Expecting Tessa – The Story of my Third Pregnancy

A looong time ago I shared the story of my first pregnancy which ended in miscarriage (click here to read) and then I followed up with the story of how my second pregnancy ended in a chemical miscarriage (click here to read), and now, five months later (yikes!) I’m concluding with how the third time was a charm and we ended up expecting our baby Tessa!

These recollections are more for my own personal journaling and memory-recording purposes than anything, so bear with me as I take a meander through memory lane. If you are a guy who gets squeamish when a girl talks about icky girl things, then you might want to skip this post. ^_^

Trying To Join The Navy

So I left off on my last post talking about how after I had the chemical pregnancy, I decided to put trying to have children on hold and focus on our finances. I have always kept “Join the Navy” as a career option in the back of my head. I grew up with an infatuation with the military (darn you, Gene Kelly movies!) and some seriously itchy feet that made me crave a career that sends you careening around the globe on a whim.

I began looking seriously – and rather abruptly – at my options, Navy-wise. After a couple of trips to the recruiting offices, I was speaking to the boys in blue with earnest.

My husband and parents were initially confused and cautious at my sudden change in life plans, (and some friends were downright hostile), but as the ball started rolling, we all got rather excited. This could be the big change we needed to get our little family on our feet and making the right choices to support a little one.

I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck on my photography business. I was tired of worrying if my husband might get his hours cut again, or if his job wouldn’t suddenly go belly up like two had before, through no fault of his own. I was tired of not being able to afford medical insurance and I was tired of having to rely on welfare whenever money got tight. I was ready for stability, a steady income, guaranteed medical coverage for me and my family, and a new start. The Navy was it. I could just tell. It helped that I love our country deeply and would die to protect the freedoms our forefathers fought for. The “cons” of the military were all a small price to pay in the scheme of things.

As my date to visit MEPS drew closer, my husband and I hammered out a life plan. I would join the Navy, and shortly after I was stationed, we would try to start our family. While I worked, Jonathan would be a stay at home dad and student, earning his degree. After he earned his degree, I would retire from the Navy, and he would join the work force well-armed educationally, and I would be the stay at home mom from then on. AWESOME PLAN, YEAH?!

Change of Plans

On my way to MEPS in San Jose, where I was to enlist and pick my rating, the recruiter had some bad news. Because I had recently had a miscarriage, I needed to have a doctor clear me for service or I could just wait a few months till I was considered fit to serve. We weren’t even half way to MEPS when I had to return home with my freshly packed overnight bag, dejected and upset. This was to be my life changing event, and it seemed like every possible obstacle was being thrown into my path! Grrrrr just about sums it up.

But around this time, I had a sneaky suspicion. While Jonathan and I had decided to be baby-free using the rhythm method till I joined the Navy, a little miscalculation in my ovulation schedule had me a little nervous.

My ovulation schedule returned to normal after my miscarriage, and I made the assumption that it would remain that way after my chemical pregnancy. Even so, I was charting my ovulation with OPKs (ovulation predictor kits), and felt that I had things in hand. On Christmas Day I had calculated that we were about a week away from my ovulation and, well, the weather outside was frightful, so Jonathan and I had a little snuggle time before the “do not baby dance” window arrived.

All was well, until three days after Christmas I got a positive on my OPK. This means that Christmas Day landed right on the outer fringe of the “unsafe to have sex” timeframe. It also meant, according to Shettles Method, that if we did conceive, it would be a baby girl. While it was a worrisome thought (we didn’t want to get pregnant while I was trying to join the Navy, and when we did try we wanted to try for a boy) I shoved the thought to the back of my mind and focused on joining the Navy.

Then, on January 6^th, I had my great MEPS rejection. When MEPS rejected me, my mind zeroed back in on the possible Christmas Day present that may or may not be growing in my tummy. I had ordered some cheap online pregnancy sticks that claimed to be as sensitive as the First Response 6 Days Sooner sticks. But they kept coming up negative. Day after day.

But I kept having this nagging thought that maybe, possibly, I might still be pregnant. So almost a week after my MEPS rejection and countless negative pregnancy tests, I took a First Response test, and before the urine had wicked up to the control line, the positive line showed up big and bright. (Meanwhile the cheapo tests kept coming up negative.. even Dollar Store tests showed positive before the Internet strips did!)

Yup. I was expecting!

I was terrified of another miscarriage (cripplingly so), and took test after test after test every day to see if the line was doubling. And it did! I actually still have a Ziploc baggie with an embarrassingly large number of positive tests in it in my keepsakes somewhere.

When I told the hubby that we were expecting (effectively putting the nail in the coffin to my Navy aspirations) my husband decided he would join, and we lost no time in getting him to my recruiter to enlist. And the rest is history!!

Isn’t that just how God works though? We had tried so hard to make plans for a baby, and we tried so hard to make plans for our careers, and in both arenas, God took our plans, turned them upside down – and while we still got essentially everything we “wanted” – it was in a way, a shape and a form that we did not fashion ourselves. And it turned out better than we could have ever planned. Everything has worked out just as it was supposed to, and we could not be more blessed. Jonathan loves his job AND is able to pursue his education. And, it goes without saying, we are absolutely in love with our baby girl and I would not trade her for the world. I’m so glad we don’t get what we want sometimes!

So there! WHEW! I finally finished my three part story! Now I just need to write a “How We Found Out We Were Expecting Thyme” story! Hehe..