Exciting Developments

It sure has been a long time since I posted on this blog and life has sure been interesting and full of twists and turns...Ben and I have moved to Pennsylvania in January of this year (2013), just outside of Pittsburgh (GO BUCCOS!!!!), due to my work in Albuquerque being outsourced.  I am still with the same company, but transferred into a different position. It's nice to be back in PA where I grew up, as did Ben for a short time.  My whole family is here and his Dad lives here, only 20 minutes from my parents, which is weird.  We do miss all our family and friends in Albuquerque, especially Ben's family, who mostly live there.

It was a big decision to stay within the same company but to move our lives 2000 miles away.  We packed up our fur "children", of which only number 2 cats and a dog.  We lost Harley in August 2012 to what we think was uterine cancer in cats.  Luckily, we got Sassy checked out after we lost Harley and found out she had cancer as well.  We had her fixed and she's better than ever, still living up to her name :)

We've settled into our new life in PA, Ben works for two different hospital systems and is training to become a nurse.  Our schedules are hit and miss, I work nights and he works a variety of hours.  We find time for each other and go off to explore our new surroundings.  We've gone out fishing on his dad's boat numerous times, headed up North to visit with our parents, gone to the zoo, headed farther east to Penn's Cave, etc.  I couldn't have chosen a more perfect person to explore and live my life with, especially with the biggest adventure of our lives just starting...we are having a baby! :)

While this blog is mainly to family and friends who know most of the details to this story, I have some followers outside that realm, so I'll relay this the best I can ;)

I have been told for many, many years (early 20s in fact) that I would probably never be able to have kids and shouldn't be able to get pregnant without assistance because I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  Anyone who has PCOS knows it's ups and downs.  It was very hard to fathom what the doctor's told me in the beginning, but after a LARGE amount of time (I mean years) I came to terms with the possibility of never having a child of my own.  It was heart breaking for me and took a lot of time to get through the anger of it all.  Anyway, I had finally come to terms with it and was living my life the best way I could and a few years went by and it weighed on my mind still but I could live with it.  Until one day in July on a trip to Urgent Care I found out I was pregnant.

Ben and I both were in shock!  I had been on birth control for the entire time we have been together (nearly 4 years).  We spent the next couple of weeks going to several different doctor's appointments, but didn't get any clear answers.  As women with PCOS know, you can give a false positive on a urine pregnancy test, so I wasn't a 100% convinced I was pregnant after the Urgent Care visit because that was all they did.  We scheduled an appointment with an OB/GYN, they did a urine test...same result.  However, while in the office for that first visit, they couldn't find the baby's heart rate with the fetal Doppler and weren't very clear as to if I was pregnant or not.  We learned that a tumor or a ruptured cyst can cause a false positive for pregnancy and with not finding the baby's heart rate, the other two alternatives seemed more likely. Neither of us was impressed with the Midwife we saw that day and her office manner.  She did want us to schedule an ultrasound to see what was going on...her words were to "date the pregnancy or see if something else is going on", never being specific.

I was a wreck at this point and Ben and I both left more confused than when we started out.  It was another week until we could get in for an ultrasound, LONGEST WEEK OF OUR LIVES!!!  However, at the ultrasound we saw our baby for the first time, very small, but thriving :) Many emotions flooded over me at once, it hit me that I was going to be a mother, this wasn't cancer, how did I end up pregnant so easily, are we ready for this, etc.  I will admit it took me some time to accept that I was going to have a baby, it seemed so surreal! I really couldn't understand how I got pregnant and was angry at the fact that I got pregnant so unexpectedly when we weren't evening trying.  Lots of women try and try and never get pregnant, PCOS or not, so I was confused. 

                                                           1st Ultrasound - mid-July 2013
                                      
Ben and I found a new doctor, who we both love!  She is very informative and knows tons about PCOS because her daughter suffers from it.  I learned from her at my first appointment that I probably got pregnant because I lost a lot of weight (about 30 lbs) and was taking Metformin to treat insulin resistance (pre-diabetes and a symptom of PCOS).  The combination made my body ready to get pregnant, little to my knowledge :)

We've now seen the baby in two different ultrasounds, the latest being a week ago.  We are having a boy, due February 19th 2014 - Hayden Fredrick and we couldn't be happier.  He is developing just fine and stubborn as can be even in the womb, which means trouble for us when he is born. 

I decided to start this blog back up based on a suggestion by Ben's Aunt in Albuquerque as a way to keep everyone I know, near and far, updated on Hayden.  I'm going to update as much as my schedule allows and will start posting photos of the sonograms, my expanding belly and Ben and I's life as I can.  Please feel free to comment, share, email me.  I'd love to hear form everyone :)

Sheri, Ben and little Hayden :)