An Update

Well hi there! This blog has been neglected for the past couple of months. I'll get to that.

The last 2 posts were so cathartic for both Michael and I because we'd felt like what we were going through with our struggle to get pregnant over the last 2 years was this secret thing that only our family and closest friends knew about. Infertility is something that affects so many people, and yet no one knows about it because no one speaks up. So it felt really good to talk about it, even just in this little space, in our little tucked away corner of the internet. The response we received from those postings was incredible, and helped us not feel alone in our journey.

What we didn't expect was that our journey was about to take a sharp turn. Because the day after Michael posted his blog here, we found out I was pregnant.

Talk about being shocked. I think I still am, truthfully. I was convinced we would someday get pregnant, don't get me wrong, but I was also convinced it would not happen without medical intervention of some kind. I had made an appointment with my obgyn for April 24th to discuss next steps and fertility treatments. We had a plan, and we felt hopeful about that plan.

God had a different plan. On Sunday, March 10th, I took a pregnancy test before going to church. It was negative. That day EastLake showed my sweet friend Pam's story about her trials with miscarriage. I lost it. In hindsight I'm sure it was the beginning of pregnancy hormones, but at the time I was sad for her losses, sad for me, angry at the world, and stayed in bed the rest of the day. 

By Tuesday, the day after Michael wrote his blog, my medication that is supposed to help regulate my periods wasn't doing its job. Fantastic. I decided to torture myself further and take another pregnancy test. If anyone out there has tried to conceive for longer than a few months, you may be familiar with "wondfos". They are cheapo paper strips you can buy in bulk to save money. So I took one of those out, tested, and set it on the counter. You are supposed to wait 5 minutes to read the results. But after a couple of minutes, nothing was happening, like always, so I left and went back to the living room. And so the strip sat there for a couple of hours. Until Michael came home from school.

The look on his face when he came back into the living room is one I'll never forget. He told me he thought he saw something. I looked at it-there was a faint line, but I assured him it was just an evaporation line-you can't read those tests after a few minutes because they become invalid. But something was gnawing at me. Over the past 2 years I have taken my fair share of those tests. I have never had an evaporation line appear, not ever. So I suggested he perhaps go get a digital test just "to see". Michael probably broke some traffic laws getting to Walgreens and back.

A few minutes later there was a word staring back at us that we had hoped to see for so long: pregnant. There's really no other way to put it other than this: miracle.

I think for the most part we've gotten used to the idea (although it's still bizarre to me that there's a person kicking around in there) and we're very excited that this is happening. We had our 12 week check up yesterday and everything seems to be going well so far. Baby Rowland was so active when we got the camera on him/her! He/she was bouncing, kicking, and even waved at one point. A cheese ball for the camera...definitely its father's daughter/son. Haha.

The due date is November 19th, so I'm in my 12th week now. So far the majority of the first trimester has been...not as awful as I'm sure some women have it, and for that I'm grateful. I haven't actually thrown up at all (knocks on wood) although nausea grabbed hold early on. Thank God for modern medicine. I dry heave every morning but after that and my pill, I do okay. The biggest challenge has been the fatigue. I knew pregnancy made women tired but I wasn't prepared for the magnitude of what pregnancy fatigue really means. I can't wait to have energy again!! Planning meals has been a little difficult because nothing sounds good except bread. Me and carbs=bff.

Now that we're almost out of the first trimester and "outed" ourselves, I'll post more regularly about how I'm doing, appointments, etc. Belly shots probably won't happen until a bit later. Right now I can see a change in my lower abdomen but I don't think anyone else would. So I'm not taking a picture of that. ;) But hopefully this will be a fun way to document the remainder of the pregnancy.

So yeah, not too much over the past couple of months, just a switch to full time (and daytime, yessssss!) hours at the hospital, getting ready for the launch of summer groups at EastLake, and growing a small human. Oh, and we decided to move to a bigger place in July. Room for a nursery and guest bedroom, so come visit. I hear the neighbors are pretty cool.