My daughter, Kadence, turned five yesterday. I cannot believe that it was been five years since her birth! Most of you may not already know, but Kadence (or KK, for short), was not planned; however, she is a blessing nevertheless.
I found out that I was pregnant with her the summer after my P2 year in pharmacy school during Memorial Day weekend while on my Introduction to Hospital Pharmacy rotation. It was funny because before I found out I was sick most of the time and had really bad GERD. I knew something had to be wrong with me. I was working out regularly at that time, and the trigger for me to take a pregnancy test was when I became out of breath and could not keep up with my preceptor and a fellow pharmacy student from UNC-CH during an after-lunch walk on the hospital floor. I was embarrassed because I had just gotten done telling my preceptor that I ran every day. I know I was looking like a liar...
I also did not eat well during lunchtime while on this rotation because I was always so sick, and the hormones made me lose my appetite. All of the other pharmacists at the hospital were looking at me like I was crazy; but, I knew what was wrong with me by that time, and that's all that really mattered.
I finally found out on a Friday night, and I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. After all, I was unmarried, still in pharmacy school, and Billyde--my then boyfriend and now husband--was still in graduate school on the PhD track. What would my classmates think? How were we going to finish school?
Coincidentally, Billyde had ordered an engagement ring some time before we found out, and he let me know that night (way to kill the surprise, huh?). We were hoping to be married that summer before school started again; however, the Catholic Church made it hard. As a general rule, they require married couples to wait at least six months before getting married (it has to do with paperwork and formalities). The soonest the Church would let us marry was four and a half months after our engagement, or when I was seven and a half months pregnant; however, if we were going to get it done, we may as well have gotten it done the right way.
Anyway, the hard part of this news was breaking it to my mother, an ultra-conservative Catholic (I mean, her television stayed on Fox News or EWTN). I made Billyde come with me to tell her. To our surprise, she congratulated us and offered to pay for the wedding.
I finally broke the news to my preceptor because of the speculation regarding my eating habits, but what were we going to do about school?
After much consideration and trial and error, we decided that it would be best to stay with my mother when the baby was born for at least until I was done with my third year of classes. KK was born during the hardest year of my pharmacy school curriculum. Staying with my mom was one of the best decisions I had made in my life because I would never had been able to pass my classes and start my rotations on time without her help in watching our baby.
Being on rotation with an infant was hard, especially since she cried just about all the time and Billyde was doing the school thing as well, but I made it. I was still able to graduate on time, and with honors. I cannot believe that five years have passed, and my miracle baby--born in such a tumultuous time in our lives--will be starting kindergarten this year. She may get on my nerves most of the time, but she is still my pookin-poo, and I love her to death.
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