The Announcement I Never Thought I'd Make Again

I don't really know where to begin.  This is the announcement I never thought I would get to make again:  I'm pregnant!

The month before this happened, my cycle was longer than normal.  (Longer than MY normal, which is already longer than normal.)  I felt yucky, but I have learned to ignore that.  I have a tumor in my pituitary gland which causes my cycles to be messed up and makes it difficult for me to get pregnant.  I've gotten used to the idea that the longer my cycle goes, the more I start feeling sick.  It has changed my perspective on life because I get into those days where I wait for my period to begin with anticipation.  (Yeah, imagine anticipating THAT.)  Usually I'll wait it out.  Sometimes, though, I start to convince myself that I might actually be pregnant.  That is sheer torture.  I don't want to get my hopes up because the reality is that I never am. But I don't want to convince myself that I don't really want to be pregnant because, well, what if?  When my head gets to that point, I just use a test from the dollar store and confirm the negative.  In the beginning, before I had the tumor diagnosed and really understood how messed up my hormones are, I took as many as five tests and still wouldn't believe the results.  All the symptoms would be there.  I'd convince myself that perhaps I tested too early, so I'd try again a few days later.  Again, and again and again.  But after years of this juggle I've learned to trust the negative.  No matter how I feel or what my symptoms, the negative test is always right.

And that's what happened last month.  I took a test, it was negative, and a few days later my body got with the program and we started a new cycle.

One afternoon, a few weeks later, I was out for a walk with my boys along the Jordan River Parkway Trail.  They were on their scooters and I was trying to keep up.  I got insanely sick and had to sit down on the trail.  For several minutes I thought I was going to lose everything.  I started dry heaving into the bushes off the side of the trail.  But the problem with that was that I had nothing to lose.  I had eaten very little that day and though I was astonished that a simple walk could make me so incredibly ill simply due to lack of food, it was obvious that I needed to be careful about eating better if I was going to be out walking.  I had gotten so sick that I called the boys back, sent them in the direction of the park, and continued to sit/crawl along the trail for a few moments.  Andrew was just getting off of work and I almost started to cry when he called.  I told him how sick I was and we decided that he would pick up some take out on his way home and just meet me right there in the park - I wouldn't even try to get the boys home by myself.  I finally made it back to a bench near the slides and waited for him to arrive.  Wow.  Lesson learned:  don't go for a walk without eating well first.

When I graduated, I was ready to tackle the house and get things in order.  I was surprised at how little I seemed to be able to accomplish when the time came.  I was worn out and just couldn't seem to get myself going.  I had volunteered to do a lot of extra things at the boys school, so I was a different kind of busy, but I still had envisioned myself getting more done than I was doing.  Ultimately I just did what I could, and slowly I at least felt like I was making a dent in some of my cleaning projects.

One night, soon after that, I had a really vivid dream.  I saved a baby and I just remember holding her in my arms and somehow, by saving her, she became mine.  It was a tangibly sweet feeling and I woke up with the sensations still in my heart.  The very next night I had another dream about saving a baby and having that baby be mine.  "How funny," I thought.  "Vivid dreams can occur during pregnancy."  And then I moved on because I am never pregnant.

A few days later I had this sudden sensation that someone was missing from our family.  It caught me by surprise and almost took my breath away.  I had heard of people who have experienced feeling that way, but I never had before.  I wondered if it was an impression of a more spiritual nature, but told myself that it was probably just a response to those dreams and I shrugged the thought away.

I started feeling really queasy, but by this time I was REALLY overdue for my period to start.  I knew that the illness I felt was definitely hormonal and I was just really really ready for that period to come so I could feel better again.  "This darn tumor," I complained to myself.

Then Peter threw up.  "Oh,"  I thought, "Maybe I have the flu and I'm actually sick?"  His bug ran it's course in about 24 hours.  The night he was feeling better, I started feeling worse.  I stayed home from church and we skipped a friends baptism because we didn't want to spread the germs.  But then I continued to feel worse and worse.

The week before I got really nauseous, Andy would come home from work every evening and give me a concerned look.  "Are you OK?" he would ask.  I would shrug and with a confused look I'd tell him, "I'm fine - just a little bit tired, I guess."  He would look at me questioningly, but accept my response.

Finally I started to put it all together.  The fatigue, the illness, the breast tenderness, the cravings (I suddenly wanted hamburgers and eggs) and the food aversions (I got to the point where I couldn't look at dirty dishes in my kitchen without turning green and though I went through an unusual phase of wanting burgers, the idea of meatballs or anything with ground beef is now revolting to me).  So like I said - I finally put it all together:  it's the tumor.  I need to go back to the doctor and start medicating this thing.

I mentioned to my mom how sick I had been.  She hopefully said, "Maybe you're pregnant!"  I just looked at her and explained, "Mom, I have learned to not even wonder about that - for me, pregnancy symptoms just means my hormones are messed up because of the tumor."

But I did wonder.  I wondered a lot.  Because in all my years of false pregnancy symptoms, there had never been so many and they had never been so extreme.

Still, I couldn't believe it.

The next morning I was making breakfast for the kids, and I was so overcome with a wave of nausea that I had to drop to the floor right then and there and just wait it out.  It passed, we went on with our morning - got Ammon to school and Peter and I went for a walk around Day Break Lake with my sister and my mom.

Watching my "baby" play at the park with no idea that in less than an hour I would learn a NEW baby would be joining our family.

After our walk, my sister took Peter home with her and I found myself driving alone, knowing that the dollar store was minutes from my house and that I had to go to the bathroom anyway.  The timing was perfect.

I grabbed a test and asked myself, "If I am pregnant, am I really ready to know?"  And I shrugged the question away because it is always negative, and I just needed to have evidence of that so I didn't get all worked up over the possibilities.

I got home and without even thinking about it, I took the test.  Before I could even really realize what I had done, the test was lighting up with the most obvious positive I have ever had.  Wow - as much as I "knew", I really didn't see that coming!

I knew I wouldn't be able to reach Andy right away, so with my hands shaking I called my sister.  She answered and I just blurted out, "I'm pregnant!"

Then we both just went crazy with shock, disbelief and excitement.  She asked me when the baby was due and I had no idea.  On the way home from the dollar store I had actually wondered about that.  In years past, I would have known exactly what the possible due date would have been.  I didn't even have a rough estimate.  She pulled out her computer and looked it up.  WORST due date ever.  This baby is on the exact same timeline as Ammon was.  We are most likely looking at a baby between Christmas and New Years.  (We already have four birthdays in our extended family in that week and it is a terrible time of year to have a birthday.)

But lousy birthday or not - we are having a baby!  It is an unbelievable shock, puts us headed in a completely different direction than we were expecting, and as I tell this story, I couldn't feel more blessed.  What a crazy and unexpected miracle!