You may remember that I blogged awhile back in March about entering the lottery for the Chicago Marathon. I did it on a lark, not really thinking I would actually get in. But I did. Now faced with the reality that I would need to actually train for and run 26.2 miles in October, I began researching training schedules and travel plans to Chicago. Turns out God had other plans for me, our family and my running career. Because I happened to be pregnant! Turns out, running 26.2 miles when your 8 months pregnant isn't the best idea. At least to me it isn't. For the record, I was over the moon--beyond excited and thrilled. I just couldn't believe the timing. In order to understand why this is such a big deal, I feel like I need to give you a little of the reader's digest version of the back story.
I got pregnant with Finn really quickly. So I assumed when we were ready for baby #2, it would be the same. Turns out it wasn't. Three months turned into six months turned into a year which turned into two years. Now, if you've ever been pregnant or wanted to be, you know that while it may take you a while to decide you are ready for a baby, but once you do decide, then you are ready. To have the baby. Yesterday. So to wait for 24 months, especially for a type A like me, was pretty excruciating. We finally sought some help but after some routine tests at my doctors revealed nothing abnormal we were referred to Southeastern Fertility Clinic. It took me a long time to work up the nerve to actually call and make the appointment. I just couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that I couldn't get pregnant on my own. I finally made the initial appointment which kickstarted nearly a year of visits, injections, tests and various treatments. I'll spare you the details but I was diagnosed with "unexplained infertility" and nothing they did or we did worked. It was hard on me emotionally and hard on Mark and me as a couple. Mark was a trooper though and went to every appointment and gave me shots and was there when I needed him most. It was beyond frustrating. People kept telling me that it will happen when I stopped thinking about it. But how do you just stop thinking about something that you so desperately want and have been working towards for the past 3 years? Impossible I tell you.
I prayed about it, I cried about it, I got angry about it, I got sad about it, but finally in February, I decided to get on with it. I felt like I had been living my life in a holding pattern for nearly three years. Each month I thought was the month I would be pregnant. But after 34 months, I had to face facts that it just might not happen. Talk about a hard pill to swallow. During our trip to California, Mark and I talked about it and decided that we needed a break . . . from the fertility clinic, from thinking about it, from everything. We decided to take a break for the rest of the year and then decide what and how much further we were willing to go. It seemed like a good compromise. While I knew I would never stop wanting another baby, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of me not to have to think about it day in and day out. I came back from California determined to cross some things of my to-do list that had been growing for nearly three years. I entered the marathon lottery and applied for some volunteer opportunities and dug my resume up and began to think about some possible next steps.
After I got my marathon acceptance email, I had 48 hours to pay my registration fee to guarantee my entry. In those 48 hours, I had a gut feeling that something was off. Don't ask me why but I took 2 pregnancy tests, both of which were definitely not exactly positive, but then again, not as negative as they usually are. Which is the most obnoxious answer to get. With time running out, I went ahead and paid my money and then the next day went out and bought the super fancy digital pregnancy test. After nearly 3 years of NO's and negatives . . . I finally got a positive.
It was safe to say I was in a state of shock. For a long time. I just couldn't believe it and then went back and forth between being terrified something was wrong and plain ol' disbelief. I got pregnant in March and in May of this year, it would have been three years since we first began this journey for baby #2. I have met several women who have had a much longer and more difficult journey to become a mother. I have read countless blogs of women who have been to the ends of the earth and back again to get pregnant and after what we went through, I now have some inkling of what they must have felt like. For so many other women it is so much harder and more painful and there isn't always a happy ending. I tried to be mindful of what I was going through was merely a drop in the bucket of what some women experience. Throughout this whole process the thing that Mark kept reminding me of and I tried to focus on was how unbelievably blessed and lucky we are to have a happy and healthy Finn--there are so many out there who don't or aren't able to have a child, period. We were blessed with Finn and now, unbelievably and undeservedly, we are given a chance to bring another baby into the world.
I don't want to compare our journey, good or bad, with anyone else's journey to parenthood. It is simply our experience. My goal is writing this is not to elicit sympathy or any other feelings but only to serve as a reminder to me where of we have been and what we have been through to add to our family. This little peanut is so loved and wanted, before day 1.
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