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November 25, 2008

Digital Epidural, Volume 21

By Michelle Boudreau at 09:47 PM| Permalink | Comments (2)

I had my final doctor's appointment today. The baby has made some progress towards the exit, but my doctor is still pretty sure that it won't be coming before the induction date. As I write this, barring something unexpected, I will be a mom one week from right now. It was pretty surreal to leave the doctor's office and realize the next time I will see my doctor will be when I'm having a baby. I worked today and am working a short day tomorrow and then will be done with work for 8 weeks. Needless to say, I'm having a lot of life changes in the next week.

I recently read a blog my friend Katie Moore posted about her path to motherhood and I was inspired to write about my own journey and take a moment to reflect back on the path which led me to this place.

When Stephen and I got married, we both agreed we wanted to wait 4 to 5 years to start trying to have kids. I still had a year of law school left and wanted to get my career off the ground before I started thinking about adding kids to the mix.

Four years passed and we both agreed that five was a better number. Then five years passed. At that point I think Stephen was ready, but I wasn't. I'd always dreamt about having kids as a young girl, but I think watching friends have kids and see how much it really changed their lives and how much freedom they lost made that desire retreat deeper inside me. There was a point in our marriage where I wasn't sure I ever wanted to have kids. I liked my life the way it was. I like traveling and not having to worry about paying for someone's college education and being able to stay at the office late because a little kid wasn't waiting for me to come home.

So, in about October of 2007 (five plus years after we got married), I went off birth control. I figured that if I didn't do it then, I would get far too comfortable with my freedom and might never want to do it. In January, we thought we might be pregnant. We took an at home test which said that we were. I can't explain to you the panic that went through me. Stephen was so excited and I felt like I was about to poop my pants.

To make a long story short, they ran a number of tests that came up with varying answers as to the mystery of what was in my uterus. We went on a family reunion cruise the week after running all these tests. The question of whether I was pregnant or not was still up for debate as we boarded the ship. We were on board the ship about two days before my doctor called to tell me that the last test they ran indicated that I was probably pregnant at some point. When I told her I had started bleeding, she told me to go to the on board doctor to get a pregnancy test done and see what he said.

My little brother was with us at this particular moment so we had to explain what was going on to him. So the three of us headed to the ship doctor to see what was going on. This really sweet nurse gave me one of those pee on a stick tests. It came out negative and all I could do was cry. It was the first time in a really long time that I wanted to be a mom.

The jury is still out on what exactly happened to my body that January, but whatever it was, God used it as a way to show me that even though I wasn't entirely ready to give up my freedom and become a mom, being a mom was what my heart truly desired.

Two months later I took another test, but this time all the blood work backed up at home test results. And now . . . seven and a half months later, I sit here a week away from giving birth.

Pregnancy has definitely not been my favorite experience or one that I want to endure again soon, but I'm excited about what it is going to produce. I'm completely clueless about this world that I'm about to enter, but I'm entering it knowing no matter how hard it is, it's what I want.