Here’s my big update post.  I was pregnant half the summer and didn’t even know it.

Let me explain.

In July, R and I went on our wonderful 10-year anniversary trip.  Apparently, I got pregnant on that trip, but didn’t realize it until a bit later.  Quite a bit later.  At the end of July, I had what I believed to be my period (it wasn’t).  We hiked Camel’s Hump on my birthday (yes, I was pregnant and hiked an over 4,000-ft. mountain).  At the beginning of August, I heard through a friend about a potential postdoc position in Psychiatry at the university.  “Awesome,!” I thought.  I can get back into research.  I had a series of interviews (with the principal investigator, and later with her research staff).  Long story short, she wants to hire me, but EEOC regulations may prevent her from doing so.  They have to do a national search (which takes time), and hope that the affirmative action office is satisfied with me from the diversity perspective.  So, I wouldn’t be able to start the new job for a few months, *if* I get hired.  Fine.  I am already working part-time, so no problem.  After I wrap up my job interviews, (this is now a couple of weeks after hiking Camel’s Hump), we head to Storyland.  We had a wonderful little vacation, where I had a beer one night with dinner, and went on all sorts of rides with H.  I would have been around 6 weeks pregnant at that point.  A week after that, we got ready to embark on a camping trip.  The morning of our camping trip, Holden had a 101.1 degree fever, and I was starting to feel kind of queasy.  I assumed I was maybe coming down with whatever H had, or maybe I was feeling a little stressed over my uncertain employment outlook.  We did go camping and had a great time.  We hiked Mt. Elmore (5 miles round trip).  I was so tired afterwards, but figured it was just because of whatever mild stomach bug I had.  When we returned from our camping trip, I still felt sick.  And of top of that, coffee was beginning to taste weird to me.  This has only happened one other time in my life, and I pretty much knew at that moment that I had to take a pregnancy test.  I took the test, and it was positive.  This was towards the end of August.  I assumed that I was just shy of 4 weeks pregnant.  What ensued was nearly 7 weeks of pretty horrific morning (all-day sickness), that slightly eclipsed the severity of the sickness I experienced when pregnant with Holden.  I went to my first midwife appointment in mid-September.  The midwife did her exam and told me that I seemed “more pregnant” than the 7 weeks that I was supposed to be at the time of the exam.  She scheduled me for a dating ultrasound for the following week, where I found out that I was actually TWELVE weeks pregnant, and due in early April.  Holy shit.  So all of a sudden, I had to process not only that I was pregnant, but that I was much more pregnant than I had thought.  Many things started to swirl around my head.  Good:  morning sickness is almost over.  Bad:  WHAT?  Good:  My new April due date is sooner than my previous May due date.  Bad:  April is sooner than May.

I started to feel guilty that I didn’t even realize I was pregnant for so long.  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I have missed the signs?  I also had to go back to the woman I interviewed with, and tell her that I was pregnant, and talk about how we were going to deal with that.  She was surprisingly supportive, and offered me part-time work from my date of hire (which is still not established) until the baby gets here.  After that, I can take as much leave as I want, and then return at either part-time or full-time status.  Wow.  I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome from such a weird situation.

I am now 14 weeks and I am just starting to feel a little better.  I can finally eat again, although I still have super queasy moments.  I didn’t gain any weight during the 1st trimester, but I didn’t lose any weight either, which is a minor miracle considering my eating habits (or lack thereof).  My parents just flew up this weekend for a visit, and I finally shared the news with them.  We had Holden tell them that he is going to be a big brother.  They were very surprised!  Holden is excited to be a big brother.  He talks a lot about things that he wants to teach the baby, and he is already setting aside “baby toys” that he wants the baby to have.  One such baby toy is his prized yellow school bus, which was nearly attached to him at all times from about 18 months of age to 24 months or so.  He was very casual about it when picking it up and explaining, “Mommy, this bus is a baby toy, so I think we should give it to your baby.”  Sniff.  That was his favorite toy.  Now he has moved on.

I’ve had a lot of weird thoughts about this pregnancy.  I worry sometimes about loving another baby as much as I could love H.  I don’t think this feeling is too unusual.  But what I do think is unusual is the fact that I am kind of mourning the loss of our close-knit threesome.  Our family is going to change, and that is kind of scary, because I think we work so well together.  My image of Holden for a long time has been as an only child.  I think of him as my one little guy, and now he will have someone else to share his life with.  That idea is going to take some getting used to.  I don’t think I’ll absorb that concept fully until the new baby is here.

As for why I can never hike Mt. Elmore again……I hiked Mt. Elmore for the first time, on the morning that I found out I was pregnant with Holden, October 6, 2007.  I hiked Mt. Elmore the 2nd time, when I was already pregnant with this second baby, but did not know it.  I found out just a couple of days after vacating our campsite that our family was on its way to changing forever.

I have so many thoughts and emotions around all of this, and I get to document it all again, right here.  Won’t you join me?