Dexter has now been with us a whole year. He was conceived (darn near positive) on November 8th of last year. It was our first month to try and conceive. We had to plan a little bit because one of the medicines I was on for my arthritis required me to be off of it for 3 months prior to even trying. That medicine, methotrexate, is sometimes used to induce miscarriage in ectopic pregnancy. It's evil stuff for defenseless little wannabe baby cells. I went off of it in mid-July 2006, so October was our first shot. I had just gotten a check up to make sure I was ok. We had a green light. We also had just gotten married, so that helped a little bit too! ;)
We never dreamed it would happen so quick after being together for so long and only casual use of birth control. I was convinced one of us had a fertility problem. I knew within days that I was pregnant though. My first inkling was literally 3 days afterwards. I had the worst smelling pee. I hadn't eaten asparagus,so I thought at first that maybe I had an infection or maybe somehow all the stress was somehow doing it.
Mike was in the hospital when this happened. His heart had started freaking out again the day before in the midst of a huge crunch of projects at our company. He'd had heart problems a few times since we'd been together. We'd been to the emergency room several times and he'd had to stay in the hospital a couple times. When we went to the emergency room this time though, it was the worst it had ever been. His blood pressure had gotten super low and his heart was beating at over 200 beats per minute. He was near cardiac arrest. They had to use the electric cardio panels to shock his heart back into beating normally again. He had to take heart medicine until he got the operation to fix it. It was a very scary situation and I was a basketcase which was completely understandable, but more so than usual. I knew something was going on.
A week later, while Mike was having surgery to fix his heart, I told my friend (and later doula) who came and sat with me that I thought I was pregnant. I think she thought I was being overzealous about it. By this time, I'd been getting headaches everyday. I don't get headaches very often, so to have one everyday was very unusual. It wasn't a stress headache either. The smelly pee was still around and stayed intermittently throughout the entire pregnancy. It was so bad at times, I was embarrassed to use a public restroom.
This was the most stressful time for us. Mike's mom had just died, we'd gotten married, our company had 3 major projects going on - all with quick turnarounds, hard deadlines and the biggest work and budgets we'd had ever landed right in the midst of the holidays, and then Mike's heart sidelined him at a very critical point. The stress and tension was incredible. There was no time to grieve, no time for a honeymoon, no time for Mike to recover and barely enough time to get the work done. Mike really only took off the days he was in the hospital. He was making phone calls the day after his surgery. It was unbelievable. In the midst of all this chaos - little Dexter was forming!
I started taking pregnancy tests the day before Thanksgiving. It was early to get a positive and I didn't get one. I had told Mike that I was probably pregnant. I think he thought I was just getting my hopes up, especially when the test was negative the first time. I waited until the day after Thanksgiving to take another one, and at around 7am the little blue plus sign faintly appeared.
I started having major morning sickness in mid-December. I could barely walk a block the fatigue was so overwhelming and the nausea was so bad that I had to take medicine to keep food down. I had to take naps in the afternoon on the couch at work, if I even made it into the office. I didn't make my deadlines and Mike had to make them up for me on top of the 10-12 hours days he was already doing. Many tears were shed because I was reduced to laying in bed on the laptop and sleeping 12-14 hours a day while Mike was struggling to make the deadlines at work with no one to back him emotionally through this hardship. His mom had just passed away, he'd nearly died, had heart surgery, he's just found out he's going to be a dad, his wife is barely able to get out of bed AND he has to work 80 hour weeks through the holidays to get these last 2 projects done for a major convention. (I'm totally skipping all the crazy problems that happened during the projects because it's too much to write)
Amazingly, Mike held it all together and delivered all the work. People might say our priorities were mixed up, but owning a business doesn't give you the luxury of telling your boss you need a day off. There is no one else to be held accountable if the deadline isn't met and not only is the paycheck on the line, but the company reputation as well. It was insane last year at this time. This all happened in 10 weeks. It was so ridiculous that we stopped telling people what was going on.
I believe that when there is really bad times, really good times are around the corner. When the bad times are particularly rough, the good times will be even better. That's what happened last year around this time. It took a few months for things to turn around, but the best thing ever happened August 7th, 2007.
