we have a foundation that will work for us. 

Peyton: While we only took OVA for a couple of months prior to getting pregnant, we felt so much more confident about our chances knowing that we were giving ourselves the best vitamins that our bodies needed.  It really helped to take away some of the stress that could have make conceiving more challenging.

Not everything is serious all the time - were there any moments of joy and positivity, laughter, or surprises along the way? 

Peyton: Because our path was short, we were really blessed and lucky to avoid a lot of the stress and sadness that can come with TTC.  We were able to laugh at ourselves when we thought that any small health change or new feeling might be a pregnancy, when in reality it wasn't. 

Trying to conceive can easily take over… how did you each find balance and still make space for “normal life” and each other?

Christopher: We really made an attempt to not focus on the results as much as we did the process. We knew that so many factors involved with getting pregnant were out of our hands. We felt strongly about the fact that if we let this process become such a focus  so early on, we would start to lose sight of the things that we loved about each other and the things we loved to do together. 

How has this experience changed the way you think about becoming parents or the kind of parents you want to be?

Christopher: It was not until we started seeing the ultra sounds on a more regular basis and finding out we were having a girl that we actually had that moment of “Wow we are actually going to be parents."

Peyton: We have such great examples in not only our parents, but our siblings who have become amazing parents in their own right. At the end of the day, we know that we have a community of family and friends we can turn to for support and we know that we will never be the only ones who have our daughter’s best interest at heart. 

If you could sit down with someone who’s just starting out - or who’s finding it really hard - what’s the one thing you’d want them to know?

Peyton: Knowing that there are so many others out there who might be struggling with a prolonged process, we would never be so naive as to try and give anyone advice on how to deal with that. But what we do say is that make the most of this time together. You will learn so much about your partner while you try and take on this seemingly unattainable challenge, and the fruits of those efforts are more rewarding than anything we could ever imagine.

Christopher: We would also strongly recommend OVA for both him and her, because knowing that you are providing your body with everything it needs to get an upper hand in this challenge provided us with such relief.

Peyton: And knowing that there is a such a large community who are there for support and prayer on this journey, we want people know that we are always praying for y’all.