The week before Easter I found out I was pregnant. This was so crazy and unexpected. I hadn't been paying attention to a calendar and had been really busy having the book club and then the family over for an early Easter. I was almost 8 weeks along when I went to the doctor to confirm. Jav looked at me as if I was speaking Swahili when I told him. We had decided to stop trying and start really looking into adoption. We were very excited, but I was also very, very concerned that I would lose another pregnancy.
At the end of the next week, Jav got laid off from his job. They had recently been bought out by a big company and of course the big company decided they didn't need all the people from the little company. We had been worried it might happen but hopeful it wouldn't. We were still really stunned when it did.
The next weeks are filled with doctors appointments for me, once a week to make sure things were still going well. Surprisingly to me, they were. I also remember Gabriel's last few weeks of school, and that he got really sick for the last week and couldn't go to any of the parties, which made me sad. He had a fever that wouldn't go away and developed fever blisters at the back of his throat. He stopped eating almost anything for a couple of days, which was a little scary. It took him two weeks to get back to normal.
It was strange having Jav at home during the day, but also a blessing because I was queasy from 3 pm to bedtime almost every day. He would watch Gabriel from 5-6 every night so I could rest up before cooking dinner. This was a hellish task during that time, but not as bad as cleaning up afterwards. But we made it through with only a couple of extra take-out nights. I have to make note of my very crazy and specific cravings I had during the first three months. One really weird thing is that just before I found out I was pregnant with Gabriel I started craving pickled okra (not something we usually have on hand). And just about every time I've been pregnant, I've crave it the week before I find out. It happened with this one too, but I didn't ever put two and two together. My favorite thing to eat during the first three months was bean and cheese nachos with tons of lettuce, tomato and peppers on top. I also loved eating salads with butter lettuce, picked beets, sliced avocado and Ranch dressing. It had to be the Ranch from the envelope, not bottled. Anything I drank had to be ice-cold. And the only sweet that tasted really good was Cookies and Cream ice cream.
There were many other things we kept busy with during this time. We went to Prairiefest in late April, but it was a really hot day and we didn't stay too long. I had several book club meetings, which are always fun. Gabriel had his speech therapy sessions and really improved in both sentence length and pronunciation during this time. We celebrated our 5-year anniversary and my sister-in-law's 40th birthday with a wonderful dinner at Nonna Tata's. I listened to much of the Van Cliburn piano competition on the TCU radio station, especially while doing the dishes every evening.
We went to one adoption orientation meeting in late April, with me thinking that if we received bad news about the pregnancy we would at least have started the ball rolling. This was also despite the fact that we knew we would have no way to fund an adoption with Jav not working. But the thing I'll remember most about that meeting is walking out feeling so blessed to have had the chance to have even one child. There were 20-odd couples at that meeting and there was only one other couple besides us that had their own child. And there I was with one at home and one growing inside of me. I almost felt guilty, but my guilt was overcome with compassion for the women, and an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness for what we have.
Well, that's the first month and a half from our Missing in Action period. I'll finish up next post.
1 comment:
Kathy craved capers from at least one of her pregnancies. I remember her eating them straight from the jar.
And you'll look back on these scant posting times just like I will (and many of my other blogging friends) - we'll all be thinking Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.
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