Catching up

Ok this has been a long time coming.  first of all let me tell you that  i will type this out as it comes,  when ever i can, so there will be little to no proofreading other than what spell check catches. just wanted to get that out of the way first

I "met" my wife at her junior prom in 1998.  I was dating her best friend at the time.  about a year or so later (after her best friend and i had broken up on really good terms) we met again on July 4th 1999.  I asked her friend for her number and we had our first date. 

About a month or so later in early September Eastern NC was hit by Hurricanes Dennis and then Floyd.  Floyd  destroyed our area.  She worked at a hotel at the time so we stayed there during the storm and in the resulting flood.  you might remember seeing it on the news.  A little town called Princeville was wiped out due to flood waters.  Also during this time i fell and broke my kneecap.  so not only were we 'forced' to stay together over night pretty soon after we started dating , but we were forced to get close quickly as she took care of me while i couldn't get around.

Fast forward to our wedding July 28 2001, one of the happiest days of my life.  actually so far the happiest day of my life.  My dad gave us a Honeymoon in Niagara Falls as a gift but once we returned we found ourselves both with out jobs.    The school i worked at got rid of the position i had and the hotel my wife worked out stopped putting her on the schedule.

So for the next year i was getting jobs here and there until I started working at the local Community college, While my wife went to school for her Medical assisting degree and later her nursing degree.    During this time money was tight and every month was a struggle.  We  were not ready to support a child.

 While she was in nursing school i was working two jobs, one at the college full time the other in retail.  I was so proud of her when she graduated.    Soon she was started interviewing and i thought that soon we could finally start a family.  This is 2007.  She   had an interview and got the job.  meanwhile literally at the same time, I'm in an interview with the president of the college i worked at. thanks to the economy i was getting laid off.

So i continued working retail while my wife supported us.  In August of that year my wife went off the pill and we began to try to start our family.  some time later i got a full time position at the store i worked at and then later i switched jobs to a management position.

For the next year we tried to conceive a child  with no luck.    my wife began charting her temperatures every day and soon sex became a chore.  We had arguments  because after a while we just became tired of trying with no results.

And then one day at my new job as i was walking to my car to go on my lunch break i received a text message, a picture message actually...  of two positive pregnancy tests.  I teared up in the parking lot i was so happy.  later I remember lying on an air mattress in the living room on my birthday with my wife (the good tv is in the living room and i wanted to lie down and watch tv.) and talking about how happy we were and how life was going to change now that we were having a baby.

And then she called me.  Some thing was wrong.  I met her in the emergency room and we practically spent the night there but soon we found out that after 6 weeks we had lost the baby. 
I wish our our tragedy ended there but it didn't.  We went through 4 more miscarriages. meanwhile my sister was carrying her third.

During this time we started seeing a specialist. who didn't seem to remember who we were each time he saw us.  we would have an ultrasound and he would say "that follicle looks great."  and then he would give her a shot that would make her go ahead and ovulate. so that it would be easier to get pregnant.  we kept trying to tell him that getting  pregnant wasn't the problem  it was staying pregnant.  he diagnosed her with polycystic ovarian syndrome and we were sent to a genetics counselor. Genetically we were ok.  but in each of the pregnancies her progesterone was always very low so she was on supplements for that.

After miscarriage number 5 we switched specialists. the next closet one was over an hour and a half drive away.  normally we would stay the night in a hotel near by.  we were both tested and soon found out that 1 she had elevated anticardiolipin antibodies and 2 that my sperm were misshapen.    I was put on a vitamin supplement and Acai Berry juice while she was put on a progesterone supplement (several actually ) and Lovenox. 

After two unsuccessful tries at artificial insemination, my wife's gall bladder started to act up. She was going to need surgery.  After all the stress of trying to get pregnant  and the surgery we decided to take a break from trying to have a baby.   No visit to the doctor, no artificial insemination, no baby making marathons, just a trip to recover in Pigeon Forge and some time to not think about it.

So when we got the positive pregnancy test, i didn't get excited.  I was too scared.  you see the last pregnancy we were having weekly ultrasounds to check the viability of the baby. once we saw the heartbeat we were told we could relax. that it was time to get excited.  So when we went the following week, at 9.5 weeks, just for a quick peek we as well as our ultrasound tech ( who was also pregnant at the time) were devastated to see that our baby no longer had a heartbeat.   So this time when we saw a heartbeat we didn't relax. Not us, not the ultrasound techs, not the doctor.

But it kept going, week after week, our baby kept getting bigger and bigger. We were getting weekly ultrasounds.  I was giving my wife daily lovenox shots.  i was still taking the vitamin supplement and drinking the Acai berry juice, just in case this didn't work out. 

After 12 weeks i finally stopped drinking the juice and we began to relax a little.  We told our families and a few weeks later on our anniversary we told the world (on facebook because it's not official until it's on facebook.)
We became friends with our Ultrasound techs and the staff at the doctor's office.  being that we were going weekly we saw every doctor.  and we began to get a little spoiled with our weekly ultrasounds and being able to see our baby grow week by week.  soon we announced that we are having girl and that her name will be Abigail.

But now we have relaxed and we're getting excited.

I wish i had started this blog after one of the previous miscarriages .  I wish i had started this early.  it was a  little difficult summing up nearly 10 years of time in one blog post.  sorry this one was so long but i don't foresee the rest of them being this way. 

but now i want to start this as a way to document things this time. and i pray that this will work out, that i will continue to do this even after she is born and keeping me up at 4 am.