It’s crazy how you can plan and plan and plan, but life does not align with those plans. Your whole life can be mapped out but then comes adapting to each change and obstacle that we don’t see coming and certainly don’t plan for.
I’ve never shared my birth story with V and I’m thinking that with all of my nesting time that will be coming up, possibly that’s something I’ll share. To put into laments terms, it was not pretty and the aftermath was long term recovery with a side order of PTSD. Which brings me to this pregnancy. WE ARE THRILLED, but the back of my mind is still playing nasty little games and throwing me into panic more often than I’d like.
How #2 came to be!
Tony and I have had our fair share of relationship obstacles, we met at a young age (I’m actually almost 4 years older) and V came to be after only a year and a half of dating, so things moved fast. Would not change it for the world, ofcourse.. but it was difficult & challenging. We gave birth to our beautiful baby girl in July of 2015 and here we are present day September of 2021, only a few short months away from meeting the next member to join this family.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but as I mentioned before, life doesn’t care what your plans are. After having V, I was almost positive that having a child could be out of question for us, we spoke about adoption, which is still very much on the table for the future. We talked about the what if’s and the what if nots. I was prepared for the what if nots…. or so I thought!
With V, we didn’t try. It just happened so natural and everything was fine. I wasn’t as prepared for the stress and the emotional toll that trying to conceive would have. Not only on me but on us.
I stopping taking my birth control in April of 2020 & we began trying even without the regularity of my period, I was ready! My body, was not. I have endometriosis, I was diagnosed with it at 20 years old, fast forward to now I’ve have 3 surgeries for it. Along side the complications from my delivery with V, the worry started to set in. What if I couldn’t get pregnant. Sadly for a person who already has anxiety, the optimism wasn’t there. I felt like every month of trying was a failure even before I picked up the test to see that one lonely line! I blamed myself every single day; I dwelled, I cried, I stressed and I read read read. Through a year of a pandemic when stress was already at an all time high, I drove myself crazy.
It was 10 months of trying before the doctors said let’s run tests. We tested me, we tested Tony, I got my tubes checked by means of HSG (Hysterosalpingography). We charted, I temped, I bought every ovulation test and pregnancy test in the aisle monthly. I felt like I was just drowning. It was back to infertility, the doctor who performed my postpartum surgery and aftercare. The one who said, if we have issues next time, I’ll be here. He was!
After 11.5 months of trying we headed to infertility who assured us, we will get this baby! Things looked good on both ends, we ran more tests, we met with him for a few months and then we decided to go forth with IUI! It was the best option for us at the time and we were so beyond ready to just get in and again, be one step closer.
A few months more went by, now 14 months past the stop date of birth control & insurance approved us for IUI… and we had our last appointment to be scheduled! Hallelujah it’s happening.
The morning of our appt, the day after blood work was taken to make sure all was well before starting hormones, I’m in my car ready to head to our appointment. My car announces I have a call. I look down it’s the Infertility office. I pick up. They tell me they have to cancel my appointment, without further listening to why I started to cry and become so stressed out. I began talking over the poor woman who was calling to congratulate me, we were pregnant! Holy moly, when she finally got me to settle down, I heard the words for the first time and couldn’t believe it. No way! How?
In my brain I went back and thought of all of the people that told me “when you least expect it, it will happen”. I fought with them, if I’m trying actively how will I least expect it?
The weeks leading up to the appointment I was so focused on the IUI being the happy ending, I didn’t realize… I wasn’t putting all of the stress on myself because I was putting all of my eggs in one basket for the IUI. I didn’t keep track of ovulation for that time period and I don’t even remember not thinking about it.
It came when I very least expected it & we couldn’t be happier that we are finally here!
