I suppose the best place to start would be the first day of my last period. February 20th, 2010. A mere five days before my birthday, I was horrified. Obviously I could remember that date, I mean, who wants to be on her period for her birthday? The five days went by, and by the 25th it was over and I was happy that nature had given me the day without having to worry about pads, tampons or TSS.
Then, a little over a week after my birthday - around March 7th/8th - I began breaking out. I was confused, as I normally have clear skin until the week before my period/during my period. I remember mentioning it to Jacob and he said something along the lines of 'That's weird, isn't it early for your period to be starting?', and that was that. We put it aside figuring maybe the weather change was messing with my skin, and went on with our daily lives.
As the month of March drew to a close, I began to suspect that something was up. By March 22nd, I could almost say with certainty that I knew I was pregnant. I am rarely late, and I knew I should have started around the 20th. I walked to Save-A-Lot, and bought a test for a dollar - it was negative.
A few days passed and I had still not started, I decided to walk to the 'Christian Ministries' down the street, because I knew they advertised free pregnancy testing. After waiting an hour and a half, I was called back and tested. Again, it was negative. I told the woman that I thought the test was wrong and was then lectured about how I seemed to want to be pregnant, and I was too young to be thinking about having children.
By March 23rd, I was panicking. If I wasn't pregnant, and my period was not starting, what else could be wring with me? I went to wal-greens and bought the EPT double pack. I took one test immediately, because I felt like I needed to know, and saved the next to be taken the next day with my first morning urine. Again, the tests were both negative.
At this point I was frustrated and worried because I had no idea what my body was doing. Why was my period so late? Why was I suddenly losing weight? What was wrong with me?
On a subconsious level, I knew I was pregnant, I just needed a test to prove it. I had various 'symptoms'; missed/late period, slight and random food aversions, and an odd and sudden hatred of cigarette smoke (I had been smoking cigarettes off and on for a total of about 3 years, and at that point I could safely say I was addicted - so a sudden aversion was very strange).
March 24th, I was sitting in my humanities class taking notes, when suddenly it hit me. I am pregnant. It is a girl. Her name will be Madeline. Just like that. I somehow just knew these things on a deep, inexplicable level. I could feel it in my gut.
April 5th, 2010 I went to the health department and asked for a pregnancy test. I filled out my paperwork, waited, peed in a cup, got sent down the hall, and waited. Eventually my name was called and I went in to see the triage nurse for my results. She sat me down and verified my birthdate/social/name and then told me my results. The test was positive. Literally the first thing out of my mouth was "Oh thank god.", not usually something they hear. I had to explain to her that I had suspected pregnancy for weeks and was somehow unable to get a positive test, therefore I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. We then spoke about the options, and what I wanted to do, considering I was so young and unemployed, I told her that I planned on going through with the pregnancy, and we went from there. I had my blood pressure taken, received a prescription of prenatal vitamins, paperwork about WIC and various other programs.
Shortly thereafter I told my mom, whose immediate reaction was "Are you sure?" to which I responded "Well, I can't eat sour cream anymore...." (big deal because I usually can eat the stuff by the spoonful) she said; "Oh. Yeah. You're preganant."
I wrestled with how to tell my dad for a few days. My dad is an intimidating dude. So I decided that when he came over to try to help fix my brakes, I'd tell him. After hours of working on the car, he needed to go get food and another pack of smokes, so after he left my apartment, I called him.
"Uh, hi dad.... I need to tell you something."
"Okay?"
"I, uh, I... We're having a baby."
"You're kidding...Well, congratulations!"
"Wait, what? Uh, wow. I did not expect that reaction. Thanks for taking that so well."
His reaction was wonderfully accepting, he even ended up bringing Jacob and me some 'celebratory frosties' when he came back.
After letting my family know, I began looking into choosing a doctor, and since my insurance coverage was ending at the end of May, I had to choose a doctor that would accept Medicaid. I made my decision based primarily on the fact that my car was not in functioning condition at the time, so I picked the office on the medicaid list that was within walking distance of my apartment. I was generally impressed with myself, the office I chose was an all-female, highly rated practice.
I set up my first apointment, and when I went in they gave me my estimated due date, November 28th, The day after the due date the Health Department had given me. I talked to the nurse-practitioner and got a new prescription for prenatals - the generic ones I had were making me sick - and set up my next appointment for my first ultrasound.
The night before my first ultrasound, I had nightmares that they were going to tell me that there was something wrong with my baby. I was horribly nervous going in for that appointment, and when I was laying on the table and the technician said "Oh. Well, you're a lot less pregnant than we thought" I panicked. "What does that mean? Is there something wrong? Is the baby okay?"
According to her, the baby was fine, just not as far along as they seemed to think. According to the crown-to-rump measurement, I was apparently 2 weeks 'less pregnant'. They adjusted my due date to December 12th. I, of course, wanted to see for myself what the average measurements were for my time frame (I thought I was about 11 weeks along) according to my books and various places on the internet, if the fetus measured at 5cm,that puts the gestational age between 11 and 12 weeks.
At my next appointment, I saw the nurse-practitioner again, and she said that according to my new due date, I must have conceived on March 23rd. I told her that was impossible because my missed period would have been during that date. She told me "Don't bother trying to figure out when you conceived, it'll just give you a headache.". I attempted to point out the fact that the ultrasound tech had seemingly made an error with her estimation of gestational age, but the nurse-practitioner wouldn't even look at the ultrasound, she said something about how she had the information in the file and the UT had been doing her job for years and knew what she was talking about.
After that I decided that I'd just let them think whatever they wanted, because I knew I wanted to avoid being induced, and if they had my due date on file as two weeks later than the due date calculated by my menstrual cycle, I was far less likely to be coerced into an induction.
I called my mom (who is in nursing school) and told her about the due date discrepancy, and she essentially said the same thing, let them think what they want. When she was pregnant with me, my mom's doctors did the same thing.
On May 19th, I was at Wal-Greens and saw this odd little test; The intelli-gender test. Apparently, for about $30, one could test their urine and find out with about 82% accuracy the gender of their unborn child. Supposedly it tests testosterone levels and tells you as early as 10 weeks whether you're carrying a boy or a girl. Since I had already decided that my baby was a girl and had been calling this baby Madeline, I decided to buy the test to check. I read the instructions thoroughly, multiple times, and took the test the next morning at about 5am with my first morning urine, like the directions said.
After swirling it around and letting it sit, I checked the color of the results, orange to yellow means girl, and green to black means boy. Mine was definitely an orangey-yellow but I still didn't want to get my hopes up without confirmation from the company, so I sent this picture in for verification;
I received the following response; "Yes, you have a girl result. We'll be thinking pink for you! Congratulations and please let us know when you confirm!"
I was ecstatic.
June was a relatively uneventful month as far as my pregnancy goes.
We had our second ultrasound on June 4th, and I had to explain to my grandmother that, if they can't tell the gender for sure yet, they can't tell for sure yet. I managed to get my car fixed, and then re-registered it. June 28th, Jacob and I got married at the courthouse, and that was pretty much it.
From July 13th to July 21st, we went on our honeymoon to Washington state. We stayed in downtown Seattle for the first three days, in a beautiful room at the Seattle Westin hotel (a gift from Jacob's mother).
On July 15th, I met my husband's Uncle, his wife and their five children. The next day, Jacob's mother, sister, Jacob and I drove down to Olympia, to visit them. Meeting his family was a wonderful experience, Jacob and I actually ended up staying with them at their house - actually they had their camper set up for us to stay in - until July 19th, when we went back to Seattle. July 18th, we celebrated Jacob's 21st birthday at Anthony's Hearthfire Grill, thanks to his Aunt's suggestion, and after dinner, we went and saw some fireworks. It was a beautiful day.
The next day when we returned to Seattle, it was somewhat cold and foggy so Jacob and I went to the original Starbucks store on Pike Place and I bought a hot Chai Tea latte. The caffeine had a pretty strong effect on Madeline, and when we got to our hotel near the airport, Jacob got to feel his daughter move for the first time.
The day after we got home from our trip, July 22nd, we had an appointment for the 'big' ultrasound. We were going to be able to see, physically, whether we were having a boy or a girl. We went to the appointment with my mom, and when the technician asked if we'd like to know the gender we all got excited. At first, we thought we'd be unable to tell because Maddie had her legs tightly crossed, but eventually she changed position so we could see. The technician moved the receiver back over to see what was going on down there, she asked us if we'd like to take a guess. My mom was the first to respond; "That's my GRANDDAUGHTER!". The technician confirmed, we were expecting a girl.
I couldn't (still can't, honestly) get over how perfect the ultrasound images were from that day. I had a daughter, and a beautiful one at that. I could tell from her profile that she has her father's nose and judging by her picture she was going to be perfect.
Then there came the big surprise. Once we found out we were pregnant, and due so close to the end of the year, I had called my landlord. I told her that with the pregnancy ending so close to the end of our lease, Jacob and I would like to plan on staying and signing a lease for another year. The news was received well, and we had tentative plans to sign the lease for the next year in October, to have it out of the way.
The day after our ultrasound, we got a call from the landlord, She asked how our trip was, and made some small talk before dropping the bomb; due to some family issues, we would not be able to rent from her next year, and if we wanted we could break the lease early with no penalties.
That doesn't sound too bad, but the day before we left for our trip, I had spoken to her, and she was talking about signing next year's lease even earlier than October. Over the next few months, whenever we saw her, she'd ask if we found a new place yet. We got calls asking if we planned to move. One day she called and asked if we would be staying out our lease, I said "Well, we've been looking for a new place, but there's really not too much available in our price range right now. We're trying."
As the months wore on, I documented my belly's growth weekly, attended my appointments regularly, and kept an eye out for places for rent. I still measured on track with the November due date, and so I planned for the off-chance that I could, possibly have a baby by the end of November.
(Now, I think it should be mentioned that my maternal biological family seems to have a history of some things.
The first child generally seems to be a girl, the first child generally seems to be late, and doctors seem to have a hard time estimating due dates for us. For instance, my mother was told that she was measuring 'small for dates', and that she conceived [me] during a time period that it was physically impossible. Then, when I was born, I was three weeks late. My biological grandmother recently mentioned to my mom that the doctors had apparently messed up the due date for my mom, too. My mom's birthday is July 9th, but she was apparently due May 22nd. That's like, 7 weeks late.)
I knew it was incredibly unlikely that I would go into labor early, but I still like to try to be prepared. I figured at the earliest, I may have my daughter by November 13th, at the latest, by Christmas. We had set a goal to move out by the middle of October - that way we wouldn't have to worry about where to store the baby shower gifts.
July 29th, I started planning my baby shower. I made the shower invitations on shutterfly, and created baby registries at Target and Wal-Mart. When I received the printed invitations, I was amazed at how well they came out;
August and September were spent planning the guest lists, menu and decorations, on top of apartment searching. My mother's best friend/my aunt was hosting the shower, and I wanted to make the process as easy for her as possible. I picked the decorations, made the 'belly cake', came up with the games and made the prizes. I had one fantastic case of pregnancy brain, where I went to the store to buy game supplies, and somehow left my entire purchase there, not noticing until two days later. Luckily, when I went back to the store, they were willing to accept the "Hey, I'm a moron" excuse and gave me all my stuff. I ended up sending out the invitations in the middle of September, and in the beginning of October, I began working on Madeline's baby book, because I wanted the guests to be able to sign the baby shower page.
We were unable to make our goal of moving by mid October, we had kept checking out apartments, but we only found one place that was perfect for our price range and happened to be a two bedroom, everything else was either horribly set up, or too expensive.
The baby shower was held on October 17th, and it was fantastic. The foods went over well, the cake and cupcakes were a hit, and the games were a blast. Everyone had fun and we got essentially everything we needed to be ready. Here are a few pictures from the party;
We hemmed and hawwed about actually putting in an application for the one apartment that we seemed to like. We went and checked it out a few times, and I went with my mother another time. Shortly after we decided against it, a murder suspect drove his car into it, burning the unit to the ground. I don't think I've ever been more thankful about deciding not to move. The car crashed through the living room wall and considering the fact that I spend most of my time in the living room, had we decided to move there, I
During October our landlord got on us about moving again, at one point she called and asked if we were planning on moving back in with our parents. We started looking harder. We went to a housing project, we went to various apartments (one was a garage on an alley advertised as a 2 bedroom), and finally at the end of October, we found a place. It was a bit further from our families than we'd like, but it was an incredibly affordable, 2bedroom with a laundry room. we somehow managed to view the apartment, sign the lease, and move everything between October 29th and November 1st (the day we had our deposit inspection at the old apartment).
After moving everything we own in 48 hours, we needed to start work on our new apartment. The entire interior needed to be repainted, every surface needed to be scrubbed, especially in the baby's room.
During the move, I began having Braxton-Hicks contractions relatively regularly, so when it came to preparing the apartment, we started with Madeline's room as we figured that would be the most important. We painted the walls a fresh coat of white paint, and painted the trim a lovely shade of lavender. Soon after the paint dried, we set up the room with her crib, dresser, play yard and changing table.
After painting and setting up Maddie's room, we painted the rest of the house, and unpacked.
November 12th was my first weekly appointment, a mere 2 weeks before my November due date, and since they were doing the Group Beta Strep test and were already 'down there', they checked my cervix. I was already beginning to dilate and efface (1/2 cm dilated and 60% effaced). At my next appointment, I was measured at 1cm and 50% effacement, I was excited by the progress. My next appointment was November 23rd, with my favorite doctor in the practice, I brought in my birth plan, and went over it with her. I asked if she could check my station, too as the other doctors hadn't yet, and when she did my exam, she told me that I was 1cm dilated, 50% effaced, and engaged at a -2 station. It was official, Madeline was dropping.
Thanksgiving came and went, and immediately after, I started trying harder to make progress. I walked every night, I drank 3-6 cups a day of Red Raspberry Leaf Tea, and ate entire pineapples to myself.
December 2nd, I went in for another appointment and was measured at 2cm, 50% and -2 station.
So far I've made some progress, and as of December 13th I will know if I'm likely to give birth any time soon.
I'm hoping that since my next appointment is the day before my December due date, my doctor might be willing to preform a membrane sweep to help move things along. At this point I feel like I've been pregnant forever, and I'd love to finally get to meet my daughter.
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