7-28-11 Growing Life, Someone Else’s

I took a pregnancy test tonight, and there were two blue lines which puts me at 4 weeks pregnant tomorrow. I want to remember this for journaling purposes, but I don’t want to announce it or anything. So if someone is reading this and is friends with me on FB, don’t mention it on FB or congratulate me because I am only 4 meesly weeks, and that is not the time to be announcing a pregnancy.  We have been trying for 2 or 3 months, so it wasn’t a shock. There’s something about a positive pregnancy test that puts a silly grin on my face and a happy feeling in my heart. Even when I didn’t want to be pregnant with Teagan, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw that I was pregnant. Jacob and I are ready – well, as “ready” as you ever are – to have a baby. You’re never going to be just the right size (like I planned to be before I got pregnant again) or make the perfect amount of money or have everything perfectly in order the way that you ideally would like to, and if you keep waiting for when circumstances are ideal, you’ll be 90 years old singing your shoulda coulda wouldas with no posterity to keep you company.

It’s still really early to get excited, so I don’t want to get too excited until I’m in the clear. I miscarried before Easton, and that was a really big disappointment. But I trust in the Lord’s will, and I know that I don’t need to be afraid of anything that might happen. Because if it happens, I’m not alone, and He’ll give me the ability to rise above whatever I have to face in life. So there’s no need to live in fear and worry. But I am excited! Until I start getting fatter and feeling uglier and remembering how much I dislike myself when I’m pregnant. I’m not a pretty pregnant lady. I’m really a terrible sight, but I guess that’s just something I have to live with if I end up with another beautiful little child to call my own.

My pregnancies have always been good, the two that I’ve had anyways, but my post-partum time after Easton was one of the darkest times of my life. With Teagan I was on medication, so I really got to enjoy him and not feel all that anxiety and panic and depression that I felt so horribly after Easton was born. So I get a little nervous when I think about the whole post-partum stage and everything that comes with that. I’ve been off my medication for a year and a half, and it’s been good. It was kinda up and down when I first went off of it, and there are still days that I deal with anxiety, but never to the debilitating point that I did after I had Easton. The memory of that time is still not a pleasant one, but I also know that I have a wonderfully supportive husband who has made it possible for me to be off the medication that I went on a year after I had Easton when those horrible symptoms still hadn’t gone away. Jacob’s very compassionate and understanding, and I know that  he played a big part in me being able to come off my medication. My anxiety always came back full force when I tried to go off before. The last time I tried was a few months after Jacob and I got married, back in April of 2010, and I haven’t had to go back on it since. So I’m hopeful that this time around I won’t have to suffer through that horrible stuff again, and that I won’t have to go back on any medication. It worked great, I felt like me again when I went on it, but I gained 30 lbs. That has been a nightmare to try to get off, so I don’t want to go back on anything unless I absolutely have to.

Anyway, those are my feelings about being pregnant. I’m also very grateful that I haven’t had to struggle with getting pregnant, since I have some friends that have had such a hard time. And that would be such a tough thing when all you want to do is be a mother.

It’s a wondrous thing to carry a child inside of you. You’re growing a life, and it’s someone else’s life. Not just anyone else’s, but someone whose life starts to become significantly more important than your own. I can’t wait to add another little beautiful child into our home and to see what Jacob and I have made together. We hope it’s a sweet little girl with blue eyes and brown hair :). But we’ll love him just the same if it’s another boy.