If I knew then what I knew now...

Hubs and I got a chance to have our last "golf date" of the season this past weekend. My parents graciously watched the kids, and the two of us took to the links (with margaritas in tow) on a beautiful blustery fall day. We got to reminiscing and I brought up that we had been together for 13 wonderful years (married for 8) and that it has seriously been an amazingly great ride - oh and that we could possibly have a 12 year old child. Let me explain... (and mom you can stop reading now :)

I didn't get my period until I was almost 15 years old, and never got it regularly. In fact I only got it like once or twice that first year. I was put on birth control to regulate my periods at 15, and was on it for the next 12 years until we started to try and have kids. But when I first started dating Hubs I forgot to take some pills, or forgot to renew my prescription and wasn't on the pill for a few weeks. We were careful of course, but when it came time for me to get my period as I thought I would, it never came. Two weeks later, it still didn't come. I was 21 years old, had only been dating my then-boyfriend-now-husband for about 3 months, and thought I was pregnant. Holy shitballs.

I had no idea what to do. I didn't tell Hubs what was happening at first, but I did tell my best friend because I was freaking out. She wanted me to go to the drug store around the corner and get a pregnancy test, but I was too scared. What the hell was I going to do if I was pregnant? I had been out of college for 5 months, I was about to start another new job (that only lasted 3 months because it was the worst job in the world), I lived in a very crappy apartment with 3 friends from college, my boyfriend was applying to law schools all over the country and could possibly be moving away in the next year and the last thing I wanted to do was to have a child - I was a child!!

If I remember correctly, I told Hubs that I was "late" on Thanksgiving. He was hosting at his apartment and I stayed up in Boston instead of going home to Florida. I will never forget feeling like I was going to throw up from nerves when I asked him "if we could talk" in his bedroom for a second. Of course he was nothing but supportive (and has been nothing but that our entire 13 years together) as I sat there and cried, but like any smart person he suggested we get a test and find out for sure. He even offered to get one for me, but again I couldn't go through with it.

I am not sure what happened the next few days, but I remember gathering my roommates one night at our apartment and telling them all what was going on. The next thing I remember is all of us piling into someones car and going off in search of a pregnancy test for me. It was late, and most stores were closed, so I remember driving around town looking for an open drug store, and when we finally found one we all went in...but I couldn't face buying the test myself so one of my other girlfriends bought it for me. It is one of those moments I will never forget - me lingering in the front of the store trying to look like i was interested in the nail polish I was in front of, with the other three girls in the back of the store trying to find the cheapest test possible.

I took the test as soon as I got home and those two minutes of all of us girls waiting for the results, in this tiny disgusting bathroom, were excruciating. What if I was pregnant?  There was no way I was going to have it right? I am very pro-choice, but could I go through with an abortion myself? Would my relationship with my boyfriend change? What would my parents think? Would I move home to Florida? How would I not drink for 9 months?

It was negative, of course.

And for the next 6 years of my life I was diligent about taking my birth control pills.

But then I stopped when we actually wanted to get pregnant, and I never got my period...and didn't get pregnant for months...and found out I had PCOS and could probably never get pregnant without assisted fertility treatments...and went through 2.5 years of different pills and shots and IUIs and IVFs.

I guess I could have saved a lot of money on birth control pills if I knew then what I know now!