Good News!! And How Not to Tell My Husband

Well, as everyone knows, Matt and I have been trying to conceive for awhile. Since August 2011 to be exact. And everyone gave us the advice to not stress, to just enjoy our time together... which of course we did enjoy our time together and we (I) did try not to stress... And we were reminded that the average couple can try for up to a year without success. For some reason, I figured that once we thought we were ready, it would just happen for us. Then it didn't. Each month.

And every month, I thought I was okay with it... until I got my period and would cry and spend the next several days feeling blue. And I'd start feeling anxious thinking about all the couples I knew who had tried for two years, three years, or weren't going to be successful at all. Would that be us? I didn't see that for us but they probably didn't see that for themselves either. (And I would actually be more open to adoption than in vitro or other procedures... but I still hoped to have at least one biological child, to get to experience pregnancy and childbirth at least once).

And I wrote about this a few times in this blog:
http://gretchenadventures.blogspot.com/2011/09/and-then-i-went-and-stressed-anyhow.html

http://gretchenadventures.blogspot.com/2012/02/constantly-waiting.html

http://gretchenadventures.blogspot.com/2012/03/waiting-game.html

I'd even started making a baby alphabet quilt:
http://gretchenadventures.blogspot.com/2012/04/baby-quilt-for-my-someday-child.html

Some months seemed like the perfect time to find out too... Thanksgiving, Christmas, just before Valentine's Day, after our beach getaway, my brother's graduation weekend, our 1 year anniversary. How sweet would that have been?! I even thought of an adorable way to tell Matt the news, and I could've gotten by without getting him an anniversary gift since I had NO idea what to get him and he claimed all he wanted was a cake.

(Incidentally, we had a very nice anniversary. We went to dinner at Greg's Grill, which has AMAZING steak and a great view of the river. I ordered Matt a little cake, which he thoroughly enjoyed. And he gave me diamond earrings... though I teased him because on our first birthday together, he gave me diamond earrings and told me they were the "3-month girlfriend" size (foot in the mouth, right?!). Well our 1-year anniversary earrings are the same size, though he pointed out (correctly) that the 1-year earrings are much nicer quality. And also that these could be traded in/upgraded in the future (so I joked that now he has all my future anniversary gifts figured out) And... unfortunately, I lost one of the 3-month earrings on a work trip so it was perfect anyhow...)

In hindsight, and I made sure to tell Matt this on our anniversary, I'm glad we didn't get pregnant right away. I had always thought I'd want at least a year of marriage before kids. You'd think being that Matt and I hadn't even known each other a year before we got married, we'd want even more time. In fact, we've now officially been married more than half the time we've known each other. But truly, I am happy that we got to have the time to really enjoy being newlyweds. (One of my coworkers got pregnant in Sept, and just had her baby boy, and initially I felt pretty jealous that we'd been trying since before her August wedding and she got pregnant right away... but in truth, I wouldn't have traded her places, because I did want the time with just Matt when the focus was on just us.)

In the meantime, I started seeing a naturopath (in April), who is the same person a friend of mine saw (and now she's pregnant after three years of trying with multiple miscarriages). Since insurance covers a bit of that, I figured it was worth a try and at least I'd feel like I was taking some power and action. She put me on three different naturopathic vitamins (plus one to help me sleep, which was WONDERFUL) and did acupuncture just before I was supposed to ovulate (which felt exactly as I imagined it would feel). The first month of that, nothing. The second month, we missed scheduling the acupuncture in time but I kept taking vitamins, and nothing. In June, she did another acupuncture treatment, prescribed me to also eat certain seeds on certain days of the month (flax & pumpkin before ovulation, sunflower & sesame after), and prescribed me this moxibustion treatment that I was supposed to continue doing all month (essentially burning these small wicks over my uterus to stimulate bloodflow).

The latter of these is what both Matt and I were the most skeptical of, as you might guess. He berated me for buying into it (hey, I figured it was worth a shot, and unlike the cost of the vitamins, the little box was only $15). But I wondered how exactly I was supposed to keep this up all month long when on June 17, I was supposed to be leaving for a 10-day worktrip to two different cities (Minneapolis and San Diego) and would be sharing a room with a coworker for the last week. Yeh I'm not going to be lying around in our shared hotel room doing this woo-woo stuff. But I'd at least try it while I could, and keep taking the vitamins, and eating the ground seeds, for one more month and re-evaluate how I felt about it at my next month's appointment in July.

So here we were entering our 11th month of trying in June (though because my cycles aren't 30 days, we'd had 12 cycles). I had been tracking some things in "What to Expect Before You're Expecting" book that had 12 monthly charts. When we weren't successful in June, I had finished the last available chart, after which the book essentially says something like "Well, it's been a year and you're still not pregnant. Sucks for you. There's probably something wrong with you. Better see your doctor." So, irritated, I put the book on my bookcase and vowed not to track or care much til the end of the summer. Our health insurance covers 0% infertility testing and treatment, and one person I'd already heard about charges almost $300 just for the consultation. Matt and I were starting to have the conversations about how long we'd try before we'd do testing. I figured we could go at least through August (13 months since I'd stopped taking the pill). And this month, in June, just after (or just when) I ovulated, I was supposed to be leaving for this 10-day worktrip-- talk about bad timing. So I'd just decided, well it probably won't happen this month but that's okay. I'm going to enjoy my sexy husband, lose the 10-15 lbs I've put on since our wedding, eat fresh veggies and fruits all summer, run in the sun, try paddleboarding with my friend Konnie, save money & refinance our house, go camping and live it up. (So maybe this is the "finally giving up on it" that I THOUGHT I'd already done, but that people kept telling me that they did just before they got pregnant). In a way, I was glad I wasn't pregnant yet.

So I left for the worktrip I'd been dreading since they asked me to go on a back-to-back trip months ago. Ohh AND TSA searched my checked bag and took out my naturopathic vitamins and didn't put them back. Awesome. Thanks. So that's like $50 I'm going to have to try to recover from them. Saw a friend in Minneapolis from Teach For America. Did the usual work stuff. Flew to San Diego (which is one of my fav cities to visit). Went to a Padres/Mariners game with my coworkers. Decided that I didn't care about being as careful this month and that if I wanted some wine with dinner when I was out with my friends/colleagues, then I'd have some wine. And, for being a worktrip, I actually didn't feel as tired as usual, even with our 12-14 hour workdays, and I ate dinner every night with people and had a nice time. Had some awesome dinners and I'd decided that I would eat healthy enough on the trip but really, really get into my healthy eating when I got home. So it was fun in a way. But ohhh I couldn't wait to get home. Nothing makes me appreciate the luxury of being able to just hang out watching crappy tv with Matt than going on a worktrip. I even caught myself turning on SportsCenter in my hotel room because I missed the sound of it.

Monday, July 2- I was home from my trip and expecting my period any day (actually based on the last month, I expected it the day before). I didn't feel moody (which is usually a tipoff of my period coming, but not always) but I did feel a slight cramp-i-ness and some tenderness elsewhere (also tipoffs) and I figured I must have a longer cycle this month because travel must've pushed back my ovulation. ** For those new to this, there are two parts to a woman's cycle -- before she ovulates and after -- and the 2nd part is generally the same length every month, but the 1st part can alter based on stress/life factors.

I'd already decided I probably wasn't getting pregnant in June -- there was my worktrip that probably messed it all up, plus TSA had taken my vitamins that I was supposed to take (and it was the last of my bottle of them), plus I had a feeling that July would be the month, PLUS if I was pregnant, I'd be due March 10, 2013 based on my calculations, which is the start of the conference for which I have a very large leadership role in my office, and it's pretty much my biggest project and the busiest time of the year for my job. Basically the most inconvenient date in the whole year for me to be having a baby.

But for some reason later that afternoon I thought "I'm pregnant. I should just take a test." Now I'd tried to stop taking tests because even when I got a negative result, I still had hope that maybe it was just too soon for the hormones to be showing, so instead of putting my "Am I getting my period or not?" questions to ease, they just kept them going. But... here I was a day late (unless my cycle was long again, which I went through one month when it was 3-days longer than usual -- 30 days instead of 27 -- which as you can imagine had me thinking I was pregnant, and then was very disappointing... then each month after my cycle was one day shorter than that). But I decided to chance it and take a test. I was resolved to not being upset if it was negative.

And the test came back with two lines = pregnant, albeit the "pregnant" line was a bit faint. Still, I'd never seen two lines before. I had a feeling of both "wow, I KNEW it!" and "wow, really?!?! Am I misreading this? Do I actually see two lines?" So... an hour later, just to be sure, I took another test. I mean, I had been drinking a lot of water before the first one. Second test = two lines, now with the line darker than before. Whoa! Could it be??? I tried to schedule a doctor's appointment but she wasn't available for a few days. So, just to be even more sure (or manic, however you want to put it), I took one more test just before Matt got home from work. Third test = two lines, now with the line darker than the last.

I thought I had devised a pretty cute way to tell Matt that we are pregnant. Originally I thought I'd give him a photo of me holding a positive pregnancy test (as opposed to giving him the actual pee stick) but I couldn't get my camera far enough away so I just took a picture of the test. I painted a little frame with our expected due month -- March 2013. I thought it was pretty obvious. Also I thought we could update the picture in the frame. (Note the shake-y lines I painted... I was too excited/nervous to tell him/etc...)

Apparently, this was not obvious.

I wrapped it up and when Matt got home, handed him the bag and started recording:

I was expecting more of a reaction... I sorta hoped since I hadn't cried, at least he would. But he just stared and smiled and looked a little... shocked? confused? I stopped recording.

Turns out, he wasn't sure what he was looking at and hadn't read it yet (and apparently forgot what time of the month it was). He thought I was showing him an ovulation test (trying to say I was ovulating as my way to get him into bed right away) and that if we were successful, then we'd have a March baby.

Off-camera, I explained that it was a positive pregnancy test and that I believed we'd have a March baby, but we'd see the doctor on Thursday. Then hit record again:

Okay, a little more of a reaction with the sorta awkward-laugh. I think it took awhile for the idea to sink in for both of us.

And at 4 weeks, nothing yet to show but a positive test.

And as of today, July 5, my primary care physician also says I'M PREGNANT!

I'm a little nervous telling people so early (but knowing Matt, he's too excited to hold it in for long), but that's just from fear of an early miscarriage. Or a "false positive" result (though my dr. confirmed it!). And that most women I knew announced it much later than 4 weeks. But... this is us. And we are pregnant!