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.
