It has just hit me today that I am six months pregnant. Six months that Lily has been with me and only a few short months til she makes her debut! Our journey to parenthood hasn't been the typical one to say the least. For those of you who don't know our story here it goes.
In 2008 we decided to give the whole parenthood thing a shot. We were approaching 9 years of marriage and had made a pact from the beginning of our marriage that when we made it to 10 years of marriage we would then think about having a child. I wasn't even sure I wanted children nor was Brad. Brad actually got the "baby bug" before me. He wanted to talk about it one evening and so we did and we decided that we would indeed go off the Pill and see what happened. We were pregnant within 3 months. We were both excited and nervous and full of anticipation. But it wasn't to be, I suffered a miscarriage during my 6th week of pregnancy. Looking back now it was quite devastating, I didn't want to think it was at the time. I was depressed but didn't realize it until I came out of it. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through. After a couple months when things didn't "jump start" back to normal like the doctor said it would, I started to get worried. My doctor assured me it was nothing a few hormones couldn't take care of, so I started taking hormones to get things going once again. After 3 months of hormones and nothing I was really worried, again the doctor reassured me it was nothing and I would be fine. Finally in the 4th month of hormones something had "jump started" me up again, only to go away again after a couple months. Another round of hormones and another month and I was okay again. This went on for several more months, off and on, off and on. By this time we were sure we wanted a child and this obstacle was very frustrating. A year after my miscarriage and still my body wasn't back to normal, not to mention negative pregnancy test after negative pregnancy test, we were VERY frustrated to say the least. My doctor wasn't as aggressive as I would have liked him to be so I asked to meet with him. I did and he told me I was being too eager. WTF? Too eager? a YEAR after a miscarriage and still nothing is NOT too eager in my non-medical opinion. He insisted I take another round of hormones, I insisted I thought I may be pregnant even though the standard urine test was showing up negative. I begged for a blood test, he would not give in, told me I wasn't pregnant, sent me home with yet another hormone prescription and come back to see him in 3 months. I wasn't having it. I didn't get the script filled, I wanted a second opinion. The next day I called another doctor and asked to make an appointment for some "fertility issues". I went in and met with him, he wanted to look at every avenue of what might be going on with me. I hearted him from the beginning, now THIS is the approach I was looking for. He scheduled a tour of my tubes via ultrasound for the day before Thanksgiving. I was anxious and hopeful everything would be okay. I arrived for my tube tour, nervously went back with the ultrasound tech to proceed. And proceed we did, within 10 minutes she told me what I had suspected all along, I was indeed expecting and there was a heartbeat! I cried, she cried, we all cried. I have never, ever experienced a feeling like that in my entire life. So my little Thanksgiving miracle was definitely meant to be. I have no doubt Lily is the baby we have waited for and we could not be happier. A happy, healthy pregnancy and baby is all we want, and so far we have been blessed. We've had a few scares along the way, but they've turned out to be just scares and nothing else.
I don't define my spirituality by religion. I believe in God and Jesus, I believe Jesus loves me, I believe he loves everyone, I don't think he discriminates in his love and I believe he wants everyone to love and be loved no matter race, sexual orientation, etc. I have never felt his love more than I have these past 6 months. Brad and I are truly blessed, we have had some tough times and I'm sure there are more to come, but we are very thankful for this blessing and what it means to us. So, as our journey begins we could not be more excited, nervous, happy, all rolled into one!
