As I ran into someone special tonight and I begin to think to myself how God has been looking out for me lately. Which has prompted me sharing our story of pregnancy.
The gift of life is something that I have wanted since I was a little
girl. As most, I carried around a baby doll and dreamt of it being real. Not
imagining what I had in store for me in 24 years.
Fast forward 19 years to November 2007 -
I knew I wanted to get married and share my life with someone,
however, I never knew I would meet someone like Dale. I was raised around race
cars and race tracks. As a daddy’s girl we went to the races together quite
often. We then had a close family friend begin racing. I met Dale in this friend’s
race car garage. I looked at him and thought, ‘eh, he looks like a nice guy but
WAY to old.’ A few weeks later driving into the pit area with my mom, and Kelly
(friends wife); we passed Dale. Kelly spoke to him, my mom said, ‘I want you to
date him.’ Now, for those who know my mom,
we just learn to appreciate when she says ‘I want’. J Love you mom.
Whether she is trying to choose my future husband or my nail polish, she means
the best! And I love her for that.
So another few weeks
go by, I decided to text him. It was the day before Thanksgiving 2007, he was
actually working on his race car that day. We talked ‘secretly’ for about 2
months. There was something that was fun and sneaky about it; maybe it was
because my mom didn’t know she got her way HAHA. Then he asked me on our first
date the day before Valentine’s Day. Yeap, we were a couple – February 13th,
2007 J
After only 4
months, we got an apartment together. Things moved pretty fast for a while. The
joke still stands that I really wasn’t invited to move in…I did ;) Tote after
tote ended up making its way to the apartment! I had lost my job in April while searching for a house and actually in the process of getting one...Pretty soon it was June of 2009
and we bought a house.
2010
While then getting back to the workplace, I started at HON in June
2010. We got engaged that September. May 12th, 2012 I would be Mrs.
Tetmeyer. We were so happy. I was so happy. I had never pictured myself with a
man like Dale. I never thought I would meet someone so much like my dad.
Someone who will put me before him. Someone who wants me to be happy. Now, while
this things sound selfish, I was extremely happy.
2012
In April,
we decided to start trying for a baby. Our wedding was the next month, we
thought we would get a head start. So at the beginning I had read a couple of
books, articles, blogs, etc. Nothing to in depth, I thought ‘oh, people make it
seem so easy let’s just wing it’ I had already been tracking menstrual cycles
for a few months and things were normal. Every 28 days. So I thought oh maybe
we will get pregnant right away. I mean, how hard can this really be, 14 year olds
get pregnant these days. I am married we love each other so much that we would
love to share our love with another being, that we created.
A 3 months
went by we had negative tests. Each month I tried something new, OPK (Ovulation
Predictor Kits), Digital OPK, a new Fertility chart, and more. We gave
ourselves 6 months and we would go the doctor. So in mid October 2012, we went
to see a Specialist. She did her exam, talked (unfortunately we already knew everything she was telling us) but
it was getting one step closer to a baby. Everything is normal but in order to
do any further testing you have to be trying for a 12 months. We were excited
to try again next month, but not the next. It was becoming more of a chore for
us, than actually trying to make love. While being frustrated, it put a lot of
distance between Dale and I. We knew it was not healthy but we felt like we
were not even connecting anymore. We let that go and the next month we tried a
little less, while I still used OPK; we were not as demanding and tied up in
trying. We pretty much laid low for the next month. I finally said let’s take a
break. Now, I know that we have only been trying for 7 months; it was really
taking its toll on me. It was hard for me to concentrate on anything else but
think, ‘I am a woman, why can’t I do what a woman is meant to do?’ Dale was
blissfully patient on the outside but frustrated as well. We were going to take
November off and just have fun.
In
November, we had the opportunity to go to Jamaica for a family wedding (it was
beautiful). Since we were not really trying to conceive, we took a nice
vacation. Another honeymoon, as we called it! We had my family of 25 there for
7 days and it was absolutely blissful!!
Dale went to Germany a week after we returned from Jamaica, I hosted a couple Holiday events, worked on something’s
around the house and spent so QT with my little brother J Dale returned 8 days later. I was feeling crampy, crabby and tired – you know - the normal monthly symptoms.
It was a Thursday, the biggest snowstorm ever, I drove to the Dollar Store just
to buy a test. I was to the point of needing to take one for confirmation every
month that I was not pregnant. So I took it secretly while Dale was shoveling snow so my tears could be gone by the time he came inside. After a few minutes...seemed like an eternity - I looked at the test and there were two lines...(thought, this has to be wrong I better take another one). So I took another one...this one said positive as well - I was also a day late - could it be?!
I wanted to tell Dale in a special way but in all honesty I could NOT WAIT! It was about 6pm, he came inside and I was standing there waiting with the test in hand - to this day I am really not sure what I said. All I know is we stood there with tears of JOY! PURE JOY!!!! It was 5 days before Christmas so we decided to wait to tell our parents until Christmas Day. LONGEST 5 DAYS OF MY LIFE!! :)