It is a great story. I 
ALWAYS wanted a baby. I had worked with children and babies since I was 8 years old, and wanted a baby more than anything. I was 24, engaged to the man I loved, and finally ready to do it. Immediately after Adam proposed, I mean a half hour later, we decided that we wanted to get pregnant in about a year. Enough time for both of us to finish our graduate degrees and settle down a little.
My sister had experienced so many difficulties in her pregnancy journey. First, it took her years to get pregnant, and then when she did she experienced miscarriages. Because we both had crohn’s disease, I figured I would have the same problems.
We decided I would go off birth control, let my body adjust for the year, and see what happened. I got pregnant two weeks later.
I was leaving for a two month meditation retreat in the mountains, and realized that my period was a week late. My husband was going to drive me up to Shambhala Mountain Center, but I knew if I did not take a test that morning I would be in the wilderness just wondering and not doing much meditation.
I told him I was going to the store to get food for a “special breakfast.” It was really my excuse to get a pregnancy test.
I came home and began cooking. While he was in the shower I slipped into the second bathroom and did the test.
That is funny, I thought, as I looked at the plus sign. Just my luck to get a faulty test. So I waited a minute and took the bonus test in the package. Strange, I thought this time. What were the chances that I would get two false positives?
I was a little in shock. I finished breakfast and brought it out onto the deck to Adam. “Adam,” I said, “want to hear something really weird? I just took two pregnancy tests and they both came out positive. What are the chances of two false positives, huh?” He looked at me as if I were playing a joke. He did not believe me until I dragged him into the bathroom and showed him.
“Yep,” he said, serious and calm as always, “your pregnant.”
And so it began.
I went on my retreat. I spent two months living in a tent trying not to think about the baby that was growing inside me. I was not very good at not thinking about it. In fact, I thought about it all day. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. As hail destroyed the tents and mice were eating peoples hair as they slept, I thought about it.
I had been in remission from crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the intestines, for two years. When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately went off my two crohn’s meds:
Imuran (aka Azathioprine), a category D drug. This is an immunosuppressant medication that is used to treat conditions like rhemetoid arthritis and recent oran transplants.
Asacol a category B drug. This is an anti-inflammatory drug that helps people with crohn’s and ulcerative colitis get better and stay better.
Although my father-in-law, a perinatologist, said Imuran was okay to take while pregnant, I was not going to take any chances.And while I knew Asacol was as safe as any drug could be during pregnancy, I decided to risk going off of it since I had been in remission for two years.
We pushed up the wedding to a week after I got out of retreat. It was a beautiful wedding, and even more so because I knew a beautiful baby was growing inside me. My baby. I could not wait.
The rest of my pregnancy was great. Because I had become a birth doula a few year before, I knew what I was in for. Still, I read every single book on pregnancy, birth, and parenting that I could find. My husband had no idea what he was getting in to, but was sweet with me as I incessantly talked about every detail, from how to massage my perineum before me due date yeah, I did that!) to how to clip a newborns fingernails.
We were ready.
