A Look Back - June 2011

Have you ever realized that months and months have gone by and you can't really remember what you've been doing that whole time? That's how I feel right now. These past few months have gone by like that crazy whirly-spinning roller coasters that you can only ride at the fair....in fact I think my head is still spinning from all that's been happening.

Since I've been horrible about journaling about my pregnancy, I decided to take time to write down all I can remember about each of the past few months. That way it's down, in writing, for me to look back and remember. Wish me luck.

June 2011

At the beginning of June, our dear friends asked if we could dog sit their two dogs, Nigel & Griffin,while they went to the beach with their family. We said yes because we like our friends and when we dog sit for them, we get to stay in their nice house and Layla gets live-in playmates. It's really a win-win situation for all of us. Our friends were going to be at the beach for a week (if I remember correctly) and John and I were just planning on hanging out with the dogs and enjoying their back yard. We did enjoy their back yard, but the week didn't turn out quite as we expected.

A few days before we headed to dog sit we got some really sad news that John's friend, Tim, had passed away. The news was so unexpected as John had just seen him the day before and was scheduled to see him later that same day. We sat in shock for a while and then we cried. That morning was really hard as we thought about Tim and his family and had no words to express our sadness.

A few days later we were sitting on our friend's couch drafting a "speech" for John to give at Tim's funeral. John talked about Tim, about all the special moments they had together, about being friends, about how much he'll miss him...and I wrote it all down. It was such a honor for John to be asked to speak at Tim's funeral. He felt so blessed to have known Tim and he was grateful for the opportunity to share his memories with everyone. And John almost made it through the whole speech without crying...almost. The last few sentences got him and he broke down. It was so heartfelt and real and I'm so proud of my husband for getting up there and sharing his heart.

The day after the funeral I got really sick and had to stay home from work for a few days. Let's just say I became really acquainted with our friend's guest bathroom. We came to the conclusion that it was food poisoning, a first for me. It was absolutely horrible. And when I say horrible, I mean absolutely, positively, the worst kind of sick I have ever felt. I was up all night, which meant that John was up all night, which meant that the dogs were up all night...except for Griffin who slept soundly for the most part. Layla and Nigel kept giving me the evil eye every time I woke them up when I headed to the bathroom. And then when I returned from the bathroom, my spot on the bed was inevitably gone, replaced by sprawled-out pups. And then more of the evil eye, and even some snarling, when I scooted them out of the way and reclaimed my rightful place in the bed. It was a long night for all of us.

Even though food poisoning is only supposed to be a "24 hour" ordeal, I was completely strung out for 3 days. On the third day I was convinced that I could make it to work since I didn't want to use any more personal days...but alas I ended up leaving early as I still felt awful. Since my sickness lasted longer than "normal" food poisoning, some people (who shall remain nameless) politely suggested that I may not have food poisoning at all, but rather I should consider alternate explanations for my sickness. The most common question became "Are you sure you're not pregnant?" Well, I was about 99% sure I wasn't pregnant, but there's always that 1% of doubt that creeps in and causes questioning. Had I remembered to take my pill? Yes, I thought so. I couldn't remember missing a day during the past month. What if the pill just decided not work this month? I knew that was a slight possibility because it did happen to one of my friends. Uh oh. 99% was becoming 98%, 97%, 96%. Crap. That's all I could think about.

Yeah, I wasn't going to keep going on like that for very much longer, so I dragged John to Walgreens and picked up a pregnancy test, just to be sure. When we got back to our friend's house, I went back into the bathroom, but this time it was for a completely different purpose. I left the test on the counter and went out to the living room to try not to think about what I had just done. Then I made John go into the bathroom and check it because I was too nervous. Seriously, I was so freaked out. He came back and said "Negative." Yeah, just like I had thought. I wasn't pregnant. I had food poisoning. But what if it hadn't said negative? What if, for a few minutes while we were waiting, I had found myself wishing it was positive? Well it took me a little bit to admit my true feelings on the matter, but when we finally started talking about it, both John and I realized we had the same feelings. We both wanted to start a family. This wasn't the first time we had talked about it, but this time just seemed different. We were ready. Ready to start trying, at least.