Six
months ago today, Tim and I vowed to love each other until death do us part. We
also vowed that we would love each other freely, totally, faithfully, and
fruitfully. In other words, we promised to strive to love each other as God
loves us. That is not always an easy task but thankfully we have the grace of
God bestowed upon us in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Unfortunately, I think
many who are married in the Catholic Church may not understand the promise they
are making. In order to fulfill that
promise you must give everything to your beloved including your fertility.
Every time Tim and I make love we are giving a total gift of ourselves and we
always know that there is the possibility of conceiving a baby.
When
Tim and I were married we decided to practice natural family planning in order
to avoid conceiving a child at that time as we discerned that we were not ready
to provide for a child. At the time Tim was unemployed and we could not make
ends meet on my paychecks alone. We also were hoping to have a better idea of
when Tim will be back in nursing school as he is on the waitlist currently.
Even though we knew it was a very responsible decision to make, which the
Catholic Church actually encourages couples to make, it was difficult for
us. We both knew that part of our
calling and vocation is to be parents and having this life giving capability
but choosing to not fully embrace it was difficult. I had no idea how emotional
it would be for me to finally have the physical possibility of getting pregnant
(since I had never had sex before) but to continue getting my period knowing
that I was not pregnant. Since Tim and I were charting my fertility and
abstaining during my fertile periods this shouldn’t have surprised me, but for
some reason it was painful for me to not conceive. Tim and I kept revisiting
the topic of when we should be open to conceiving but we knew that it would make
the most sense to wait until he had a fulltime job and we could plan around him
being back in nursing school.
God was
truly working in our hearts to realize that we needed to trust in his plan and
his timing. He was taking care of our baby before he or she was even conceived.
In the first week of April Tim was offered a full time job at Scripps Mercy
Hospital, the only Catholic hospital in San Diego. We could not believe how
blessed he was to get a job at the perfect hospital for him. On the exact day
that Tim was signing papers to accept his position, my boss called me into her
office to let me know I was being offered a full time position with benefits
and a raise! For the past 16 months at my job, I had been working as Per Diem
which meant that I did not get paid time off or maternity leave. I could not
believe how much God was taking care of both Tim and I, it was amazing that it
happened on the same day!
The
month before, in March I had a really confusing cycle and Tim and I had a hard
time determining when I had ovulated. Due to that confusion, we really thought
that I had conceived which actually brought some stress on us since Tim still
didn’t have a job and I was per diem. I was so worried about not being able to
have paid maternity leave. I also was very adamant that I did not want to have
to work while I was pregnant or after the baby was here. I really wanted to be
a stay at home mom so even if that meant we had to wait longer to have a baby I
thought that would be best. However, going through that initial stress made us
sit down and figure out a plan of how we could make ends meet if I worked
through pregnancy and part-time after that . After going through that we were
feeling a lot more ready to accept God’s blessing. Unfortunately I did not
conceive that month which was hard as I had convinced myself that I was. I stared
at multiple pregnancy tests trying to will that second line to show up, but I
was not pregnant. We knew that God had everything in control and that this
would give us more time to prepare for a baby. We actually decided that
September would be a good time to try to conceive because we knew that even if
Tim were in nursing school he would have summer off and could just work and
focus on our baby.
When we
both got full time jobs with benefits the next month I could really see that
God was blessing us for trusting in him.
I will be honest in saying that I was pretty confident that I knew my
cycle pretty well and that I always ovulated later in my cycle than most people
so Tim and I would start our abstinence period a few days later than strict NFP
rules would permit. We were even using a clearblue fertility monitor so I knew
that I always ovulated on day 17 or later, I never in my life have had a cycle
shorter than a month! I am pretty sure it was the first time in my whole
fertile period of my life that I somehow ovulated on day 13 which would put me
at a 26 day cycle. When I noticed I ovulated early I was thankful that Tim and
I had actually started our abstinence period two days earlier than usual and I
hadn’t been seeing fertility signs at that time. For those of you who are not familiar with
how a woman’s fertility and conception work here is a little science lesson. If
a woman has fertile mucus the sperm can actually survive up to five days before
ovulation and a woman can become pregnant from intercourse that happened 5 days
prior to ovulation. I was pretty confident that I didn’t have fertile mucus on
our last day of love-making so pregnancy was not on my radar this time.
About a
week later I started to experience back pain that could have been menstrual
cramps but somehow it felt different. I still did not think I was pregnant but
on May 4th I was in so much discomfort I could not sleep. I randomly got up at 1:30 in the morning and
decided to take a pregnancy test. Almost
immediately the first line appeared and then the cross appeared. I started at
it in disbelief; since the second line was faint I wasn’t sure if it was
actually positive. I went to get my phone so I could take a picture to show Tim
later. He had to get up at 5:30 for work so I decided to not wake him up to
tell him. I just laid in bed wondering if I was actually pregnant because I did
not want to get my hopes up. I could not sleep so I went back to the bathroom
and read the pregnancy test instructions to see what could cause a false
positive. After reading that I was starting to think that I might actually be
pregnant. I decided to wait until Tim
got home from work to tell him so it could be special.
After
Tim got home from work and took a shower, I asked him if we could pray together
in our prayer corner. Since it was our 4 month anniversary I started by
thanking God for all the blessings he has given us in these four months of marriage.
Then I thanked him for trusting us with this special blessing and asked God to
watch over me during my pregnancy. At that moment Tim realized what was
happening and looked at me kind of shocked and starting weeping tears of joy.
He then hugged me and I explained how I found out. It was such a perfect
moment. He was so happy but we both were hesitant to believe that I was
actually pregnant, just in case it was a false positive.
On
Monday, I called Culture of Life Family Services to see if they could fit me in
to confirm that I was pregnant. They did not call me back until Tuesday but by
the grace of God they had a cancellation and were able to fit me in that
afternoon. It was so perfect because I already had that afternoon off. Tim had
a training at Scripps until 4:30 so I would have to go by myself. His training ended super early though so he
was able to meet me there before my appointment, so many blessings! It was another
blessing to be seen by Dr. Delgado who is one of the best Catholic doctors in
San Diego and practices Naprotechnology. When I told him about the pain and
cramping I was experiencing he informed me that there was a risk of either
ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage with those symptoms. My heart dropped, I have always had such a
fear of miscarriage and I could not believe I may actually have to face it. He
suggested I get my blood drawn and return for a progesterone shot just in case
low progesterone was the reason for my cramping. Thanks be to God that I was
able to start prenatal care literally 11 days post fertilization because it
turns out I did have low progesterone and would have likely miscarried without
those progesterone shots. I ended up needing to get a shot twice a week for the
first 10 weeks of pregnancy until the placenta started making
progesterone. I am getting emotional
thinking about how I could have lost my first baby if God had not provided for
us so well. Thankfully I was very familiar with COLFS and Dr. Delgado so I knew
that was the first place to go for prenatal care. Another blessing was that they had an office
two blocks down from where I work so I could easily stop by for my shots after
work. God was watching over the safety
of our baby from the very beginning.
Even
though God never fails to show us his goodness and trustworthiness I had a very
difficult time dealing with the fact that I had low progesterone and could possibly
have an ectopic pregnancy. I was quite literally a mess the next day; I could
not focus at work. I had trouble trusting in God no matter what. Tim was my
rock and my reason through this difficult time. He encouraged me that even if
our baby did die, it would be another soul in heaven which was a consoling
thought. I also thought about our friends whose baby had died from Trisomy 13
shortly after birth, their experience reminded me that babies are a gift that
God entrusts us with but ultimately he is the author of life. Even though it
was hard to face that I truly had no control in this situation, I began to open
myself to God’s will more and more and trust.
We had
our first ultrasound at 6 weeks which confirmed that the baby had implanted
well and even had a healthy heartbeat.
That was such a relief but I still lived with a heavy heart that
something could still happen to our baby. At 8 weeks we got to see another
ultrasound which revealed, as Tim had repeatedly told me, that our baby was
healthy and growing stronger daily! The last trial came before our 11 week
heartbeat check, I was so afraid that we wouldn’t hear anything and clearly was
still not trusting God. Of course the heartbeat was very strong, and it was so
amazing to get to hear it with Tim! After this, Tim convinced me that our baby
was healthy and I had no more reason to worry, just trust in God!
Since
this is already ridiculously long, I will write another blog about the changes
of pregnancy and telling our families about our baby. I will end by encouraging
others to trust God with their fertility because participating in the act of
creation with God is truly the most amazing thing you will ever experience in
life. I still cannot believe that there
is a life growing inside me, God is so good!
We used this photo to announce our pregnancy
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