It’s such a fantastic and quite gleeful statement to spread around, “We are trying to have a baby!!!”  Little do you know, that statement will come back to bite you!  Trust me, it will, unless you are one of those women, and I know them too, who have an unplanned pregnancy or go off the pill and are pregnant a mere week later.  That was not I, not this time around anyway.  I’m that girl who always dreamt of having a baby and being a Mom, I believe this is one of the roles I was born to fulfill.  I’ve known this ever since I was five years old and would willingly help my Mom take care of my little sister with any of the many baby tasks.  So, Tara you are really to blame for my baby fever!  My husband always knew this about me too, as I would constantly remind him, “I need to have a baby before I am 30!”  So the moment my well-to-do and responsible husband decided we were financially secure enough to give it a go, you better believe we jumped on it, pun intended.  And although it was not as easy as I had originally thought it would be, we just made the cutoff…I was 36 weeks ‘preggers’ and just about ready to pop when I had just turned 30.

A brief back-story is needed here: I had to switch gynecologists since we had moved to a new town, and had taken a referral for a new nearby doctor, without first looking into it myself…MISTAKE!  I’ll save the whole story for another day, but I was misdiagnosed and that misdiagnosis caused much unnecessary stress to both my husband and myself for many months.

So there we were, trying for many months. I had this weird misdiagnosis, was very stressed, and after a few tearful talks with my husband, we finally stopped ‘trying’ and just went back to ‘having sex’ and ‘tried’ to stop worrying about it.  It was actually quite a relief, as I stopped charting my ovulation schedule and we just went back to our regular lives, so to speak.  The last tearful breakdown I had was somewhere around Halloween 2010, when I had thrown myself into my work and didn’t even think much about getting pregnant anymore.  Funnily enough, by Thanksgiving I noticed my sense of smell increasing : the turkey scent I always so enjoyed kind of made me nauseous.  I also had a few times on my way to work when I had to pull over and spit out some of my daily tea, plus my boobs hurt so bad I couldn’t even sleep on my stomach anymore, and on top of that my period was 10 days late.  I finally came clean about these symptoms on that 10th day to my husband,  (I didn’t tell him sooner because I didn’t want to jinx it!), and he ran to the store to get a pregnancy test!

While I was waiting, I called one of my friends who was just about to have a baby, and another friend who already had a little one.  They both were excited and said all signs pointed to yes, but they also told me, (which I already knew, but like my husband, I was just so excited!), that it was best to take those tests in the morning…something having to do with urine being easier to read in the morning.  Anyway, Steve got home and I ran to the bathroom to take the test, and I had one solidly clear pink line, and the other (as you need two lines to be pregnant) was there but it was a much lighter pink, not invisible, but not as dark as the other.  Now, I had taken these before but had never seen two, just one, so this was a good sign, right?  How were we supposed to know??  I was skeptical and gave my friends both a call back to which they both told me again all sign point to yes and to take it in the morning, however this time to take the DIGITAL test!!!  It was more expensive, but it would be worth it.  Well, Steve ran back out and we waited until morning, don’t ask me how we slept, because we didn’t get much as both of us were ridiculously smiley that whole night.

I woke up 10 minutes before my 5:00 a.m. alarm just glaring at the clock, for once gladly awaiting that sound most of us hate to wake up to.  My little mini dachshund dog, Layla, always gets up with me, she goes outside first and then I go to the bathroom.  Alarm went off and I happily threw on my coat and boots and took Layla out, I practically skipped back in and she must have known something because she was very quick outside for once.  I’ve never been so excited to pee in my whole life!!  I peed onto the strip and waited for the longest moment of my life…which led to the happiest moment of my life! (At that point, at least).  My shaking hand finally got still when that digital test read “Pregnant.”  AHHHHHHHH!!!  We, (both Layla and I), jumped into the bedroom and onto the bed to wake Steve up with the good news: it had finally happened, we were going to have a baby!!!

We were both blissful all morning and it was so hard to keep it to myself at work.  I looked for a new OBGYN online during the little bit of free time I had at work and found one I seemed to like, and called to schedule an appointment, luckily they fit me in the next day!  I called my parents that morning, as did Steve.  They were all so happy for us, and I told my sisters (who both adorably cried) and my two closest friends on my way home from work.  It was a wonderful day, as was the next when it was confirmed that next morning at my new doctor that I was in fact, scientifically and all, PREGNANT!

So, take my 4 pieces of advice if you are planning to have a baby:

1) Don’t go on and on to people about the fact that you are “trying” 

2) Find your own doctor that you can trust and feel very comfortable with

3) Be patient, I know it is hard, but some women get pregnant after a week, and for some it may take years, for me it took 11 months

4) Save yourself a lot of time and energy and take only the digital pregnancy test, as it is the most accurate…and while you are at it try to hold off and take it in the morning, because it’s the best alarm in the morning that you will ever hear!