The Wee-One, Cooking & Baking: What a year, a year I'll never forget...

A big anniversary is approaching....our son has been with 'me' for exactly one year ago this week. Sure people throw around the term "we're pregnant" but unless some scientific experiment where men can get pregnant and deliver a child through their vagina has become reality, only women can still be pregnant...therefore William has been with 'me' for the last 365 days...he's been with us for the last five months. ;-)

He's been with us in a sense for a year now, a horrible and fantastic year, all at the same time. A blog about our infertility is still to come, but I wanted to commemorate the year of our son's existence that began this week, in 2009. Some people would say it's sad that the date of their child's conception is fresh in their memory....after two and a half years of trying, I remember exactly how he came to be in this world. The ironic thing is, he wasn't supposed to be, since we weren't 'trying' last August....go figure.

The last picture of me taken before I got pregnant...

I told Chris back in July of 2009 that we were taking August off. God knows we needed a break from the stress of trying to conceive the old fashioned way. Conception the 'new high tech' way was already decided upon, we were just in need of the funds to do so. In the meantime since I was growing older instead of younger, we still tried to have a baby, despite being told we had a less than 1% chance of ever conceiving a baby, the conventional way.

We had a lot of plans in August, out of town plans. I decided to not track my cycle in August. I decided not to buy yet another ovulation test in August. I knew, on paper, according to the numbers, that ovulation 'should' occur at a time that would not be convenient for us, so we decided to just ignore August and try again in September.

William, you can thank Chris for your existence. Of course all children can than their parents, but this child in particular can thank Chris. Had it been any other egg or any other sperm, William would not be here...some other kid would be here. Even though I was 'not' ovulating, and we weren't trying, and I told Chris that there was NO way we'd conceive in August, since that ship had sailed...well, I mean, you can figure out the rest.

Until I researched pregnancy, I thought that you had sex, and within a few hours a sperm met and egg and boom, you were pregnant. Turns out that is not true. A sperm can hang out for a while as it turns out. Also, the sperm should be waiting on the egg, just like men should wait on women ;-) As it turns out, yes, you should try to conceive 'before' you ovulate. Not too much before or else the sperm pretty much all die out and the egg gets stood up. Too late and the egg, who's really impatient, decides to just croak before the sperm shows up.

What's really freaky is my egg should have been dead, buried, and pushing up daisies by the time the "William" sperm came...ha ha. I already had the tomb stone ordered by the time the sperm came along. Little did I know that for the first time in a few years, my egg decided to be fashionably late. No, not even, she decided to be really, really late! It's like she knew that she'd get stood up again if she arrived on time.

You know when you have a friend or family member whose always late, and you tell them the party starts at 7 when in reality it starts at 9? Yeah, I think my egg caught on that she'd always be waiting around to die and she wasn't interested in a suicide mission that month. She smartened up and decided that for once, those tardy sperms should wait on her instead of the other way around. Sure, the party was supposed to start at 7, but this time, everyone showed up at 9.

I was actually pregnant in these pictures and didn't even know it! Mom's 60th birthday, August 19, 2009

I guess it's sad that I have these pictures. I was pregnant in these pictures and didn't even know it. My egg was probably fertilized a day before these pictures were taken. At the time of these pictures, aka my mother's birthday, my little William was a tiny cell, dividing and dividing and dividing. At this point, I had no clue, none what so ever. The first few months we tried to conceive, I sat around thinking I was pregnant. I thought about that cell dividing and dividing and dividing, when in realty there was no cell, just a dead egg waiting to be expelled.

In August 2009, I missed the whole 'dividing' thing all together. Well technically I was there, but I was so unaware. Unaware that little William was alive and with us...I was a host to a tiny little being. I had no idea. I felt no different. I felt as crappy as ever. LOL. A couple of days after Mom's birthday, when I was about five days post-conception (or two weeks pregnant depending on how you look at it) I was very tired. I have chronic fatigue so I'm always tired. I thought my extreme fatigue was just that, chronic. Usually when I have 'bad fibro' days, I just rest for a day, maybe two, and I'm back to my usual tired self. Not that week. That whole week I was exhausted. I napped all day, every day, but I still had no clue.

On Thursday my period was due, and for the most part I was on time, except for the August previous but that's for a different blog. Thursday came and went but I paid little attention. I thought Friday would be the day instead. I didn't even tell my friends like I used to if I was a day late. Friday came and went, but I knew I wasn't pregnant, so I feared my ovarian cysts were back. Chris told me to take a pregnancy test and I said, "NO, I'm only two days late." We've spent enough money on tests, I wasn't pregnant and I wasn't getting my hopes up...AGAIN.

On Wednesday we went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I promised Chris that if I was a week late, I'd take a test. The next day was test day. I was still tired but that was it really. That night we dined on wings and I had a Mich Ultra. I joked that it may be the last beer I have for a few months. But it was a joke, since in no way was I pregnant. Let me reiterate, not only had that ship sailed that month, but we were infertile! It was impossible for us to conceive naturally. Even if my ship was in port and his sea-men were boarding...I'd never get pregnant. So I enjoyed my beer.

On Thursday we went to Sam's Club and then did some grocery shopping. He picked up a Kroger brand pregnancy test. I kind of changed my mind about testing but it was only $8 for a two-pack, so what the heck. We got home around 3pm and I went to the bathroom to pee on the stick, as I had many times before. While I was still peeing, I removed the stick to put it on the counter like I always do for the 3 minute wait, only to find not one but TWO pink lines....two pink lines. TWO PINK LINES! I screamed from the toilet, while still peeing, "I'm pregnant!"

Chris was in the kitchen putting the groceries away. He screamed "What?" I wiped and ran out of the bathroom in shock and said again "I'm pregnant! Is that two lines? There's two lines right? I mean, two means pregnant right?"

Pregnancy test, September 3, 2009

"Yeah, yeah...uh, yeah, there's clearly two lines! We did it!" Chris exclaimed, and then we embraced. No one was more shocked than me. Our friends and family were shocked, but trust me, it was the biggest surprise of my life! A planned surprise!

This ultrasound was taken exactly one week later, the tiny white line in the kidney-bean is the makings of the umbilical cord.

Like I stated in a previous blog, it was the happiest moment of my life. Sheer bliss. Utter excitement. Chris celebrated by going to the gym of course...looking back I could KILL him for leaving me and not celebrating the greatest day of our lives together. As a matter of a fact, when he gets home from work tonight, I'm going to yell at him for abandoning 'us' that day to get his work-out on, while I sat home, alone, in the company of dogs, on the happiest day of my life. Man is he in for it tonight!

We all know the rest, sadly all that happiness didn't last for too long, but in the end, look what we got! We got William. Looking back, I'm happy I didn't get pregnant in 2007 like we planned. If I did, it wouldn't be William, it'd be some other baby, not him. A tad philosophical, true, but it's how I feel. And I have Chris to thank for it...even though I plan to tear him a new one for going to the gym.

Our son, age twenty weeks, his tiny hand in mine.