diff --git a/api/.dockerignore b/api/.dockerignore
index 0501d09..b78cabd 100644
--- a/api/.dockerignore
+++ b/api/.dockerignore
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
 fly.toml
+.env
diff --git a/api/src/db.py b/api/src/db.py
index de43eda..e45a964 100644
--- a/api/src/db.py
+++ b/api/src/db.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 from sqlalchemy.ext.asyncio import async_sessionmaker, create_async_engine
 from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
 
-load_dotenv(override=True)
+load_dotenv()
 
 connect_args = {}
 
@@ -15,7 +15,10 @@
     connect_args = {"check_same_thread": False}
 
 engine = create_async_engine(
-    os.environ["CONNECTION_URI"], connect_args=connect_args, echo=True
+    os.environ["CONNECTION_URI"],
+    connect_args=connect_args,
+    echo=True,
+    pool_pre_ping=True,
 )
 
 SessionLocal = async_sessionmaker(autocommit=False, autoflush=False, bind=engine)
@@ -26,6 +29,11 @@ def scaffold_db():
     """use a sync engine for scaffolding the database. ddl operations are unavailable
     with async engines
     """
-    engine = create_engine(os.environ["CONNECTION_URI"], echo=True)
+    print(os.environ["CONNECTION_URI"])
+    engine = create_engine(
+        os.environ["CONNECTION_URI"],
+        pool_pre_ping=True,
+        echo=True,
+    )
     Base.metadata.create_all(bind=engine)
     engine.dispose()