It's hard to know where to start. I still don't quite believe this is my real life so figuring out where to start the story is difficult. I guess you have to start at the beginning. That makes sense right?
My husband and I met in college our freshman year. We were in the same Humanities class and one of my friends from my hall knew him and introduced us. We became friends and Spring semester we started a relationship. It wasn't a smooth road. I broke up with him that summer (stupid I know) and we didn't see much of each other sophomore year because I was abroad for half of it. Junior year we had some classes together and saw a bit more of each other. Senior year we were in choir together and got to know each other again. As our friendship grew so did our feelings for each other. We officially began our relationship in January of 2005 and have been together ever since.
We graduated in May of 2005. I moved to Lexington with my best friend and college roommate and Adam got ready to join the Army. In October he left for basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and the next year and a half he was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia for various schools and training. He proposed on Christmas Day 2006. It was one of the happiest days of my life. We got married on July 14, 2007 in my hometown. We then moved to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky where he was stationed with the 101st Airborne, 1-327 Infantry. We had a couple months to adjust to Army life and married life. Then he deployed to Iraq in September for almost 15 months. At the time I thought that would be the hardest thing we would go through. Life has other plans. While being apart for so long was difficult, it taught us to be excellent communicators. It was then that we learned how to truly be honest and ensure we each knew how the other was feeling and what we were going through. He came home in November of 2008. After a lot of thought and discussion, Adam decided to finish out his contract in the Reserves. He knew he didn't want a career in the Army and we wanted to have time to enjoy being married without the worry of deployments. We also wanted to put kids off until we'd had time to adjust to life out of the Army and being married in general.
In August of 2009 Adam was officially out of active duty and we moved to Lexington, KY. During our time at Ft. Campbell I went back to school to get my Master of Arts in Teaching. All I had left was my student teaching and I completed that, with the help of our Alma Mater Centre College, in the late Winter and Spring of 2010. Adam worked for my Great Uncle at one of his businesses in Lexington. It was a good job and very nice to have the stability after getting out of the Army, but it was a job that required him to basically sit at a computer all day, not really his forte. He worked there for about a year until the business closed. That time was rough for us. Adam was dealing with emotions and memories from his deployment and I was uncertain about my future as a teacher because I didn't get a job after student teaching. Again, it wasn't a good time to start thinking about a family so we put it off.
In August of 2010 he got a new job in security with Pinkerton. He liked this job a lot more and I was subbing, so things were getting better. In the Spring of 2011 we started to house hunt. We'd been renting a family friend's condo, which was lovely and again so nice when we first moved back, but we were ready to set down roots and start thinking about a family. We found a house we loved and in May of 2011 we became homeowners. It was an exciting time. Once we'd settled in we started talking seriously about starting a family. I still didn't have a teaching job, but I was subbing and Adam's job was secure and he liked it. We were doing things in the right order so of course starting a family was next and after everything else we'd been though, surely that was going to go smoothly right? Again, life has other plans.
My cycle had always been pretty irregular, but I never really thought much of it. In the Fall of 2011 I went to my OBGYN and we discussed starting a family and my cycle issues. After some tests we discovered I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Here's a link with more detailed info on PCOS. It was good to know what was going on with my body, but it was scary. PCOS is the leading cause of infertility in women. In my case it seems my body doesn't process insulin correctly, which leads to increased insulin in my body. This leads to increased production of androgens, which affect ovulation. I started taking metformin to control the insulin in my body, thus decreasing androgens and hopefully allowing ovulation to occur normally. It seemed to be working, so Adam and I decided to start seriously trying to have a baby.
We knew it wouldn't happen right away. It can take up to a year and with my issues who knows? It was a hard year. We weren't really making our efforts known because everything was so uncertain. I struggled with trying to be happy for others who were starting families, while being sad it hadn't happened for us yet. I tried not to be consumed, but at times it was difficult. Then in October of 2012 I had a feeling so I took a pregnancy test. It was positive! 2 pink lines! I was so excited. I had all these plans about how I was going to tell Adam, but I couldn't wait. He was at his last Drill weekend for the Reserves so I called. It was a hard day because we were busting with the news and both of our families were here because we were celebrating Adam getting out of the Army. But we had no idea how far along I was so we kept quiet. I called the doctor's office on Monday to make an appointment. Since my cycles are so irregular there was nothing to go on so they made me an appointment for a couple weeks later. The weekend before the appointment I had some spotting and was very nervous that something was wrong. The appointment started with an ultrasound to get an idea of how far along I was. The ultrasound tech was very nice, but didn't say much. We then went to another room to wait and see the doctor. The longer we waited the more nervous I was. I just had a bad feeling. When the doctor came in she told us that I was measuring about 8 weeks 4 days, but that there was no heartbeat. I think deep down I knew that was what she was going to tell us, but hearing it made it real. After almost a year of trying I was finally pregnant, but we weren't having a baby. We talked about options with my doctor and decided to see if my body would take care of things naturally. I really didn't want to have surgery if I didn't have to. But after 2 weeks, nothing had happened so we scheduled a D&C (dilation and curettage). I had the surgery on November 14th.
Our family and friends were very supportive. It was a hard couple weeks because we hadn't told anyone we were having a baby yet, so we had to tell them everything at once. It was a lot to deal with and I struggled for a while. I was sad we had lost a baby, but I think I was mostly mourning the loss of what could have been. After everything we'd been through it was just too much. I did start dealing with it though. I reached out to some people who had been through the same thing, and friends put me in contact with others who had had a miscarriage so that helped. It was comforting to talk and share with these women. I knew I wasn't alone.
After a couple months we were ready to start trying again. My body had had time to heal and we were both doing OK emotionally. I was very in tune to my body because my doctor said she wanted to see me as soon as I got a positive result on a pregnancy test to check all my hormone levels. In February I took a test and got the faintest second pink line. I waited 2 days to take another one just to be sure and the line was a little darker. I called and made an appointment. We were both very nervous. Last time this first appointment was awful. Luckily when we went back for the ultrasound we went into the other room (there are 2 at the office). I know it's silly, but it made me feel better. I held my breath for most of the ultrasound. She checked for a heartbeat, and there is was! Not only was it there, but strong. I cried with relief. I knew we weren't out of the woods, but things were already better than last time. Plus our family and a few close friends already knew, so we had happy news to tell them that day. I was around 5 weeks, so still really early, but again, already better than last time.
The next day I got a call about my blood work. My progesterone levels were about half of what my doctor wanted, so I started taking a supplement. It was gross, a vaginal suppository twice a day, but well worth it. I would be taking it through the first trimester. We were both nervous through the entire first trimester. I was excited, but couldn't let myself get too excited. I kept telling myself if I could get through the first trimester it would all be OK. The risks go down significantly once you get through those first 12 weeks. I made a couple extra visits to the doctor with spotting because I was paranoid, but each time everything was fine. The baby's heartbeat was strong and everything looked good.
We made it through the first trimester and I finally felt somewhat confident. Each appointment things were looking good. The baby was growing, strong heartbeat and I was doing good. I still wasn't really showing, my uterus tilts toward my back (yet another awesome thing about my reproductive system), but I was really feeling pregnant. I started to feel the baby move and was ecstatic. Things were going to be good. October 26th was getting closer and closer every day. June 4th we had our big ultrasound to find out if we were having a girl or boy and to check the baby. They did measurements of bones, checked organs, checked my uterus and cervix and made sure the placenta was in a good spot. Everything looked great. Then the big moment came. We found out we were having a girl! My mom, Adam's mom and his sister were there with us and it was wonderful to share this happy moment with them. We had debated about making our happy news public because of what we went through last time, but everything seemed fine and we decided that it wasn't fair to deprive ourselves of the excitement because of worry. We made a facebook announcement to share our excitement.
That week I finally gave myself permission to buy things. I had made myself wait until we found out boy or girl as a coping mechanism. I was afraid to buy things because of what happened last time but now we were almost to the halfway point so I felt more confident. It was fun to look through the clearance racks for good deals, trying to guess what size of something to get, and thinking about big stuff like a crib. I started doing work in the bedroom that was going to be the nursery, trying to figure out if we could keep a twin bed in there and still fit a crib. I started doing some organizing. We decided to use a Winnie the Pooh theme (I have a love for Piglet). My parents bought us a pack and play and I put it together to figure out where I wanted it to live in the basement. We'd decided to start a registry the weekend of the 15th. My 30th birthday was coming up on the 17th and that's what I wanted to do to celebrate. A close family friend wanted to get us our car seat so we picked out the one we wanted and she got it for us on June 13th. Things were going so well and we were so happy. We had no idea our lives would be turned upside down just a couple days later.
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