Finding out

This is the part of our pregnancy journey that originally I said I'd never blog about.  I'm really not proud of how this went down.  But, in retrospect, from the much better place I'm in now, I feel like it's still part of the story and I really do want to remember the good and the bad.  And who knows, by sharing this, maybe I'll give someone else who may find themselves in my shoes someday a little bit of hope.  And if by chance my son ever sees this someday, I'm guessing by the time he's old enough to be reading he'll already know what a crazy, emotional lunatic his mom can be sometimes!  So here we go.

So you know on TV and in the movies there is usually this sweet scene between the husband and the wife when the wife says "honey I'm pregnant" and the husband is like "really?" And they cry and hug?  Heh.  Right.  I had brainstormed some ideas of how I would tell Nate and I wanted to surprise him and make it be special when it actually happened, but I also didn't think super hard about it because we still weren't truly "trying" all that hard so I figured I had some more time.

As I've shared we pretty much traced the, um, conception back to our anniversary.  Most women should get a positive pregnancy test about two weeks after said conception.  I had no clue for more like three weeks.  Looking back, there were tiny, little things that maybe should have been a hint that something was up, but at the same time, they could be written off as other things too.  For example, I had taken a few days off around Easter since I always have extra time to use - and one of the days I could not drag myself out of bed to save my life.  I also found myself getting hungrier than normal - and in fact after I knew I was pregnant it got rather extreme, something I later found out is actually another type of morning sickness believe it or not.  There was one night that Nate and I were having a small glass of scotch with some chocolate, and I normally really enjoy this particular type of scotch, but I was like "this tastes really off tonight, what is up with that?"  And finally, I was super overally emotional, but figured I was heading towards that time of the month and well, that's a common occurrence around that time!

So what convinced me that there was something different? Many early pregnancy symptoms and monthly female visitor symptoms are SO similar.  But the week leading up to when I finally took the test, while I keep feeling like that visitor was going to make her appearance, something did feel different.  I was crampy, but not in the same spot.  My whole lower half just felt kind of heavy.  It's really hard to explain, but it wasn't quite the same as what I usually felt.  And as the days progressed with no sign of Aunt Flo I started thinking maybe something wasn't quite right - but I was in some denial.  The night before I finally took the test was when Nate and I went to see Wits and I definitely had some beer that night.  I hadn't said anything to Nate yet, but even he says now when we look back, he could tell I was on edge that entire week.  I finally in my own head set the Sunday of that weekend as my deadline - if I didn't have my period by then, I'd take the pregnancy test.

But that Saturday I started really getting freaked out.  Nate was helping his parents shop for a computer and then they took him to lunch.  I remember that while he was gone, I made myself some lunch and decided to have a beer - not uncommon for me to do in those pre-pregnancy days.  I agonized over what beer to have as we had quite the assortment at that time and I think it's because somehow I knew that was the last beer I would have for a long time (if you're a beer nerd I chose Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye IPA by the way, I took a picture of the bottle later on).  And let me tell you, I nursed that sucker.  I was barely through half of it when Nate got home.  He was going to do our taxes but before he sat down to do that, I finally told him I was worried about the fact that I still hadn't seen my monthly friend.  He asked if I'd taken a pregnancy test yet and I said no.  So he's like "Just take one, you'll feel better if you know."  I'm sure he thought there was just no way and that I was being irrational - especially since we'd had previous "scares" before that obviously turned out to be nothing.  I finally gave in, drank a ton of water and took the test.  And again, somehow I must have had more intuition than I thought, the entire five minutes I was waiting for the results I was completely shaking.  It was so weird.  Nate just set about doing our taxes like nothing was out of the ordinary.  The timer went off and I went to look.

Two. Pink. Lines.

I stared in disbelief for about 20 seconds.  Grabbed the test and went with shaking hands to Nate and said "um, I think we're going to have a baby"  And he said "really?"  And then I choked out "Oh my god" and immediately started sobbing.  Uncontrollable, I can't stand up, gut wrenching sobs.  I barely remember somehow ending up on the couch in the living room and Nate trying to tell me it would be ok.  I hate admitting all of this.  It was not pretty.  He convinced me we should pick up a digital test since the one we had was one of those cheapy guys.  We wanted to confirm it for certain.  So we stumbled to the drug store, bought one, headed home, lather, rinse, repeat as far as the testing went.  The result was immediate.  By now  I wasn't crying, but I went into a bit of a state of shock.  We both spent a lot of time in a complete daze the rest of that weekend I think.  Somehow Nate finished our taxes.  Somehow we went to have dinner with his parents and Ali and her boyfriend and even faked me drinking a margarita in front of them so they wouldn't know anything was up.  And I do remember going to bed that night and sleeping a very long time into the next day.  I'd love to say I woke up with a clearer head and immediately was excited but it wasn't quite like that.  It took time.  I think I spent a lot more time crying in those first couple of weeks than not.  So now you're wondering, when did I turn the corner and how the heck did I come out of it?

Well that's easy - you see that first sonogram and there is just nothing like it.  God bless modern technology, I'm not joking.  As soon as I saw him in there, that flickering heartbeat, it was like everything was going to be ok.  This was what was meant to happen.  This is not to say that I haven't had the emotional ups and downs of pregnancy since that point - but that was a huge turning point and from then on out I embraced everything about becoming a mom and I felt so much better.  The other thing that truly helped was when we could finally share our news with others.  We wanted to keep it quiet until the risk of miscarriage went away.  Once we could tell everyone it was another burden lifted, our families were overjoyed and our friends were so supportive.

I credit SO much to Nate for getting me through those dark days.  I truly lost myself for awhile. I really believe I may have been suffering almost a pre-part-um type depression.  And I most definitely would have sought help if it hadn't improved, but thankfully it did and he played such a huge role in that. He knew the right things to do, he helped take my mind of things when I needed it.  And of course that support has continued even after things were better.  He's been my rock.  He's going to be the most amazing dad.

From where I stand now, I do look back on those days with regret.  But it happened.  I can't deny that.  I also won't dwell on it.  At this moment I couldn't be more excited and just overall calm, happy and blessed. And really, that was the lowest of the low other than my gestational diabetes diagnosis - and that's the next thing I'll probably talk about and also start sharing the highest of the highs - as there have been so many now!