I feel like there are many steps to becoming an "adult," which may include things such as buying a car, taking out loans for school/car/house, getting married, graduating college, starting your first job, having kiddos, and starting a blog. When Warren and I got married, I felt unspoken pressure to start a blog about our married lives, because our lives were SOOO much different after marriage than before. The only thing that changed was that I could now sleep in the car on the drive down to Emory instead of having to be awake for 50 min at 5:30am, and then sleep in the car or medical school building bench when I got to school. And that didn't seem blog-worthy to me. I imagined my "married life" blog going something like this for 92% of posts: "Got up early (again), drove down to Emory. Classes were good, can't believe it's getting closer to graduation/taking the boards/starting my fellowship. Warren's research is going well, can't really explain it very well when people ask me what he does." BORING!
Our lives have changed slightly since our graduations from Emory: Warren got a job at Intel during my fellowship and moved to OR; I completed my fellowship and moved to OR 5 months later; I started a job as a neurologic physical therapist at Northwest Rehabilitation Associates in Salem, OR...oh, and we're having a baby :) It's really this last piece of news that I feel has moved me to the adulting stage of starting a blog, for a few reasons. One, I want my kids to be able to have something to look back on when they're older and ask questions about what being pregnant with them was like. Two, I have never been a diligent journal keeper, and I am hoping that this gets me started on the right path. Three, I don't live near most of my family and I think it would be fun for them to read about my pregnant life (who wouldn't want to read about me?!). And fourth, Warren said I should.
Although I'm a little late to the game of starting the pregnancy blog (*cough, cough...about 7.5 months late...cough, cough), I figured I would start from the beginning of how we decided it was time to start trying to get pregnant. To do that, I need to take you back a few years, as in 18 years. I have always loved kids and started babysitting when I was 11. My dream "job" has always been to be a stay-at-home mom. At the ripe old age of 12, I had my life planned out: 1) go to BYU, 2) get married my junior year, 3) graduate from BYU, and 4) start having kids (in that order). It was perfect. I didn't need to think about having a career because I was going to have kids before that time came. After high school, I went to BYU. Check #1 off my list. Now I just had to wait for #2. My junior year started and I was expecting big things. And I got a big surprise, just not the one I wanted. Instead of a marriage proposal, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an autoimmune condition that affects the GI system. NOT PART OF THE PLAN! I made it through that year (a whole other story completely) and eventually made my way towards graduation with a B.S. in Neuroscience (#3, check). At that point, I had to seriously start thinking about what I was going to do to support myself. I found myself at Emory University in their Doctor of Physical Therapy program, and met Warren in the singles ward. We got married (finally #2!), and finished up our schooling. My thoughts immediately turned to figuring out how long until we would have kids (uh, can you say baby hungry?). At that time, a couple of hurdles stood in our way: med school debt, wanting to use my schooling for at least a short while before staying at home with kids, and Crohn's disease. Ever since the diagnosis, I had been afraid of the possibility of not being able to have kids, either because of reproductive issues or not being well enough and harming the baby. So my big goal became getting all my medical ducks in a row so that Warren, my doctors, and I could be confident in my ability to carry a baby with the best health possible. Things were going well with managing my Crohn's disease, and then the depression hit. Severe, unrelenting, unforgiving depression. I struggled with self-esteem issues at BYU, but nothing like what I was experiencing. Crying myself to sleep, constant negative self-talk, thinking that Warren would leave me and that I wouldn't blame him, wondering if it would be better if I wasn't here. 24/7. It was exhausting and caused some strain on our marriage. I worried constantly about what kind of mother I could be if I couldn't even seem to take care of myself. In fall of 2016, we found out that my sister-in-law Bev was pregnant, and Warren said, "Wouldn't it be so fun to have a baby close to Bev so that the cousins could be best friends?" I reminded him that we would need to get pregnant ASAP to make that happen, and he said. "Well, what about sometime next year?" DID MINE EARS DECEIVE ME???? I was ecstatic!!! But I knew that I had to get my mental health in order first, which I did with the help of anti-depressants and a very supportive husband (update: things aren't perfect, but they're a whole lot better than they used to be).
Next item on the agenda: Crohn's disease. I had an appointment with my GI doc in December 2016 and told him that we were planning on trying to get pregnant sometime summer/fall of 2017. He said the next thing to do was to schedule a colonoscopy (it was time for me to have another one anyway), and then set up an appointment with a perinatologist to review my medications and medical status to make sure I was good to go for trying to get pregnant. In March 2017 I had my colonoscopy, which showed no inflammation or ulcers, and looked active disease-free. I hesitantly asked him if we could use the "R" word: remission. He said that by all accounts, it looked like I was in remission!! So from his end, I was okay for pregnancy. Perinatologist said that all my medications were fine to continue, I was not considered a "high-risk" pregnancy, and to see a regular OB. I had been off birth control for about 4 months at this point to try and see if it helped decrease my migraines, but it was also convenient for a quick transition into trying to get pregnant ;) I had also been working at my job for about 6 months, and new that even if I did get pregnant quickly, I would be able to work for over a year, which was perfect for me. It seemed like such a miracle to feel like the thing I desired most was so close when it had felt out of my reach for so long.
Our lives have changed slightly since our graduations from Emory: Warren got a job at Intel during my fellowship and moved to OR; I completed my fellowship and moved to OR 5 months later; I started a job as a neurologic physical therapist at Northwest Rehabilitation Associates in Salem, OR...oh, and we're having a baby :) It's really this last piece of news that I feel has moved me to the adulting stage of starting a blog, for a few reasons. One, I want my kids to be able to have something to look back on when they're older and ask questions about what being pregnant with them was like. Two, I have never been a diligent journal keeper, and I am hoping that this gets me started on the right path. Three, I don't live near most of my family and I think it would be fun for them to read about my pregnant life (who wouldn't want to read about me?!). And fourth, Warren said I should.
Although I'm a little late to the game of starting the pregnancy blog (*cough, cough...about 7.5 months late...cough, cough), I figured I would start from the beginning of how we decided it was time to start trying to get pregnant. To do that, I need to take you back a few years, as in 18 years. I have always loved kids and started babysitting when I was 11. My dream "job" has always been to be a stay-at-home mom. At the ripe old age of 12, I had my life planned out: 1) go to BYU, 2) get married my junior year, 3) graduate from BYU, and 4) start having kids (in that order). It was perfect. I didn't need to think about having a career because I was going to have kids before that time came. After high school, I went to BYU. Check #1 off my list. Now I just had to wait for #2. My junior year started and I was expecting big things. And I got a big surprise, just not the one I wanted. Instead of a marriage proposal, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an autoimmune condition that affects the GI system. NOT PART OF THE PLAN! I made it through that year (a whole other story completely) and eventually made my way towards graduation with a B.S. in Neuroscience (#3, check). At that point, I had to seriously start thinking about what I was going to do to support myself. I found myself at Emory University in their Doctor of Physical Therapy program, and met Warren in the singles ward. We got married (finally #2!), and finished up our schooling. My thoughts immediately turned to figuring out how long until we would have kids (uh, can you say baby hungry?). At that time, a couple of hurdles stood in our way: med school debt, wanting to use my schooling for at least a short while before staying at home with kids, and Crohn's disease. Ever since the diagnosis, I had been afraid of the possibility of not being able to have kids, either because of reproductive issues or not being well enough and harming the baby. So my big goal became getting all my medical ducks in a row so that Warren, my doctors, and I could be confident in my ability to carry a baby with the best health possible. Things were going well with managing my Crohn's disease, and then the depression hit. Severe, unrelenting, unforgiving depression. I struggled with self-esteem issues at BYU, but nothing like what I was experiencing. Crying myself to sleep, constant negative self-talk, thinking that Warren would leave me and that I wouldn't blame him, wondering if it would be better if I wasn't here. 24/7. It was exhausting and caused some strain on our marriage. I worried constantly about what kind of mother I could be if I couldn't even seem to take care of myself. In fall of 2016, we found out that my sister-in-law Bev was pregnant, and Warren said, "Wouldn't it be so fun to have a baby close to Bev so that the cousins could be best friends?" I reminded him that we would need to get pregnant ASAP to make that happen, and he said. "Well, what about sometime next year?" DID MINE EARS DECEIVE ME???? I was ecstatic!!! But I knew that I had to get my mental health in order first, which I did with the help of anti-depressants and a very supportive husband (update: things aren't perfect, but they're a whole lot better than they used to be).
Next item on the agenda: Crohn's disease. I had an appointment with my GI doc in December 2016 and told him that we were planning on trying to get pregnant sometime summer/fall of 2017. He said the next thing to do was to schedule a colonoscopy (it was time for me to have another one anyway), and then set up an appointment with a perinatologist to review my medications and medical status to make sure I was good to go for trying to get pregnant. In March 2017 I had my colonoscopy, which showed no inflammation or ulcers, and looked active disease-free. I hesitantly asked him if we could use the "R" word: remission. He said that by all accounts, it looked like I was in remission!! So from his end, I was okay for pregnancy. Perinatologist said that all my medications were fine to continue, I was not considered a "high-risk" pregnancy, and to see a regular OB. I had been off birth control for about 4 months at this point to try and see if it helped decrease my migraines, but it was also convenient for a quick transition into trying to get pregnant ;) I had also been working at my job for about 6 months, and new that even if I did get pregnant quickly, I would be able to work for over a year, which was perfect for me. It seemed like such a miracle to feel like the thing I desired most was so close when it had felt out of my reach for so long.
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