A lot can change in a year, part 1: The Buildup

if you had asked me a year ago today where i would be today, i don't think i would have been able to imagine all of the changes and excitement that were about to happen over the next 365 days. i mean, sure i was hopeful for certain things, but i was still in the "will it ever really happen for me" mindset.

i'm already ahead of myself, as i tend to be. let me go back to september '08...hubs and i had finally deemed this month our first "trying" month. "trying" for a baby, that is. we always knew we'd have kids, it was just a matter of when. when i started pushing for a 3rd dog in the spring of that year, we sat down and realized that the only thing that could properly fill this opening in our hearts was a child. we decided that we would start trying in the fall, because i wanted my maternity leave to be in the summer, and up until then, everything in my life had gone exactly. as. planned. ok maybe not quite that, but i was so sure that i'd immediately get pregnant, gain an acceptable amount of weight, and exactly 9 months later pop out a perfect little angel after say 4 hours of labor. HAH i say to my former self. HAH. you are SO naive.

so, back to september. the stage was set, i had been off the pill since july, and was ready to go. then, i got the call. from my boss. "gobblesmom, you have a passport right? good, you need to be in iceland for 2 weeks, k?". damn! ok, ok, ever the optimist, i told myself, 'well you'll get back from iceland and have one night at home before heading down to irish weekend with the girls, that will be near the middle of your cycle, there ya go!' i spent my spare time in iceland thinking about what a great last hurrah this is for myself before i get knocked up. during the weekend portion of the stay, i drove out to one of the nearby glaciers and hiked up to see it. "how cool that i could tell my baby one day that the week before s/he was conceived, i climbed a glacier". then i laid floating in the blue lagoon for hours just staring up at the sky, thinking about how strange these icelandic, elfish people around me were and how they had no idea i was so ready to be a mom. also, there were four (4!!) pregnant ladies at the iceland office i where was working- it was definitely a sign. they joked with me don't drink the water! i laughed along with them then ran off to refill my cup - maybe they were on to something!

obviously, despite what i thought fate was telling me, it didn't happen for us that month. over the next few months i found myself in exotic places like idaho, indiana, seattle, and new york during random weeks. this made things little difficult since we couldn't be one of those couples who did it every night for two weeks to make the timing right. therefore in november i started charting my temps, so i wouldn't get my hopes up on months i was away at the right time. and so i'd stop wasting pregnancy tests because i couldn't just wait for my period to be late like a normal person, thank god those dollar store tests work. i made sure to go to a different cashier each month when i bought at least 5.

fast forward to my birthday, in january of 2009. i was actually a few days late (so i had already gone through a half dozen tests, all negative). hubs and i were getting ready to go out to dinner and i thought hey what the heck let's see. then... omg is that a line?! i screamed, called him in, and we squinted at the test. "maybe if you hold it a certain way in the light" he said. i took another and there was, a faint line. my husband told me to not get to excited, because the line was so faint, but already i was bubbling - a line is a line! it was a great birthday dinner, i could barely eat. i already felt a little queasy in my stomach. this was it! we even stopped on the way home to get some non-dollar store tests. i took one when i got home - a faint line. deciding that the morning pee would be most potent, took another in the morning, another line! then i took a digital test. NOT PREGNANT it screamed at me. wtf, i thought, by this time i had the 5 other positive tests sitting there on the sink. (don't get my husband started on that. "ew get them off the sink, you peed on them!"). utterly confused, i started googling. one after the other, i was assured - there is no such thing as a false positive. and i was confident too, having taken so many tests over the previous months, i had never seen a hint of a line. now, there were all these tests sitting there saying positive, maybe the digital was a dud. unfazed, i started talking about my due date (early september), names, and more. the next day i called the OB to make an appointment. the first available was three days later.

before i even made it to that appointment, i started bleeding. i hit up google yet again. chemical pregnancy. early miscarriage. tears stung my eyes as i read stories of similar women going through the same thing. i sat there at work with my hair covering my face, so no one walking by could see. maybe just maybe i was the lucky one, and this was something different. but, in the back of my mind, i knew it was over. i kept my appointment, and the next day, and my fears were confirmed. i couldn't be comforted by the OB telling me that it happens to 30% of pregnancies. i felt like a fool for letting myself get so excited, this pregnancy didn't even make it 5 weeks (3 gestation). the next few days were a complete blur, i just went through the motions, keeping secret from everyone that i was devastated on the inside.

i had to go to kansas city the following week, and despite having one of the most turbulent rides of my life (they should NOT use those commuter planes for 4 hour rides. especially over the midwest), i still was not able to shake the funk. it took all my power not to cry when at dinner that night my coworker (always meeting new ones with this job) asked if i had kids.

after i returned from that trip my husband convinced me to tell my mom, sisters, and a few close friends, instead of keeping it bottled up. i slowly began feeling like myself again, and looked forward to trying again. the doctor had told me to wait a complete cycle before trying, so in the meantime, we booked a last minute cruise to get our minds off of everything. aside from this year with the baby, hubs and i love to travel, and always have some kind of trip or short getaway in the works.

i made sure to use this vacation to do everything a pregnant lady wouldn't - ziplining in st. martin, kayaking in dominica, revelling in the carnival (mardis gras) celebration in dominica, hiking the rainforest in grenada, snorkeling in barbados, rockin a bikini on the beach in tobago, and touring the bicardi distillery in san jaun. all of this while maintaining a weeklong buzz and enjoying every minute with my husband. by the end of the week i had a feeling of peace and knew what's supposed to happen will happen at the right time. as my dad had told me, just keep plugging. (ew really dad? did you even listen to what you said?!)

my new positive attitude, combined with a little luck, and obviously a little something else led me to the morning of thursday, march 19, 2009. i woke up, peed on a stick (as i had been all week), and got the first sign of hello from the baby soon to be named gobbles.

to be continued tomorrow...