Our story. Part I

I've sat down several times to start writing this, but always find myself staring at a blank computer screen. Even now I can't seem to find the words to write these first few sentences. I type and then erase, type and erase.

I guess I'll start from the very beginning...

We found out we were pregnant August of last year. We had made the decision that it was time to start trying to get pregnant last spring when my gastroenterologist felt that I was completely in remission from my Crohn's Disease. Two and a half months after the go-ahead, life began to form within my belly.

 It took us almost 9 weeks to actually figure out we were pregnant. I suppose I knew that I was pregnant but was afraid that I might be getting my hopes up and that it wouldn't actually be true. Many people have wondered, after I explain to them that we didn't know we were pregnant for so long, how I didn't know since I most likely was not having my period. Well, to put it bluntly, my periods have always been messed up. I can go weeks at a time spotting blood with a few days in between starting my period again. At this point I had been spotting for some time so I just thought it was normal. I finally had a friend convince me that I was most likely pregnant. So, I stopped at the store on the way home from working on a wedding and purchased two pregnancy tests. Andy was out of town on a climbing trip and got home late on a Sunday evening. So we waited until the next morning for me to take the test. I took the test and then sat on Andy's lap with the stick upside down in my hand. We waited five minutes and then flipped it over. Sure enough, the double lines were there. We looked at each other and had no words. But there was a general feeling between the two of us that we knew our lives were about to change dramatically.

This little babe would be the first grandchild for both my parents and Andy's parents and the excitement and anticipation were indescribable for both sides.

We had our first ultrasound a few days later since the spotting was a cause for concern. The ultrasound indeed proved that there was a little one inside of me and also that my placenta was detaching from the wall of my uterus which was causing hemorrhaging therefore explaining the spotting I had been experiencing. The doctor advised me to immediately go on pelvic rest. Meaning, no exercising, no sex, and no lifting anything for fear of my placenta detaching even more and causing a miscarriage.

Somehow I was able to avoid a miscarriage and the spotting went away for a time. It occasionally came back but would eventually go away completely once I started my third trimester.

At 17 weeks we did an early gender check and found out that we would be welcoming a sweet little baby girl into our lives. For both of our families, boys have seemed to dominate so to welcome a little girl was quite exciting. My hopes and dreams for a child began to become more real and detailed as I thought of this girl and what her life would be like. My most prominent visions were of Andy and watching him dote and love on her unconditionally. I dreamt of seeing her tiny body asleep on his chest while he napped too. I dreamt of watching him soothe her and change her diaper. To see the adoration in his eyes for this special little girl was what I looked forward to most.

We were worried about my being pregnant with the detachment of the placenta but we were also worried about the fact that having Crohn's, whether or not I was in remission, put me at high risk simply because of the medications I needed to be on to keep my disease in remission. My meds were considered category C, meaning, there have not been any tests done on pregnant women with these medications but the risk of going off the medications while pregnant are greater to the mother and baby than to stay on them. In other words, if I am in remission because of the combination of meds that I'm on, it's safer to stay on them then to go off of them and risk having a flare up while pregnant.
We asked our doctor if we needed to consult with a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor. He said he thought MFM's had their time and place but tended to scare his patients and didn't think I needed to see one. So we trusted him and went along with it.

My pregnancy wasn't the easiest pregnancy in the world, I'm assuming. But, it also wasn't the hardest. I had my time of being sick and nauseated. That came and went pretty quickly. The exhaustion was normal and so were the aches. However, there were a few times that were cause for more concern than usual and I was sent to the emergency room twice, only to come out of it with just a scare and no real problems. Before I even got pregnant, I always thought pregnancy was going to be very difficult for me and was fairly shocked that things were going as "normal" as we thought they were.

What a rude awakening we were about to have...    

diseases are no fun

so, for at least five years i've had stomach and digestive issues. 

let's just say they were more than just issues. :)

my dad was diagnosed with celiacs disease at least ten years ago and we just always attributed my "issues" with that disease since it is hereditary. 

so, we did a few tests here and there and they all came out negative. for the life of us though, we couldn't think of what could be wrong with me other than having celiacs and we knew that these tests could come out as false negatives.

i lived with this "yucky tummy",as my dad calls it, for a while and then i started to see a few pretty concerning symptoms that i was not used to. i'll spare you the details... 

my parents kinda freaked out and had me go to my dad's gastrointerologist doctor. 

the doctor was concerned as well so i got a colonoscopy to check for a few things and an endoscopy that would tell me for sure if i had celiacs or not. 

the worst part of the entire procedure is drinking the laxative. i had to get this prescription strength stuff called golytley. it didn't exactly make me "go lightly."

i was supposed to drink a full glass every 10-15 minutes and at one point i was so bloated that when i went to take my next glass, my body said there was no more room and i totally barfed it ALL up...

 it tasted like battery acid smells.

after that throw up incidence, my body just rejected it every time i drank. i couldn't drink another glass from then on without gagging every time. 

andy was so sweet in helping me and cheering me on and getting me to actually drink it. he's the best boyfriend. 

the next morning, my procedure went off without a hitch. i didn't feel any soreness in my throat or luckily, the other end. 

my doctor came in a few minutes after i woke up from being knocked out and he let us know that i did have crohn's disease and acid reflux and i would have to come in a week later to find out the results of my biopsy to find out if i really did have celiacs or not.  

seeing how my dad has lived for the past 10 years with celiacs and seeing how todd lives with crohns, i was not very excited to be told i had both. 

turns out i don't have celiacs!  

i laughed with happiness when my doctor told me i didn't have it too. apparently it's like 1 in a million to be diagnosed with both celiacs and crohns. i'm soooooo glad i'm not that 1. 

so now, i have a name for how i've been feeling for years. crohns is an autoimmune disease and it is non-cureable so i just have to do my best to try and do everything the doctor tells me to do so i don't get worse. 

seeing todd at his lowest of lows from this disease has made me so sad for him. his symptoms were bad from the moment he was diagnosed so luckily i can learn from him and we can help each other and be little sicky crohnsy people together. 

i feel like we're too young to be dealing with stuff like this.

i guess this is all just a part of life right?