Expanding

When Eli and I got married, we always talked about having kids. We wanted them sooner, not later, because we wanted to be young parents. I’ve always loved my mom, but as we’ve gotten “closer” in age, I feel even closer to her. She is definitely still the mother, but I consider her one of my closest friends. I wanted that with my own children. Not to mention, we wanted to be able to enjoy our kids. I can’t tell you how many parents I’ve met while teaching that are already in their mid-fifties when their kids are ten.

Eli and I decided to start “not trying” to not have kids early in 2008, a couple of months after we got married. We’d talked to the doctors and did some research and found that each month a couple has a 20% chance of getting pregnant and most couples take closer to a year to conceive when they start actively trying. We thought our chances would be pretty good since I had never taken birth control.

When we didn’t get pregnant right away, I was a little disappointed. I mean, I was already 24 dang it, I didn’t have forever! ;0) After a little more time, we started actively trying to get pregnant. I was exercising more, trying to eat healthier, and finding out all of the natural ways to make my body ready for a baby. I was taking raspberry supplements, drinking women’s health teas and using ovulation kits and a lot of other methods that I won’t mention.

We really wanted to work on things naturally. I was reading a book called Taking Control of Your Fertility. It’s a book on how to work with your body and cycles as a form of birth control or as a way of getting pregnant. A good friend recommended it to us and she was a witness that the methods taught worked. She was pregnant. Her sister-in-law was and a few other people. It didn’t work for us.

The whole time we’d been trying was filled with “helpful hints” from everyone we knew, but their hints were always the same. My favorite, “Stop trying so hard. If you just stress out about it, it won’t work.”. After hearing that for almost three years, I wanted to punch everyone in the face that said it to me. It had been more than a little bit of time and I was worried. I had been to the doctor to have some stuff checked up on and everything was “good.” I just needed to keep taking care of myself because apparently any slight change in my hormones could mess things up. I was also really jealous (but happy) that my sister was pregnant.

Either way, last fall something came up that I really had to see the doctor about. He said everything looked good, but he finally did something about it. He said that there was no reason why it should take us that long to get pregnant. He sent me in for ultrasounds (I had a “cute, uninhabited” uterus then) and blood tests. Apparently, my hormone levels were good, but not great, so he prescribed chlomid. I was a little worried because I heard horror stories about that medication, but I didn’t have any problems with it.

We didn’t really tell too many people that we were on medication. If it didn’t work out we were going to have to try some more invasive procedures. However, lucky for us, the medication was working. My levels were getting better. My dosage was increased and after another round of blood tests, they were right where they should be.

According to the process (and trust me, it was a very strict schedule and process to stick to), if I hadn’t started my next cycle by the 35^th day, then I could take a pregnancy test. Our 35^th day for that round of medication happened to fall on Christmas day. I couldn’t wait that long. We picked up a few dollar store tests (because we were tired of spending all that money on the super nice ones) and I tested three days before Christmas. The lines were very faint, but there were two. I couldn’t believe it. Eli certainly didn’t believe it. He made me take one again the next day. We ended up taking five tests in five days, just to make sure. And then we took another two tests a week and a half later.

So, just to end a long story, Eli and I are having a baby. We’re due August 28^th, which is five days after school starts. I’ll be starting the year with a sub. We couldn’t be more excited and happy and blessed. Now I feel like I might have some news to post about every once in awhile. I’m sure you don’t want to read about my morning sickness, so I’ll share something a little more appropriate now and then. Oh! and now I’m really happy my sister is having a baby. Our baby’s cousin is due June 8^th, the day before my birthday!