Pregnancy: Part 1, finding out

I have been wanting to blog about how I found out that I was pregnant for a long time now. 18 weeks to be exact. When my daughter is pregnant, I want her to be able to know how she came to be, what I went through during pregnancy and birth, and what my experiences were. I ask my mom questions about how hot were the summers really? Were you really sick? And her response is always, "It wasn't that bad." I know this is her answer because she is an angel. The most precious women you will ever meet. Even if she was in the hospital being terrorized by my fetus she would still say, "It wasn't that bad." Although, that could be attributed to what I pray is true, that after you give birth you forget all of the pains of pregnancy and delivery. Oh, how I hope that is true.

The details are already starting to get fuzzy so I figured it is finally time. I'm not sure why I put it off for so long. Even though I don't really believe in the sort of thing, I think all along I have been so afraid that writing about the pregnancy would curse it in some way. I did not have any problem telling people I was pregnant, because I knew this pregnancy was meant to be and anything that happened was also a part of a greater plan. For some reason though, writing it down was different. More permanent maybe?

TC and I tried to get pregnant for a year and a half, with a pregnancy and miscarriage in there. Trying to get pregnant after the miscarriage proved to be harder than I thought. It became especially hard over last summer when the people who got pregnant after I did started having their babies. My estimated due date came and that was very difficult for me. I'm not sure why, but I was an emotional wreck the week leading up to that day. I think it was a lot of, "what should have been" thinking that really got me down. Then, the people who got pregnant around the same time I did who also miscarried had already gotten pregnant again and started having their babies, and I got even more sad. Every month with no positive result was a huge disappointment. It didn't help any that my periods were getting further and further apart, so every month I would get my hopes up. I would think that I had missed my period, I would buy no less than 5 home pregnancy tests, and the results were always the same. Not my time.

In August, I saw my general practitioner who also does my well woman visits and she told me just what I didn't want to hear. We hadn't tried long enough, I was still young, and to give it more time. TC and I had made the decision that if we weren't pregnant by the end of the year we would see the OB to find out if something was wrong, and if we needed to take more drastic measures.

In October, I went on a spiritual retreat that was very moving. I felt like this was a huge refresher that I needed in my life. I was going down a slippery slope of sadness and resentment that I did not want to be a part of my life and this renewal gave me just the reminder that I needed. That there is a plan, and that everything happens for a reason.

In November, we bought our first house. It was a stressful but very exciting time. I had so many people tell me that now I was going to get pregnant, because now I had somewhere for the baby. I heard this so often, in fact, that I considered slapping the next person who said this to me. If the house was all we needed then why didn't I get pregnant when we closed? The month we moved in? I needed people to stop telling me now was my time because it wasn't.

So, come December I made the appointment we said we would make. I did not want to go. I did not want to find out that something was wrong with me. Sure enough, after blood tests and exams I found out that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) that can cause a lot of the symptoms I had been having. The doctor told me I was probably not going to get pregnant on my own.

Ever since my retreat, TC and I had been praying the rosary almost daily and in general praying much more with each other. I was going to mass two or three times a week, and at least once a week would sit in Adoration, a place in the Catholic church you can get some quiet prayer time in front of Christ. I always loved this time, as anyone would love an hour spent by themselves in quiet thought and meditation. Some time during my retreat I learned that one of the witness's mother had asked St Ann for a daughter, and a daughter they got. I learned that St Ann was Mary's mother (I know, it is probably sad that I didn't know that) and was one of the patron saints of conceiving. Every time TC and I would pray together, I would ask St Ann to pray for us. Nothing else. I wasn't asking to be pregnant, I wasn't asking for anything, just, "Please, pray for us."

One day, about a week after the doctor had given me my options for what to do about my infertility, I was sitting in Adoration with TC. Typically when I pray it is prayers of thanksgiving and supplication. This time, for the first time ever I told God, "I'm listening, if there is anything you need to tell me." I heard, as clear as day, "You're pregnant." I know it seems like at that time pregnancy would be on my mind all the time, as it is when you are trying to get pregnant, but I had just had my period so it really wasn't on my mind at all. It wasn't time for it to be on my mind yet. My first thought was, obviously I just made that up in my head. God doesn't say those kinds of things to people. Then I sat there in quiet again, "You're pregnant." Clear as anything that is clear.

I told TC about it when we left, explaining to him that I know how crazy this sounds, and I know it sounds like something I would just make up to hear in my head, but it was not something I was thinking about at all.

It took me about a week to build up the courage to test. I was so afraid that I was crazy and getting negative results would just prove that. The first test I took had a line on it, but it was so faint it was only like you could tell there should be a line there. The second test I took had pretty much the same result, the third was the same but just barely a little darker. The fourth test: two lines, two distinct lines. No doubt, no question, I was pregnant.

Travis and I had already exchanged Christmas presents at this point but I ran into the bedroom, jumped into bed and told him I had another present to give him. He was going to be a daddy. Unlike the first time when I found I was pregnant, when his response was "Oh Crap! What have we done," he got the biggest smile across his face and gave me a huge tackle hug. It had finally happened.

I immediately called the doctor and got blood work taken to confirm and make sure everything was okay. I cancelled my appointment to get my infertility medicine, and scheduled my first prenatal appointment. After doing some checking on the internet, I found out that when I tested I was barely pregnant, only three weeks. That means that when I heard that I was pregnant I was just in the process of having an embryo implanted. Technically, according to my cycle, none of this should have been possible. It was too early in the cycle. But nothing is impossible with God. We have a little miracle baby growing to prove it.