"Sh*t just got REAL!"

I cannot believe this is happening! We are in total shock and cannot even grasp that this might be is a reality! For the last month, I have been feeling like crap! Utter and complete crap! My stomach has been hurting, so upset and just queasy and out of it. I haven't hidden it from anyone, either. I've contacted some of my friends and told them, I let Geoff's parents know, and obviously Geoff. We have all agreed I need to go to the doctor, but I had been waiting for Geoff's Cancer marker results to come in. I have been feeling sick since around the same time we found out his routine CT scan came back abnormal. Then when they had him do a PET scan and they confirmed he has tumors in his abdomen, it all became very real to us that we are probably dealing with Cancer all over again. He has a small surgery scheduled to remove one of them (laparascopic biopsy) and check it all out.

We are extremely positive people. Our main mottos in life are L.O.V.E L.I.F.E (our little Atmosphere reference) and P.M.A. (positive mental attitude popularized by Toby Morse & Luke Wessman- who we met last week- woot!). But here I am thinking that my symptoms may simply be somatic symptoms. Probably stressing internally about all of this. I am always super strong and good about asking the doctors all the right questions and keeping us informed about this monster that insists on invading his body. I had told a few of my friends my symptoms, even went on a 36-hour juice cleanse, thinking all of our recent travels in the last month had contributed to my symptoms.  So, I decided to make an appointment with my doctor for some blood work as soon as knew what we were dealing with, in regards to Geoff....then my boobs got super heavy and sore. Weird. I was still a couple of weeks away from anything...and I usually do not have any symptoms. I told Geoff I felt SO stupid for even toying with the idea that we may be pregnant. He told me it wasn't stupid but we both agreed that it was impossible. It came up a few more times in our conversations but nothing major.

Then on Sunday, June 17th (Father's Day), something woke me up at 6:47am. I cannot explain how or why, but I woke up to pee, and before I did, my half-awake, out-of-it self, pulled out a pregnancy test from a drawer. Two years ago, the week after Geoff had an orchiectomy, and right before we started chemo, we tried to get pregnant. The doctors had told us this would be our only shot at natural conception, as the chemo would kill his fertility. It may return after 7 years but really that was our only shot. We even banked sperm, but it was pretty weak, as it was days after his gruesome surgery. Well, I had kept one of the pregnancy tests. I'm not sure why...Well, back to Sunday....I took the test and as I walked away to give it its few minutes to respond, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bold second line appear! Wtf!? Still in my half-asleep state, I found myself in utter shock and disbelief...& tons of confusion. I wrapped it up in a little box and tried to wake Geoff up. 7am on a Sunday....it took me an hour and a half to get him up! Haha! When he opened the box he looked at me in shock, "Really?! No way! Wait, is this expired?!" It was, haha! So we decided to go to the drugstore and buy more. We ended up taking two from the box and the [control] line was really faint so we weren't convinced. Although, the pregnancy one was really bold. After much consulting, we decided to suck it up and go for the digital ones. One minute into its three minute wait time, the word "PREGNANT" popped up on the screen and Geoff looked at me and said "Shit just got REAL!" hahahahah!

Four tests later...

We still couldn't believe it and honestly, decided we needed to consult a doctor before getting excited. We went to go see "What To Expect When Expecting," because I had been saying I wanted to go see it for weeks but figured I'd be the only non-mom in there. It was a funny movie and it was nice to have a form of "distraction." We met up with Geoff's family for Father's Day dinner and I couldn't eat because I felt so sick. We really wanted to tell his parents that night but we couldn't figure out how to pull them away from the siblings. We weren't positive how sure this all was and we figured we'd only let our parents know, for support...

The next day (Monday), first thing in the morning, I called my ob-gyn and scheduled an appointment. The soonest they had was Thursday. Eek. I contacted a friend and asked her where she went (again, no one suspected a thing so I could get away with asking all I wanted) and she told me where. I called the facility and after explaining the situation and two phone calls later, they asked me to come in right away. I called Geoff and he rushed over. We waited a good half hour and the midwife was able to squeeze us in between patients. She was so fascinated by the fact that we could be pregnant! She brought us into a little room and after waiting about 10 minutes that felt like torture, she said she would do a regular ultrasound. But since we were probably only four weeks along (I was regular last month), we probably wouldn't be able to see anything. As soon as she started the ultrasound and placed it on me, an image popped up and she exclaimed, "Oh, you two are WAY farther than 4 weeks!!!" She dated the baby at about 8 weeks. She showed us the rapid heartbeat on the screen and tried to find the heartbeat with the doppler but said it was too soon. She printed out a lot of pictures and labeled them all for us. I think she hugged us each about 3 times! What an amazing woman! She kept saying what a miracle baby this was! She had us schedule our first appointment for the upcoming week and off we went, floating on Cloud 9 but still somewhat skeptical and not 100% convinced.

On Monday night, we had Geoff's family over and decided to tell them! It was so amazing! We decided to still go to the other facility for the ultrasound since they have higher tech equipment. They were able to move up our appointment to Wednesday with the fertility doctor we saw last July. Geoff had taken a fertility test and it had come up to NADA! Not one single sperm. [Probably the most heartbreaking event since finding out he had Cancer].  So we had seen a specialist and thought it would be cool to see him again. He remembered us. This time, he did a complete full ultrasound, with bloodwork and everything. We were there for two hours! He gave us one picture of the baby and showed us the heartbeat on the screen. He gave us a due date of January 25th, 2013 and put us at 8 weeks, 5 days. Almost 9 weeks!! That's over two months of pregnancy without us even knowing it!!! Although he was extremely informative, he wasn't as personalized as the midwife we saw at the other facility. He did recommend for us to get extra testing done since we were at higher risk due to our circumstances and set up an appointment for a few weeks later. We scheduled it with the midwife there hoping to get a similar experience as the other facility, but with higher tech equipment! So I canceled the appointment at the first place.

Our Miracle Baby at 8 weeks, 5 days; measuring 22mm. 

A few days later, I got a call from Susie, the original midwife. She was concerned because I had canceled the appointment! She spent 10-15 minutes talking to me and asking if she could include Geoff, the baby and me in her prayer group. I felt such a connection with her in that moment, hence, I decided she was our midwife!! She told us to keep our appointment with the other facility so they could do the other testing and from there we would start seeing her. I really feel she was put on our paths on purpose! It'll be so nice to have the same person who sees us throughout our pregnancy be the one who delivers our little miracle baby! [At the other facility you get whoever is on-call that day and hopefully it's the same doctor you have been seeing throughout]. Anyway...

I can't believe shit got this real!!