Finding out…

“It wouldn’t be so bad if we had a baby this year…” he said. January of 2013 rolled around and we started to feel more “settled” with where we were in life. A few months prior we had finally moved out of our tiny little newly-wed apartment and into a house. We were ok with the fact that we might stay in our little town for a while. Maybe it was that fact or the prospect of a new job opening up that made Jonathan say those words that night. The truth is that I’d been wanting a little one ever since we got married. I think it’s just part of being a woman. Of course, I was only 21 when we said “I do” and definitely not really wanting to embark on that journey quite yet. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t hope for it sometimes. After that night we didn’t necessarily try to get pregnant, but we definitely weren’t careful about making sure we didn’t. We wanted to be content with whatever God’s timing might be for us.

Fast forward to November. I was a mess. After several months of being late or not having my period at all, my heart was discouraged. It takes a toll emotionally to hope for something that doesn’t come. It was always sad, yet somewhat of a relief to get a negative answer. I stopped wanting to even think about it. Through October and November I was almost certain that it wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

After coming home from visiting my family over Thanksgiving, I seemed to be unusually emotional. I even cried once. If you know me at all, you know I don’t ever cry. If I do, something is very wrong or I feel wounded in some way. I didn’t think that being pregnant was possible, but after being 2 weeks late I decided that I should pick up some tests to confirm what I already knew for peace of mind. Thus I was shocked to see a very faint second line on the test. Then I really cried! It only lasted a few minutes because I didn’t want to get my hopes up for nothing. I figured I should wait and retake the test in the morning to be sure. Needless to say, I barely slept at all that night. It was hard to keep the secret but I wanted to be absolutely certain before telling Jonathan.

The next morning I waited until after Jonathan went to work and immediately took another test. There was no denying it this time. Two bright prink lines stared back at me, confirming what I thought to be impossible. I was shocked, overwhelmed and overjoyed. I literally couldn’t sit down for 30 minutes. I’m pretty sure I danced around the house with my hands on my stomach. All I could do was thank God for the miracle that He had given us.

After somewhat composing myself, I rushed over to Target to find some creative way to tell Jonathan. All I could think of was to call and see if he wanted to come home for lunch. I found a “congratulations on becoming a dad” card and some little white baby socks. I put them in a Christmas bag and figured I’d say it was an early Christmas present. He came home, I made tomato sandwiches and then we sat down on the couch. I told him to open the card first. I was so nervous, and I’m pretty sure I was shaking. I’ll never forget is face when he looked up at me and said, “Is this for real?” Yep, it was for real! The only other time I had seen that kind of joy on his face was on our wedding day. We sat there, hugging in silence for a little while and just soaked in the moment. Neither of us say much when we feel big things, but we can look at each other and just know. It’s like time pauses for us for a little while. Of course, I told him on the busiest day of his work week – Wednesday. He said it was a little hard to get anything done after that! I know I didn’t get any work done…or if I did it wasn’t much! I was brainstorming how to tell our families for a good bit of the afternoon. (I’ll have to put that in a separate post though, because this is getting way too long!)

Our first ultrasound was a few weeks later. She looked like just a little peanut then, but she was our little peanut. We didn’t know she was a girl yet, but we loved our little one so much already. Thankfulness overwhelmed us. Wednesday, November 28th will always be a day we remember. It’s the day we found out our little family of two had become three.