The road that we have recently traveled down seems like such a short road to both Chris and I. After all of the medical visits, medications, talks of IVF and surgeries, these past 7 months have been a “walk in the park” for us. The latest journey all began when Miles was born, February 2010. Knowing what we went through to be blessed with Miles, we decided that we would not make any attempts to prevent a pregnancy. Also that we would never take medical steps to again achieve a pregnancy, after all, we were blessed with a miracle once and the luckiest two people in the world to have such a wonderful son… Who could ask for anything more?
That plan never really changed, but there certainly were too many times to count that Chris and I talked about wanting another baby. I am not exactly sure when the conversations started, but I remember them beginning somewhere around Miles 8 or 9 month birthday. At that time I was still nursing Miles, so I was highly unlikely to get pregnant, so we both tabled the conversation until it was "possible." Not too long after this, January 2011 rolled around and my hormones were beginning to normalize again. For any normal woman, I would be able to get pregnant again, so we had the conversation again. After what I thought would be a lengthy conversation, was quite short with the outcome of what will happen will happen.
It wasn’t long and yep, we were pregnant on the first try. Unfortunately, history was repeating itself and I ended up with a very early miscarriage in mid-February 2011. As saddened as we were, this was very exciting to the both of us, as maybe, just maybe being pregnant with Miles had “normalized” me. We had been told this was a possibility, but knowing our history, neither of us had held our breath for this. At least having gotten pregnant on our own, maybe I was “normal” now.
As we began to heal from the loss, all hopes of normalcy began to go out the window as I once again fell into my normal patterns of irregularity of up to 68 days between cycles at one point. We both just continued on the path “Whatever Happens will Happen,” making all attempts not to think about both of our desires for Miles to have a little brother or sister.
July came around as a normal month, and everything seemed to be going as irregular as normal. Chris and I went on Caldwell family vacation in late July and then went to Galtinburg with Nana and Pop in early August. It was a busy time of travel for us. We were both not putting a lot of thought into the cycle due to all the travel, and had felt we had missed our window of opportunity, so returned home from our travels without thinking anything about the fact that I was getting more and more tired by the day… After all, who gets a lot of sleep on vacation with a 17 month old who does not want to stick to his sleep schedule?
Nana and Pop came home from Gatlinburg with us to watch Miles for two weeks, so Chris and I continued not to think about having another baby at the time. Once we were back in Baltimore, Chris and I went to work as normal.
Wednesday night, I did not sleep at all because I had to get up to use the bathroom twice, which also meant that Chris didn’t sleep either. Thursday I was SO tired in the morning, of course… I didn’t sleep the night before right? As I was getting ready for work, I realized that I was losing a lot of hair when I was brushing my hair… Hum. That afternoon, I swear to you I fell asleep at my computer at one point, as Julie, my boss popped her head in to tell me something and I was completely disoriented for a few seconds (let’s hope she didn’t know!) After making it through a very sleepy day, I ended up going to bed at 10, even thought I wanted to go to bed at 7. I slept great from 10 to midnight, however after that I was awake because I had to go to the bathroom again… REALLY? At this point I was awake enough to roll over and look at my fertility friend app on my I-Phone. It was cycle day 41, hum… Maybe just maybe. I decided I had better not go to the bathroom, as I was going to take a pregnancy test in the morning, so I needed to "save up." After a very long and sleepless night, Friday morning rolled around and it was finally time to test… YEP, WE ARE PREGNANT!
Because I can’t keep things to myself for even 20 minutes, I ran out and began snuggling with Chris who was very, very much asleep. I was so excited that I was shivering a little bit. Poor Chris wakes up worried that something is the matter. I told him “nothing is the matter… I am pregnant.” I may have received the blankest stare I have ever received in my life! Then came all the questions are you sure, blah blah blah (I don’t really remember as I was so excited!) After a few tears, I went running into the bathroom to show the evidence to Chris. His response with a BIG smiles, "there sure are two lines!"
Now, this was a great start to a Friday morning is you ask me! While we were getting ready for work, we both tried very hard not to talk about it after what we have been through with the loss of Baby B and this past February. Chris did however admit to me that he thought something was up when I woke up multiple times Wednesday night to go to the bathroom. I guess it was not a complete surprise to him.
We went to work as normal and I called Dr. Allen to get a blood drawl to confirm the pregnancy. By 9:30, I had a script and was heading over to the OP center to have my HCG test performed. A little nervous and neurotic, I checked the computer documentation system at work every half hour until the results of 61 mIU/mL appeared. It is official WE ARE PREGNANT! A few seconds after it all sunk in, I faxed over the results to Dr. Allen’s office. Dr. Allen’s office called Friday afternoon to let me know that the HCG number was either a little low for what would be expected for the time frame or that we just found out we were pregnant very early on, so not to be concerned. Just to be safe, they send me a script to have another blood drawl to complet on Monday to see where things were at that point. Knowing that I have a longer cycle, I was not concerned at all, but this was not very comforting to Chris.
