Just catching up. Here's more of the journey.

I apologize for such a long silence in posts. As you can see I am just beginning this blog and still securing my footing in the digital storytelling world. Feel free to comment or message me if you have questions or are wondering about anything specific. I really don't want anything like this to happen to anyone else. Really look at what is in your life that may be affecting pregnancy.

It is a lot harder than I thought but not for the reasons you may think right away. Yea sure it’s difficult to push myself to sit down at the computer and start typing away but there’s been multiple evenings and lonely Saturday mornings where I’ve done just that… but nothing comes.

As most of you know we have had some difficulties in getting pregnant. Two Decembers ago Maryelena went through a miscarriage which was difficult for us but not detrimental. It just seemed like a delayed period at first (sorry if it gets graphic, I’ll try to talk more like a stereotypical man instead of one that is hovering in on all his wife's conversations with her girlfriends and doctors). It’s just that mindset, and I’m sure anyone who’s ever been addicted has experienced the same sort of mental circles. After being clean for a month and then you falter in your personal vice you feel horrible, like you’ve made no progress whatsoever. Like you’re back to square one and it will take forever to get to a month again. It’s the same for people in our shoes as well. There’s nothing you can do to make your wife ovulate faster, or try again the next day. The eggs come and go and that’s that. You either make the team or you don’t. Thank you, come again. December was hard but we went through another miscarriage last summer as well. She was in so much pain, every day it would just hit her hard. It’s such a hard thing to watch because there is absolutely nothing you can do. We had to make an E.R. trip when it became unbearable and we were sure that it wasn’t just first trimester pains. We had received a positive pregnancy test as well as an ultrasound of where the baby was. When we went to the E.R. We were told that there was no baby. It’s a certain type of miscarriage, too long of a word for my brain. Basically, she had begun creating an amniotic sac but there was no fertilized egg inside. Like cracking open an egg shell only to find it empty. She was in incredible pain and we were back to square one. We decided if we weren’t able to get pregnant for an entire year that we would start getting further tests. We both got tested and it turned out that her eggs were great! She had so many of them! It was the best and weirdest news I had ever heard! When we got results back about me and my soldiers it turned out that my army was “misshapen”. Some had two heads, bad tails, just basically broken. It’s very depressing to hear that something in your body, specifically that God-talent of creating new life, is broken. We continued to try hoping one swimmer could do it but to no avail. After meeting with multiple specialists in that field one decided to perk up and tell us that my seizure medication could be affecting my reproductive cycle. We were at the point of taking it one step further to see if not only my battalion was crippled but carrying corrupt information as well (incomplete DNA and such). We definitely did not have the money to go that far so we had to continue to investigate each aspect of our lifestyle affecting our reproductive systems.

Right around the end of October and November I made the decision to go completely off my seizure medication. I had just recently had a seizure in July and this was a very scary step for me as well as my wife because once again, she would now be put into the position of not being able to do a single thing for the one you love. She suggested just taking down my dose a bit but I disagreed and went cold turkey. I had been prescribed to take 5,000 Milligrams of Depakote ER daily, five 250 mg pills in the morning and 5 at night. My dosage was raised extremely high because of my lack of intestines and ability to absorb nutrients.

The month slowly came to an end and we continued to have little hope. Maryelena was still taking tests to see if she was on a regular ovulation cycle but after November tests it turned out she wasn’t. She missed her period and took a test and once again it was negative. The doctor then gave her a prescription to basically force a period or push you to ovulate in order to get on a regular cycle again. Maryelena decided against taking the prescription just in case her period was just late or the slim possibility that she was pregnant. In about a week she asked me to just stop by the drug store and pick a set of two pregnancy tests up just to see if anything had changed. I did and she just held onto them for a night. The next morning she tested positive for being pregnant. We’ve gotten this far before but we were so excited. She took one to work and tested again a few hours later. Another positive. I am happy to announce that Maryelena is about 14 weeks pregnant and all is well. We’ve never made it this far before. After a year and a half of disappointment we’re happy to announce that we have a little one on the way. She’s out of the first 12 weeks scare period and while we’re not completely out of the woods it sure feels good. :) I don’t think I’ll be able to relax until that thing actually pops out of her. Then again, I’m told that having a newborn there’s not much time to relax or sleep anyways, but that’s okay. It sounds like a good deal to me. #princessandherjediandpadawan #rasmussenno3 #august2020