Our Greatest Adventure Yet

Much like my sister, I have been writing pregnancy blogs every week and I'm finally going to release them! I'll try to release 1-2 everyday this week so we can get caught up to real time.

Warning – this post is filled with things that some people may consider TMI. Read on at your own risk. :)

If you really want to start at the beginning, then we’re going to have to go back to May 2012…that’s right, May. Husbandy and I were going on a trip to New Zealand and I really wanted a kiwi baby. It was actually perfect timing because I was fertile. But, when it came down to it, Husbandy and I weren’t quite ready to commit to a baby. We had just bought a house and moved back into the same city, so we figured we should get control of that before we were responsible for the life of a child. So, although I chanted “kiwi baby, kiwi baby” a lot while in NZ, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

June: During this month I got very suspicious that my sister and Jason were pregnant! I didn’t know for sure, but there were a few things that went on that made me think that it just had to be true. I told Husbandy about my suspicions and said if they tell us they’re pregnant, we are going to start trying! Of course I’ve said things like this before….like when 90% of GND was preggo…or when my two best friends from work both got pregnant at the same time…it’s the follow through part that always got me.

July: On July 3rd my suspicions of Bec and Jason were confirmed! Husbandy and I were so so so excited, but it also started serious discussions. We knew I had just been fertile, so there was about a month before we could even start trying. Wow…this discernment process was hard! I think I changed my mind every hour. At one moment I would think, yes, we have wanted kids for a long time it’s time to start trying…then I would think are we really ready to take this step? Are we just thinking we should because being pregnant at the same time as my sister sounds fun? We talked about it constantly. While driving in the car to go see a movie one night, I told Husbandy I finally made up my mind and he said he did to. Awesome! We both made a decision that day, and felt comfortable. Well, wouldn’t you know it, my decision was to wait and Husbandy’s was to go for it. Humph. It would have been so much easier if we were on the same page. So, the discernment continued. Then, one Sunday before Mass we were talking with Fr. Paul and he said, “don’t be afraid to say yes to God’s call.” Who could have said it better? After that, Husbandy and I were ready to answer the call to parenthood.

So, in July we started to try. After we tried, I had no idea what I should feel like, but I could definitely tell that something was different. The two weeks in between being fertile and starting a new cycle were so. long. I just wanted to know!!! As it turns out, one Saturday morning I found out we weren’t pregnant. I woke up Husbandy and told him the news. We were both sad, didn’t really know what to say, so we held hands and laid in bed.

 August: We tried again in August. I still obviously had no idea what being pregnant felt like, but I didn’t “feel pregnant” like I did before. Husbandy and I felt like maybe that was good since we weren’t pregnant last month. Again the two weeks dragged on and on. But, soon enough we knew we weren’t pregnant. This month I took it pretty hard. I just didn’t understand why we weren’t getting pregnant. I know, I know...some of you may be thinking two months is nothing. I personally know several couples who tried for years! But I also know people who achieved on the first try. For some reason I figured I just had to fall in that category.

While thinking about our situation one day in the car it hit me that getting pregnant is hard! There is such a small period of time a woman is fertile and conditions within the body have to be perfect for an egg to be fertilized. These things confirmed what I already thought was true, no baby is a “mistake.” How could something that needed such perfect conditions be a mistake? God’s timing is perfect in every situation. This realization really kept me positive.

September – October: At the end of September I got sick. I’m not sure if it was this, or the fact that I had started a new job at work and was a little stressed, but my cycle was long. This is why NFP is so great. If Husbandy and I were under the assumption that a woman’s period comes, 2 weeks later she’s fertile, and in about another 2 weeks her cycle will start over…Husbandy and I would have completely missed fertility. Since things were pushed back a bit, we ended up trying at the beginning of October. I’ve said it twice, but I’ll say it again, the next two weeks could not go fast enough. Over the course of the next two weeks though, I noticed my right eye had a twitch. For the first few days, I thought I was just tired…but it was NOT going away. I thought it was crazy how much my eye was twitching! I even mentioned it to Husbandy and a couple girls at work. I thought I was going crazy, so one day I googled “could eye twitching be a sign of pregnancy.” Turns out there are a lot of women that experience this! YEA! This made me happy for two reasons. 1) I’m not crazy 2) Maybe I’m pregnant!! From then one it actually made me kinda happy every time my eye twitched.

Two weeks finally ended and my temperature was still high… (Husbandy and I practice the sympto-thermal method of NFP. The “thermal” part of this method comes from me taking my temperature at the same time every morning. Before ovulation your basal body temperature will drop and quickly after, it rises because of the release of progesterone. The body is really quite amazing in the way it works! I could write a whole post about it and why you really don’t need to take birth control which messes with natural hormones.) …which is a sign of pregnancy! Every morning when I saw my temperature was high I was relieved. But then I thought, what if it’s high because I wake up before it’s time to take my temperature and my heart rate increases which causes my temp to rise? At any rate, I decided to take a pregnancy test on Sunday October 21. The thought of knowing I was carrying a child before going to Mass got me real excited. At this point I was on cycle day 40, my cycles are usually 30 days, so I just knew I was pregnant. That morning I sprung out of bed, only to discover we had no pregnancy tests!! I was so sad, but we were sure to go to the store later that day. On October 22nd I woke up ready, took the test, and it was positive!!! Best news ever! I think Husbandy and I had a hop in our step for the rest of the day. :)

 A few weeks before I had scheduled a yearly well woman’s exam as it’s required (or a physical) by my job for October 23rd. Can we say perfect timing?! I walked in and my doc says…well you were scheduled for a well woman’s, but you’re pregnant! Music to my ears! We went about the appointment and he told me lots of fun things about pregnancy. He was surprised by the fact I was on day 42 of my cycle. Most of the time, how many weeks a long a woman is is determined by the date her last period started. If that was the case, I was 6 weeks! Dr B didn’t think this was the case, so he said my weekly progress would have to be determined by a sono….which was scheduled for November 5th! A sonogram! For me and Husbandy!

I learned lots of interesting things at the first appointment. Dr B told me he thinks I can deliver a 8 lbs baby. I was only 6…not sure about Husbandy…but hopefully he wasn’t huge. He also felt baby and he thought he/she was a good size.

And that’s the beginning of our journey. Husbandy and I could not be more excited.