Garrett, Party of Four

Ahhhh, a baby. And a puppy. And the other two dogs we have along with the 8 year old. Life for the Garrett’s is about to be crazy, and I’m so excited!

(our newest addition to the family-- Murray)

So if you keep up with my blog, then you already knew that TJ and I were trying to grow our family and that we had a limited time frame to do so (read more here). First of all, with the type of leukemia I have and will always have, my treatment comes in pill form that I have to take every single day to keep it under control. The only problem is, it’s not recommended to take it while pregnant because it can cause birth defects. The recommendation from my oncologist was to keep taking it until I had a positive pregnancy test (actually his recommendation was to not have any more kids but he knew that wasn’t going to happen). However, I didn’t feel comfortable having it in my system at all so after doing some research of my own, I decided to stop taking it before we started trying. The longer I’m off it, the more at risk I am for my cancer to progress to a serious level so we gave ourselves three months to make this happen. If it didn’t, we would try again next year. 

Secondly, the most demanding time for me at work is between October-February. That’s the time of our campaign which means I’m in lots of meetings asking people for money to support our cause. I’m a fundraiser, it’s what I do. So I had to time it where I wouldn’t either be a. dealing with morning sickness during that time and b. wouldn’t be on maternity leave during that time. So that left us the summer. Since we had some many factors against us and such a small time frame, though I wanted it to happen more than anything, I tried not to be overly optimistic about it.

So two months off my meds had passed and I went to my quarterly checkup with my oncologist. Testing showed that my leukemia had progressed by 1.5%. Now that might not seem like much, but it’s higher than it’s ever been since being diagnosed with leukemia. It was heartbreaking to hear. While I expected it to gradually increase, I was hoping it would take longer than a couple of months to begin. So the next question was—how much longer do we keep trying? Our window was closing and it just seemed like it wasn’t meant to be so we decided to hold off. It was becoming stressful on our relationship.  I decided to wait a few more days before I started to take my medicines again so I could enjoy a side-effect free life for just a little bit longer. 

The day had arrived for me to begin my 8+ pill daily regiment but something inside of me told me to take a pregnancy test, just in case. I had no reason too—I wasn’t late nor felt any different.  When the results came back, I was in complete shock at what I saw-- It was positive!  My first thought was an exciting—‘Oh my gosh I’m pregnant!’ The next thought was a scared—‘Oh my gosh I’m PREGNANT.’ Even though this was planned, the initial thought scared me to pieces. Am I ready to give up my nights full of sleep and free time? Our world is about to completely change. Are we ready? What if my leukemia progresses? Then a sense of calmness came over me. All odds were against us, the time frame for trying was unrealistic, but it happened, and I think God had a big hand in that. I've never been in control of it anyways, but He has been so what is there to worry about? 

Garrett Party of Four (and 3 dogs)-- Coming March 2016!

CONFESSION:

While I’d like to say this has been a fun, exciting, uneventful pregnancy thus far, it’s been everything but. Not only am I growing a child in my belly while my body is also fighting leukemia, I’ve also been blessed with what us lucky 2% of women deal with during pregnancy—hyperemesis gravidarum (hg). More to come on that.