When I was younger, I was told it would be very difficult (if not "impossible") for me to get pregnant due to some health issues. I was sad for a couple of days. I remember coming home to my college dorm and crying to some of my best friends about it, but then I dusted off my knickers and decided that I'd one day have children through adoption.
Sam and I weren't ready for kids until a few years into our marriage. One day we both (almost literally) just woke up and decided we were ready to jump into the parenting adventure thing. We had already discussed the whole 'difficult for me to have kids (if not "impossible")' thing years earlier, so we didn't have high hopes of having a biological baby.
{WARNING: A little T.M.I., but I'm putting it out there so you can understand a little of why our hopes weren't very high. I've never been on birth control. We have never used any contraceptive and have never done anything to prevent getting pregnant. All the years of our marriage pre-baby, I never even had a pregnancy scare. Hence the reason I went through my "meh, maybe kids aren't for me.." phase.}
We still wanted to at least try and kept our expectations of getting pregnant low. I visited my NEW doctor in Texas, told her that Sam and I were ready for kids, told her about what my previous doctor in GA had said, and asked her about next steps.
She looked at me and apologized for what my previous doctor in GA had told me. She said that she never tells her patients that it's impossible to have children unless they just don't have reproductive organs. She told me about all of the times she's had patients who thought they couldn't get pregnant...get pregnant. She gave me hope. She told me that she wanted Sam and I 'to have fun' and that if we weren't pregnant a year from that date that we'd meet with her and talk about next steps.
I left my doctors appointment feeling...hopeful. (This was in September of 2014.)
*Flash forward 3 months later....(December of 2014)*
I had been obsessively stocking up on pregnancy tests. There was a small basket in our bathroom closet that was constantly filled to the brim with every kind of pregnancy test you could find at the store. Any time I felt like...maybe...just maybe...I was possibly pregnant, the pregnancy test would shatter my excitement. This went on for months.
*Flash forward 3 months later...(March of 2015)*
By this point, Sam and I had been looking at houses. We found the one, made an offer, and signed all of the paper work. We were set to move in around May.
The basket of pregnancy tests still remained in our bathroom. I wasn't as obsessive about it at this point. The first excitement of getting pregnant had worn off a bit and I was beginning to 'think more logical'.
"If I can't get pregnant, maybe it's time to start looking at other options", I had told Sam one night cuddled on the couch futon in our apartment living room while watching t.v. "Okay, but we still need to keep trying for a full year. Doctor's orders!", Sam had replied. I remember saying "okay" and thinking to myself that it was just wasted time. I added 'look more into adoption agencies' and 'get check list of steps for adoption' on my mental 'to-do' list.
*Flash forward 3 months later...(June of 2015)*
We had successfully moved into our new home and were in the midst of unpacking!
I had gone out of town for a work conference to New Orleans. While there, I decided I wasn't going to focus on building our family through pregnancy anymore. I was going to focus on building our family through adoption. I already had a list of adoption agencies and had reached out to a couple of the agencies to get an understanding of what we would need to do to start the process a couple of months prior.
I wanted to get moved in and settled into our home before any home inspections, so I decided we'd officially start the adoption process in September of 2015. My thought was that would give us a good 3 months of putting our home together and we'd have hit the year mark on 'trying to have a baby'.
*Flash forward 2 months later...(August of 2015)*
It was a hot early August night around 10:00 p.m. Sam and I were driving home from my company's soft ball game.
I was sticky with sweat and exhausted from the night's activities. I announced to Sam that I was going to shower before bed.
Once home, I made my way to the bathroom debating the whole time if I realllyyyyy wanted to put energy into showering or if I wanted to just wash my face and crawl into bed.
I had ultimately talked myself into showering. I opened the bathroom pantry to get out my shampoo and there on the shelf was a single sealed Clearblue pregnancy test. I hadn't noticed that it was there before. I remember staring at it. It was taunting me....just sitting there...acting like it knew everything....acting like it could call the shots in my life. I decided to pee on it. "Take that, pregnancy test!"...those were my thoughts. I peed on it. I threw it away without even looking at it. I showered. I got out of the shower. I got dressed and sat on the bed. Sam was in the office checking his email.
That pregnancy test was just nagging at me. I looked at the clock. 10:52 p.m. I huffed, rolled my eyes and plopped down on the bed. I couldn't get that pregnancy test off of my mind. Why hadn't I noticed that it was there before? I closed my eyes tight while willing the pregnancy test out of my mind. "What if... What if....No. There's no way I'm pregnant.", I thought.
Finally, I just couldn't take it any more. I looked at the clock. 11:00 p.m. Ugh. I got up. I walked to the bathroom. I got the pregnancy test out of the trash can...and there in little block printed letters...the pregnancy test read 'Pregnant 3+'.
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