Oh yes, it is true! Baby Walker will be here mid-June, and we couldn't be more thrilled.
Let's reminisce about those early days:
For quite a while Will and I had been telling our friends and family we planned to start trying for a baby next summer. After all, I am just in my second semester of teaching and Will is in his second year of working; we wanted to wait until we both had a little more work security and we had more of our student loans paid off.
I've always loved babies. I've always wanted to be a mother. I have always awed and cooed over babies. But early last summer, something happened. I could not. get. babies. out. of. my. mind. And it was driving me crazy. The desire to have a child and have a family was so overwhelming, I could not shake it off like I had been able to in the past. I prayed. I kind of discussed it with Will. I kept praying. He kept praying. I finally came to the conclusion that I have at so many different times in my life: God gives us desires and interests and moves our heart to suit his purposes. But this, having a baby now, was not part of OUR plan and Will and I are very excellent plan followers. After many, many late-night coversations and prayers, Will and I finally decided that we would "pull the goalie" just before we left for Honduras and let God's plan take action. After all, we reasoned, it had taken both sets of our parents many years to get pregnant with their first child, so we would likely follow suite.
Even though we thought for sure it would take at least six months to get pregnant, it was exciting to finally be trying and I promptly ordered a package of 50 pregnancy tests off Amazon so I could test as often as I wanted and not feel guilty.
There was a time or two over the next two months that I thought I might be pregnant, but I was wrong. And, since I had just gotten off birth control for the first time since high school, my cycle was a little messed up and slightly unpredictable. I used the app called Ovuline to track my cycle and I loved it! I would highly recommend it to anyone trying to get pregnant; it's super easy to use and you just fill in as much or little information daily as you want.
At the end of September my cycle was a little off again, but I had expected it so it wasn't anything new. I did take a test, though, just to be sure, and it was negative. Looking back at my notes on the app, on September 23rd I recorded "extreme fatigue" and "cranky." On September 24th, a received a negative test and recorded "Tender breasts, fatigue, and cranky." September 25th: "blah, tender breasts, fatigue." September 26th: "acne, blah." September 29th: negative test. I stopped recording for a few days, and then on Thursday, October 3rd, I took another test since I had gotten up early and thought "why not?"
At first glance, it looked negative just like all the others did. I was about to throw it away but then I thought, "No, I'll leave it out while I put in my contacts just to make sure." After putting in my contacts, I went back to throw it away but I noticed something new. There was a tiny, barely visible second line where there had never been one before. I mean, so faint you could hardly see it.
Still, though, that had never happened before. Hmmm. "It IS one of those super cheap tests, so maybe I should try it with one of the 'good' tests too," I thought.
I tested with my backup test and it was fairly inconclusive, I thought, too. The second cross line was SO faint it looked like it had been a mistake.
Up until this point, I never understood all those commercials for the pregnancy tests that boasted a "pregnant" or "not pregnant" reading. How can you not understand a pregnancy test?! I thought. But here I was, 5:15 a.m. with two different pregnancy tests and not a clue as to whether they were positive or negative.
I went so far as to Google what a positive pregnancy test could look like. After studying those pictures and reading and re-reading the instructions for both tests, I came to the conclusion that they were both, indeed, positive.
I called to Will, who was still in bed, to come here.
He came into the the bathroom where I had the test and all the instructions and the Google samples lined up on the counter. He was a little confused.
"I think, but I'm not sure, that I might be pregnant."
He was just as cautious as I was to believe it, but by this point the lines had actually developed a little more so they weren't as hard to believe.
Needless to say, he came home that night with a "pregnant" "not pregnant" test. It was positive.
And after that, we deemed me, "officially pregnant!" I was about five weeks along at that point and we had been trying for only two cycles.
We were excited to tell his family that Sunday afternoon at our family dinner. However, Will and his dad ended up going on a run for his dad's job, so there was no way the two of them could make it. We had do it that weekend, though, because if we didn't we'd have to wait another two weeks before we could get everyone together again and we knew we couldn't wait that long.
I made Boomer and Scarlett little bandanas that said "Big Bro" and "Big Sis," hollered for everyone to come outside to the back porch to see the dogs' new trick, and waited forever for them to figure out what was going on. They kept waiting for the dogs to do a trick but the dogs were just circling everyone wanted to get pet. Finally they knelt down to pet the dogs, but still didn't notice what the bandanas said. "I don't get it," someone eventually said, and I told them they had to read the bandanas. After that, I can't remember exactly who said what, but it clicked for just about everyone at the same time. Needless to say, they were excited and Will's dad felt absolutely terrible for being out.
We told my mom a few days later over the phone. I called under the pretense of talking about Christmas preparations, since they're coming down here next week, but we ended up talking for over an hour about general life. We finally made it around to talking about Christmas, and she said she needed a list of stuff we wanted. I told her I would text her a list as soon as we hung up. As we were saying good bye, she jokingly said, "I hope you weren't calling to tell me you are pregnant." I almost spilled at that point, but I recovered and told her no.
I promptly texted her a picture of a quilt I wanted her to make for Christmas and then about five other pictures all relating to baby stuff. She finally called me back a few minutes later screaming with excitement.
It did feel a little anti-climatic to have her figure it out over texts, but I figured it drew the process out a little longer than just simply saying, "I'm pregnant!" I wish we could have done it in person, but such is life. Overall, everyone is excited to meet this little one in June.
How did you tell your significant other and family members you were expecting?
Bump pictures to follow soon!
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