…a strange silence that isn’t quite like me. I usually try to put a post up every three weeks or so, but as I said on Twitter back in September, life has delivered me some pretty impressive hiatus-forcing moments these past three months.
But like any good story, some of them were positive things! At the beginning of August I started medication for my HS, and it works. The difference was like night and day–even with the first set of shots! I cannot begin to tell you what it feels like to go from being in constant, excruciating pain to feeling something like a normal human. In fact, the medicine even helped to improve other things I had long term issues with, like my chronic back pain from a car accident almost 10 years ago. [Herniated L5/S1. Boo.]
But then it helped with an issue I never in a million years thought it would help with: my unexplained infertility. I became pregnant after the first set of shots.
Now as you know, we already have a daughter. We have no idea how we had her. Seriously–we were undergoing all kinds of exams, tests, and procedures when I became pregnant with her. It took three years to get her, and that was after we started with interventions and had several miscarriages. We still have no idea what combinations of treatment worked. [We were about to move onto IUI/IVF.] After she was born we tried for a second kid almost right away, afraid that we would miss our chance due to how long it took to end up with our first.
If you’re good at math, daughter is four now, so we were even more unsuccessful this time than the last. In fact, by the time we received a diagnosis for my HS we had put our plan of a second kid on the back burner until after we figured out how to stop my immune system from trying to kill me.
This new baby is unexpected, but desperately wanted. I’ve never even imagined having a “surprise” pregnancy because of how difficult it was to conceive our first! We are over-the-moon excited about this, though I have not had an easy time so far. [Unexplained bleeding, lots of emergency ultrasounds, etc.] I’ve been a basket-case because I’m always scared that the Universe will swoop in and destroy our happiness. [I have some anxiety issues, yes…]
I’m almost in the second trimester now, and once that hits, I hope to get back to writing. I’ve been poking at it, but between feeling sick, tired, and nervous, I’ve been preoccupied and unable to focus on it. My goal is to get Atlantis: TVC volume #3 finished before next March so that I can take time off to spend with the new baby. [And maybe write some short stories. Who knows?] There is a lot of stuff we have to think about now too, like whether or not we should move to a larger place. [Do I even want to move while pregnant? Ugh. No.]
At any rate, I thank you all for your patience during this time! I have had a few people message me privately wondering if something happened to me. I’m not dead, I promise! Just getting to a point where I feel better, and focused enough to start writing again. 
