Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Life Change

Something that has been weighing heavily on my heart lately...Pregnancy and fertility. I have a story to tell that I haven't told many people. I know there are people out there going through similar things that I have so hopefully, I can help someone else...at least to know that there is hope!

Evan and I have always taken the mind set that we will not TRY to get pregnant. There is just something stressful about trying to get knocked up that did not appeal to me. I watched several friends go through it and decided it was just not something I wanted for our relationship. I was, however, worried that we might not have an option...

And so our story begins.

Ever since I was younger, dreaming about my future life, dreams, ideals, and goals, I was worried that I would have trouble getting pregnant. I have no idea how, why, or when I developed this fear, but I did. I suspect it was around the same time I had a friend whose sister just found out she had scarring on her fallopian tubes...or maybe it was when a dear friend of mine found out she had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. Hypochondriac me found myself to have a lot of the same symptoms. So I began to worry. I wasn't stressing myself out or anything, it was just always at the back of my mind that when I wanted to be pregnant, I would probably be infertile. For some reason, I was at peace with this. I knew that if we found out that was the case, we would adopt and we would be perfectly fine. Not having children has never been an option for us.

Fast forward to where life start for Evan and me....

Evan and I got married and I decided I hated birth control after about a month of taking it. I stopped taking it and we decided to place things in God's hands. I read up on Natural Family Planning as a way to prevent pregnancy and followed it...kinda. :) I'm just not very good at routine! We always said that "if it's God's plan for us, it will happen whether we are trying to prevent or not..." so, we just quit worrying about it! After about 2.5 of absolutely no oopsies, I really began to worry that my fears from before were really true. I was afraid that I was infertile. But still, I wasn't all too concerned. Life was not in the right time for us to be bringing a child in to the world anyway. I quit my job at the school, I was on my parent's insurance...It just wasn't the right time.

In the summer of 2012 Brenna (my middle sister) moved to Washington. She and I drove out there together and had an AWESOME road trip. I wasn't worried about anything, not even my period....until I got home and realized that Aunt Flow never showed up. I happened to be reading 50 Shades of Grey at the time and (**SPOILER ALERT** Skip the next line if you haven't read the book!) she just found out she was pregnant.

Something inside me stirred and I just knew I needed to take a test. We were on our way home from buying our new grill at Sam's in Decatur so, we stopped at Walmart and picked up a test and rushed home. I took it that night while Evan was in the garage putting his new grill together. It almost immediately had two lines show up. My heart dropped and started racing at the same time. I was feeling so many emotions. Panic because I didn't really have a job or insurance, but excitement because I WASN'T infertile!!! I immediately rushed outside and showed Evan! He was in shock I think.... :)

I called the next day to set up an appointment with the doctor. They couldn't get me in for a few weeks so I just had to wait around. Of course. That's the last thing you want to do what you're newly expecting! I finally got it for an ultra sound and of course, they had trouble. They tried and tried to find the little one. At this point, the doctor looked at us and said, I'm not seeing a baby. This could mean one of two things, there is no baby or you just aren't far enough along yet. They could see the sack, but not a baby. I wasn't worried about it though! I knew God would take care of me. They scheduled us to come back in a week and check things out again. That was a long week. I tried so hard not to read on the internet, but I still did a little! I found some really positive things about people who had the same issue and went on to have very healthy pregnancies. I remained optimistic. We went in for our next appointment where they tried the in office ultrasound again and again, they couldn't find anything. At this point, they told us it was probably not good. They sent us downstairs to the high tech lab to confirm what they were seeing. When the doctor came in to talk to us, she said the news was grim. There was no baby to be found, only a sack. We were devastated. She told us that I would probably have a miscarriage in the next week or we could schedule a D&C. We scheduled the D&C (reluctantly but she told us that it would be best and when I did miscarry, I would end up having to have one anyway). I had read online that some women have been told the same things and don't schedule the D&C and end up getting an ultrasound a few weeks later and find the baby....I didn't want that to happen to me so I scheduled it out a few days. We told our friends and family what was going on but I specifically asked that people not feel sorry for me. I didn't want that. I don't want people to pitty me because of something out of my control. Pitty and people saying "I'm so so sorry" make it harder to deal with.

The night before my surgery, I couldn't eat or drink anything. I went to bed like normal but woke up in severe pain around 2:00am. I was having a miscarriage. It was the most excruciating two hours of my life. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. :( We headed to the hospital a few hours later and I had my scheduled D&C. Again, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy...

It was a tough time but we made it through. I was sad, yes, but I was not devastated. I chose to look at it as God's way of saying, in time, this CAN happen. This just isn't the right time. After this, I stopped worrying about it. I stopped thinking about it. I just chose to live my life.

2013 came along and was a HUGE year for us! We decided to move to TEXAS! It must've been the right thing because, well, here we are!  Everything worked out so smoothly. We both got jobs, health insurance, bought a house, etc. Life couldn't be any better....Until February 3, 2014. We got a big FAT positive on a home pregnancy test! :-D I called the DR right away since we had issues in the past and they got me in almost immediately. The doctor confirmed the pregnancy and scheduled an ultrasound for 8 weeks.

Baby Shamus, as my mom has named him/her. haha.


Welp, here we are...starting week 12. :) Things are looking pretty good, and I'm feeling tired and sick. Life is good. :-D
Due October 15, 2014
 I'm not going to "Make it Facebook Official" so, if all ya'll baby stalkers want info, you're going to have to come to my blog to get it! :) 



I'm hoping to post about having a baby on a budget (I promise it is possible, you don't need all the crap that Babies-R-Us makes you think you need!) or at least how we manage with a baby on a budget. As well as talk about how we plan to work and manage child care. I will blog about getting ready for baby, cloth diapering, making my own baby food, etc.Of course, these are all hopes and dreams and aspirations....We'll see how much blogging I actually get done. I would like to grow and build my blog so I can work from home! How awesome would that be?! ;)

Peace out ya'll...

xoxox
Michala