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This morning, I woke up at 6 a.m. and willingly went to an imaging center to allow them to shove my body into a metal tube and take pictures of all of my organs. The technician became interested in my reason for being there once I disclosed that I was six months postpartum. I explained my months-long journey, which included one endoscopy, two colonoscopies, a CT scan, multiple blood tests, and now an MRI (with insurance still refusing to cover the medication I need to not die), along with the joking warning: You'll be fine if you don't get pregnant.

She leaned over and said, "I just found out that I am."

At that point, I did everything I could to minimize. I had a higher risk. Autoimmunity runs in my family. I had unexplained symptoms from childhood. This would not happen to her.

She already has Hashimoto's, she disclosed, and, as she put it, autoimmune disorders run in packs.

As I sat still in that metal tube, listening to the whirring sounds of the machine and Carly Rae Jepsen blaring through the headphones (I asked for Taylor Swift), I couldn't help but think: Is this just a rite of passage into motherhood?

Two months after the birth of my second baby, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. The diagnosis was a long time coming and not much of a shock. I finished talking to the doctor, wandered out to the car to meet my husband and my baby, and then went about my business. I did not have time to process the new, and massively life-altering, diagnosis. There was work to do and two........

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