New Dreams

About a year and a half ago, in a freak bowling accident, I tore my ACL. I didn't know it at the time, and some other news kind of overshadowed it. That was the night I found out I was pregnant.

I was on cloud 9. I couldn't wait to be a mom. Everything was going great--I felt great, my hair looked good, I wasn't gaining weight, and things seemed perfect. We watched the baby at the sonogram at 8 weeks, and 4 weeks later, eagerly told our friends about our wonderful news.

A few days later, we lost the baby.

Though my heart was broken, I focused on our new life in France, and got through the pain as best I could. I knew that it might be hard for me to get pregnant again, because my history wasn't exactly wrinkle-free.

I wasn't ready to start trying again until we were well-entrenched in the streets of Paris. We nervously tossed the remaining pills, and officially started along the path once again. We didn't know what to expect, but we were hopeful.

After a few months of no success, I missed my period. I got very excited, and soon bought a pregnancy test. And another. And another.

And they were all negative.

Month after month, I waited, and waited, for nothing. It was almost like I was 10 years old again--there was nothing happening. I went to the doctor, who told me, "Be patient. It will come. You are young. Don't worry!" Easy for her to say.

I had hormone testing. That came up normal. The doctor still couldn't explain it. She scheduled a sonogram.

The doctor who performed it, after complimenting me on my excellent french, went to read me the results. It seems I had cysts and tumors in my uterus. There were lots of follicles, but she wasn't sure they were "any good". After several frantic emails to a high-school friend of mine who's a doctor (and who has internist friends), she told me I likely had Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, and this is what explained my 4 and a half dry months. She said it was definitely possible to get pregnant and have a baby, but I was still worried and quite overwhelmed. We were just about to move back to the US, and it was too much to deal with just then, so we decided to put it on the mental back burner until we were moved in, had insurance, and could focus our time on trying to find out how we could become parents.

We arrived home, and as luck would have it, things started working again just a few days after we landed at O'Hare. With a new home to prepare, boxes to unpack, jobs to start and so much to do, we decided to not worry too much and just wait to see what would happen. We waited for our insurance to kick in, and scheduled appointments with a doctor to get the process started. Due to the beginning of the academic year and all the new students and staff entering the system, our first appointments weren't set until the end of October. We were disappointed, but we knew there wasn't much we could do.

Then, on Friday the 13th, I blew out my knee again. At the ER, the doctor wanted to do an x-ray.

"Is there a chance you could be pregnant?"

"Well, I suppose, but I don't think so. I don't feel pregnant."

"Are you late?"

"Yeah, but only 2 weeks, and last time it was 4 and a half months, so it's probably nothing."

"Been nauseous?"

"Maybe a little, nothing big."*

"Constipated?"

"Um, yeah?"

He handed me a cup, and pointed to the bathroom.



There is a reason it took 7 weeks to go from injury to surgery. They had to wait until the second trimester.

I will be at 14 weeks as of tomorrow. Well, I guess I should say we.




*Note: this has changed. A lot. Ugh!