2008 didn't start off as the best year ever. In February, I was approached by my principal and told that I was going to be cut back to four days a week for the 2008-09 school year. In April, I tore my ACL completely playing volleyball. Later that month, our family dog died. Things were NOT going well. I could only hope that the law of averages would kick in soon.
We got a new puppy. She was a lot of work, but she's a really good dog. In June I had ACL construction surgery, and that went really well. Our principal at school retired, and the new principal informed me that there was no possible way they could not have me work five days a week, and had me sign a new contract. Things were looking up.
I had no idea how much.
From 1994 to 2004, I had been a nationally-ranked taekwondo competitor. I competed at the Olympic qualifiers in 2000, and I was on the AAU national team from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, an ankle injury compelled me to retire from competition, and it was then that my husband and I started trying to have a child. My body had other ideas. Oh, it liked to make me think I was pregnant -- then I'd take a home pregnancy test, and everything would go back to normal. People kept telling me, "It'll happen when you stop worrying about it."
With everything that happened in the first six months of 2008, the last thing my husband and I were thinking about was a baby. Then on August 18, tired after six of weeks of waiting for my period, I took an HPT to kickstart my monthly routine and this happened:
As you can see, that second line is not very dark, so -- like Juno -- I remained unconvinced. I took the second HPT in the pack, with the same result. A little research on the internet revealed that there is no such thing as a "false positive." If the test showed two lines, however faint, I was indeed knocked up.
I called my husband. His response was a bland, "You're kidding." My mom's? "Don't joke about that." Nobody believed me! There were times I didn't believe it myself. I never had morning sickness. I could chalk the exhaustion up to the start of school. I didn't really feel pregnant.
There would come a time, and it would be soon, that there would be no doubt.
By 20 weeks, I looked like this:
And I was only half as pregnant as I was going to be!
By Easter 2009, I was ready to burst. I had already been having weekly nonstress tests and biophysical profiles for a few months because of my elevated blood pressure and the ridiculous amount of fluid I was carrying. Finally, after nine months of increasing hugeness and all the scares the medical profession can lay on someone of Advanced Maternal Age, my doctor scheduled me for labor induction on Monday, April 13, at 6 pm.
At 3:07 am on Wednesday, April 15, I became a mommy!
What will follow are the adventures of a first-time mom.
We got a new puppy. She was a lot of work, but she's a really good dog. In June I had ACL construction surgery, and that went really well. Our principal at school retired, and the new principal informed me that there was no possible way they could not have me work five days a week, and had me sign a new contract. Things were looking up.
I had no idea how much.
From 1994 to 2004, I had been a nationally-ranked taekwondo competitor. I competed at the Olympic qualifiers in 2000, and I was on the AAU national team from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, an ankle injury compelled me to retire from competition, and it was then that my husband and I started trying to have a child. My body had other ideas. Oh, it liked to make me think I was pregnant -- then I'd take a home pregnancy test, and everything would go back to normal. People kept telling me, "It'll happen when you stop worrying about it."
With everything that happened in the first six months of 2008, the last thing my husband and I were thinking about was a baby. Then on August 18, tired after six of weeks of waiting for my period, I took an HPT to kickstart my monthly routine and this happened:
As you can see, that second line is not very dark, so -- like Juno -- I remained unconvinced. I took the second HPT in the pack, with the same result. A little research on the internet revealed that there is no such thing as a "false positive." If the test showed two lines, however faint, I was indeed knocked up.
I called my husband. His response was a bland, "You're kidding." My mom's? "Don't joke about that." Nobody believed me! There were times I didn't believe it myself. I never had morning sickness. I could chalk the exhaustion up to the start of school. I didn't really feel pregnant.
There would come a time, and it would be soon, that there would be no doubt.
By 20 weeks, I looked like this:
And I was only half as pregnant as I was going to be!
By Easter 2009, I was ready to burst. I had already been having weekly nonstress tests and biophysical profiles for a few months because of my elevated blood pressure and the ridiculous amount of fluid I was carrying. Finally, after nine months of increasing hugeness and all the scares the medical profession can lay on someone of Advanced Maternal Age, my doctor scheduled me for labor induction on Monday, April 13, at 6 pm.At 3:07 am on Wednesday, April 15, I became a mommy!
What will follow are the adventures of a first-time mom.
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