Well, I think most of you know by now that we are expecting our first next spring, and we couldn't be happier. I contemplated starting ANOTHER blog just for baby, but I think I'm pushing it with the billion I already have and don't maintain. Oops. I thought I'd start the post with the basic baby news and then switch to our trek to family-hood. :)
THE NEWS: On 20 August, a pee-stick test had two lines and I just about fainted. First I started sobbing, then I ran around pantsless trying to find my phone, and finally, I got dressed and went to the Navy familiy clinic to confirm it. An ultrasound on 5 September gave us a due date of 28 April 2013. We got to see and "hear" the tiny, rapid heartbeat and bring home a picture of the tiny bean. (This weekend it'll be 9 weeks.) We can find out the gender around Thanksgiving and fully plan on doing so. It's still a surprise, just earlier as opposed to later!
THE TREK: Two years ago we decided that I was going to go off the pill and we'd "see what happened." It seemed like great timing: we were finally living together in the same house, we were both done with our bachelor's degrees, and we felt like we had sated our wanderlust at least a little. Shortly after we made this decision, Don deployed for the holidays, and I found out I wasn't pregnant. Was I disappointed? Honestly, no. I wasn't in a rush, I was living the good life, and I didn't want Don to miss out (especially if the first trimester was ugly, haha!) However, another cycle of being home and being deployed came and went, and I honestly started to wonder if my system was working. I scheduled my annual checkups and talked to my Navy doctors and was assured that I was extremely young and to just give it time. What they failed to understand is that my overactive brain cared less about being pregnant and more about knowing nothing serious was broken or wrong. Sadly, if you are young and healthy, the Navy medicine system won't give you a second glance. Fast forward several months, through another holiday cycle to the start of this year, 2012. A year and half of trying had come and gone, and it was finally starting to really "get" to me. By this point, all I wanted was a baby in my arms. Forget the miracle of being pregnant and all of that, just hand me a baby!
I needed to stay busy and keep moving forward. Luckily I was never one to feel jealous when I saw other pregnant women (they actually made me feel sad because they waddled and looked uncomfortable!) but I was starting to feel sensitive when I watched Teen Mom or other shows like that. These girls get pregnant at the drop of a hat and it's not something they want. We found out in January that Don had orders to stay in the area for another two years so I found us a wonderful house and we bought it, moved in, and have been working on the never ending to-do list since. It has been fullfilling, maddening, and awesome to be home owners.
In May, Don rotate off of sea duty to shore duty and we started to seriously consider adoption. The more research I did, the more my heart hurt. I cried a lot. A typical private adoption, besides costing thousands of dollars, was not really an opton because we needed to be able to guarantee we could stay in-state through the adoption and up to a year after. Considering an average adoption takes 24-36 months, this was something we had no way of guaranteeing as a Navy family.
And really up until August, we were in contact with DCFS, trying to find out if local adoption was an option for us. I had decided a few months ago that I wasn't willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get pregnant; three or four rounds of Clomid and that's it. No hormone therapy or IVF or anything. I had faith and still have faith that we will become a family in the perfect way, however it happens, without the use of dangerous and ineffective procedures. I don't know how I got "lucky" enough to not have a huge pregnancy drive so this was an easy decision for us as a family. I can't imagine wanting to be pregnant more than anything!
On Sunday, 19 August, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I had been reviewing adoption information all week and feeling really homonal. We climbed into bed that night and I just had a solid cry. Don rubbed my back and listened (something he would medal in at the Listening Olympics!!) and just let me feel full of despair. If my system was broken, we would potentially have to wait years to adopt. Of course I was willing to wait, but it still stung. We decided that I would take a pregnancy test the next morning if I was feeling emotionally up to it since I hadn't taken one in some time. I used to take them every 5 weeks or so just to make sure I wasn't missing anything...
And sure enough, those two lines appeared, as plain as day.
We have decided to share our news, eventhough it is probably much earlier than most people prefer and here's why: I am a very open, emotional person. My biggest happiness so far from this pregnancy is knowing that I can even be pregnant. Losing this baby early on would darn near kill me, but it's not something I want to hide. It's easier for me for everyone to know that I'm pregnant so that if something happens, people can understand why I'm down and out for a few months. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I can make it logical in my head. :)
We can't agree on names for boys or girls yet, so the baby is currently named "Chomper" after the t-rex in the move "Land Before Time." Not sure exactly how that came about, but for now, it's the nom de jour.
