read to the end of this...

Come friends, and sit. Let me tell you a story.

The summer of 2007 was awful. Where to begin?

In July, I took a trip to the Emergency Room with what is called an angioedema -- my face swelled up. I looked like a monkey. My lips were huge. It was an allergic reaction to something; I don't know what. It happened to me a couple times over the course of the summer. They gave me a steroid shot or something and I was back to normal in a few days, but that single event was just the beginning of a lot of allergy problems.

Less severe, but even worse, I started breaking out in hives. Daily. All over my body.

I was terribly embarrassed. If I woke up with hives, sometimes they'd be better by 10 AM and sometimes they'd be worse. I cover myself in calamine lotion. I took Benadryl and Claritin. I did everything I could think of, but nothing helped. I was too embarrassed to go to the gym and work out in shorts and shower. I would wear long sleeves to work in the summer. I'd wear my hair in my face. Hives on my cheeks, on the bottom of my feet, all over my stomach. I cried every day.

The only thing that worked was prednisone. Ooh baby I loved that drug. They went away immediately, and stayed at bay for awhile. But they always came back. And I'd run back to the allergist and beg for more prednisone. They tried other things too, like putting me on a regimen of Allegra and ranitidine. (Ranititine is a heartburn medication, the primary ingredient in Zantac, but it's secondary quality is as a B-histamine blocker. Interesting trivia. Histamines are either A's or B's, and they couldn't tell what was making me have hives, so they tried to block both.)

One friend told me it wasn't hives, it was ringworm. Someone else told me I was too stressed and it was pathological. The allergist finally did a test and said it was autoimmune and there was nothing they could do. I was at my wit's end.

At the same time, there was some snafu with airplane tickets. I bought a set of airplane tickets, then changed my mind and immediately canceled them. Even though you can't do that, the customer service person on the phone told me I could. I bought another set the next day. And was charged for both on my credit card. I had to call the airline to figure out what the heck was going on and fix it. It wasn't my fault they couldn't find my original customer service person "Johnny" and that he was in the Philippines -- he had told me I could cancel my tickets so I wanted my hundreds of dollars back and didn't want to pay a fee. And I fought and fought and finally won the battle.

But, since the sting of a bad mistake can never go away, we had a cell phone with a crappy plan and I made these calls on the cell phone. We got a bill with a hundred dollars in overage charges. A HUNDRED DOLLARS.

I couldn't win. I just could not win at life. I felt defeated in every way. Every force out there was trying to bring us down and destroy us, as people, as a couple, as a family.

Then we found out we were pregnant. We found out October 3, 2007. We were having a baby.

I didn't realize it then, I realize it now, what had happened to us. The adversary, Satan, was trying to bring us down. Something was fighting against us, because it knew, if we won, if we beat all the crappiness in our lives at that moment, we would be ridiculously happy.

And Wesley makes me ridiculously happy. I am so happy that despite all the odds, he was able to come into this world. I love him.

(And by the way, pregnancy fixed my hives. I don't know how. I got a bad set in Summer 2009, but none last year. I hope I never get them again.)

So, here we are today. Let's talk about the winter of 2010.

First, I got a speeding ticket, and had lots of issues trying to pay it (the check was late so it was returned to me; the courthouse was closed; the people on the phone were mean). It was awful. My husband was way mad.

Then, I got into a car accident. All my fault. I am an idiot. Then, our roof got a hole in it. If nothing in the world can stress you out, that will. It was awful. We had a cat who was nuts.

Should I go on? It was terrible. All I wanted was for 2010 to be over.

Does this sound familiar?

I couldn't win. I just could not win at life. I felt defeated in every way. Every force out there was trying to bring us down and destroy us, as people, as a couple, as a family.

Then we found out we were pregnant. We found out April 16, 2011. We are having a baby.

I actually think I realized what was happening... I saw all this stuff falling on our shoulders and knew what it was... it was the same force trying get this precious little baby #2 from happening. I'm so glad that we beat it! We beat those forces!

So. I am on a new adventure. Baby Gottula #2 arrives at Christmas.