Baby News!
September 22, 2018 was just an average Saturday morning. Hubby and I were planning to sleep in. Maybe go to the gym. I was planning something else, but I didn't expect anything to come from it.
We'd been trying for a baby since after our wedding in December of 2017, really getting serious in the new year, and hoping month after month that our baby dreams and start of our family would finally come true.
By September I was dejected, but still hopeful. It hadn't quite been a year--the time when my doctor said he would start doing fertility tests--but it was getting close. I'd written sad poetry and short stories to get out my emotions. I'd stayed up late so many nights just perusing the "Glow" ovulation and pregnancy app on my phone, reading the experiences of other women trying to conceive (TTC). Some had been trying for three months and expected it to happen already. Some had tried over a decade with nothing. Many joyfully posted the pregnancy announcements they'd be sharing on Facebook or the videos of how they surprised their husbands/boyfriends/partners. Others posted pregnancy test sticks with extremely faint lines hoping for confirmation. I never posted, but I knew I was a part of this TTC community. I'd memorized the acronyms (BBT: Basal Body Temperature. DH: Dear Husband. LO: Little One. POAS: Pee on a Stick. O: Ovulation. HPT: Home Pregnancy Test. AF: Aunt Flow. And many more). I sympathized with those who said AF had arrived late, but was definitely there. I read the terrifying birth stories of new mothers with pregnancy complications. I browsed through nursery decor photos and dreamed.
After almost nine months of serious TTC, I dreaded the day when I could finally take a pregnancy test for this month. Well, dread is not quite the right word. But I wasn't as excited as I'd been before. The TWW (Two Week Wait) had been agonizing in past months as I tried to distract myself during the time after I'd (supposedly) ovulated and the time AF was due (or when I could take a pregnancy test). I had wanted to wait until September 25--the day the app said AF was due--even though my last one had been August 18. But it seemed better to test on Saturday, September 22, because it was a weekend. I would be home and could take my time, and if I was pregnant I would have time to absorb it all.
I really didn't expect to be pregnant.
I expected that I would see no trace of a second line on the First Response Early Result Pregnancy Test (which can detect pregnancy up to six days before a missed period). Seeing no trace of a line would prepare me for when AF arrived around three days later. Maybe I wouldn't be quite as disappointed because I'd already know it was coming.
I woke up on Saturday at 6:30am. I'm generally terrible at sleeping in, and had to go to the bathroom anyway, so I climbed out of bed and headed to our master bath with trepidation. I opened the pink foil wrapper of the test I'd set out on a shelf the night before. I followed the instructions and then closed my eyes. The test was supposed to take three minutes before you could read it. I counted to sixty three times in my head, keeping my eyes shut tight. I didn't want to see that lack of a line. But I knew it was coming. It was what I'd seen every month before.
After opening my eyes and staring downward, I truly couldn't believe what I was seeing. Not only was there a second line, but it was so very clear, so very bright. Three days before AF and the test was already picking up enough to give me more than the faint lines I'd seen posted on the Glow app.
Holy cats, I was pregnant.
My hands shook as I picked up the test. I ran to grab my phone, still charging beside my bed, and took a picture to have permanent proof. Some women on the app used their wedding ring to encircle the result window in order to get a better focus of the lines and to prove in photos that the test was theirs and not something they had stolen from Google (it happens, trust me). I figured my unique brown bathroom tiled floor was proof enough. I didn't want to go downstairs to get my wedding ring from its jewelry holder. I didn't want to move.
Climbing back into bed woke my husband, who sleepily asked if I was okay. I wanted to shake him awake and show him the test, but I'd been planning for months a way to surprise him with the news if I ever got pregnant. No way I could ruin it now.
"I can't sleep," I said shakily.
"Oh. Do you want to go to the gym then?"
I agreed. If Hubby got dressed for the gym, he would be wearing decent clothes to take a picture in and I could film his reaction. He quickly prepared for the gym and waited for me downstairs. I hurriedly prepared my plan.
I'd purchased Captain America baby shoes on March 24, 2018. That's how long I'd been planning this surprise. Captain America is Hubby's favorite superhero and he has his own Cap backpack shield that I now grabbed from our closet and set up in his "man cave" room by the window. My original plan was to take Hubby to the place he had proposed to me (a hilltop overlooking the lake across from our neighborhood), but I'd since decided that might be too much trouble. And too suspicious. I was going to ask to take a photo of him heroically posing with the shield on his back to give to my comic book fan of a dad for his birthday in April. I would place the baby shoes behind him, take a photo of him wearing the backpack with the baby shoes in the shot, and then ask him to turn around so he could discover the shoes and determine the news. Then April passed without success and the photo excuse in my mind changed to a present for Father's Day in June. Then June passed and my new excuse for a Captain America photo was to celebrate the Fourth of July. Then July passed. Maybe I could request a special photo of Hubby for my birthday in August. By September I'd run out of good excuses to take a picture of my husband with a Captain America backpack, so I came up with the least likely yet.
"Hey, um, you know how we're visiting my grandfather in November? Well, it's going to be Veterans Day and since he is a veteran, I just had this idea of taking a photo of you with your Captain America shield backpack for him since he's the superhero that represents America. Do you mind if we do that really quick upstairs?"
Hubby was already waiting in the kitchen with his shoes on to go to the gym. He looked confused, and still a little sleepy. But he gave in and followed me upstairs and into the man cave. I positioned him in front of the window and told him to stare out while I took the photo. While he was turned, I removed the baby shoes hidden in my DSLR camera bag and set them up on the little storage bench we had in the room. I snapped several pictures, but the shoes were so low beneath my husband. I asked him to kneel down (but didn't say why). Now the shoes were more visible in the shot, but Hubby was thoroughly confused and maybe just the tiniest bit annoyed. He didn't complain though. He knelt down. I snapped my last picture and then turned the camera to video mode.
"Okay, I'm done," I said, recording my husband. "You can turn around now."
Instead of turning in place to see the shoes, he immediately stood up and missed what was perched on the storage bench. I moved the camera to the baby shoes and he finally looked in the direction I was facing.
"What are those?" he asked.
"What do you think they are?"
He kind of chuckled. "They're cute little...Captain America baby shoes," he said.
"Uh huh."
He stared at the shoes for a moment and then his eyes flashed with a clear moment of understanding. He turned to face me (and the camera). As the news sank in the emotion could be seen on his face and my own voice broke as I told him, "I took a test this morning."
We both broke down crying and hugging at the amazing news and realization that we were going to have a baby.
So much for the gym.
The rest of the morning was spent pacing and chattering, just trying to figure out what to do next. I showed Hubby the double lines and he suggested our first move be to take a second test to double confirm. He knew as a librarian and former journalist I would want at least two confirmed sources. I agreed, but didn't have to go to the bathroom yet. We should tell our parents (not the whole world just yet but at least them), but they wouldn't be awake for a while on Saturday. It was still only just around 7am. Breakfast then. We would go have breakfast. We would take a second test. Then we would go shopping to get a few gifts for when we told our parents. We would visit the cemetery to tell Hubby's grandma first, who had passed away on September 26 of 2017 and the one-year anniversary was coming up next week. Then we would tell my parents and siblings, his parents and siblings, and his close aunt. No one else until at least a few weeks had passed and it was "safe."
We ran our errands in the morning and discussed what we had done different this month. I'd bought a Clear Blue Fertility Monitor for the first time, which determined I had ovulated a week after I would have expected to based on the Glow app. It was a little expensive--just over a hundred dollars--but clearly worth it based on the results.
We talked about the "symptoms" I had been analyzing, wondering if they were pregnancy symptoms but doubting they could be this early and based on my previous experiences. I honestly felt identical to last month when AF had arrived. Breasts a little heavy and full, but not really too sore. A lot of new "fun" bouts of acne and bloating. The occasional, very light tummy cramp. Hungry a lot. Tired a lot. But not overly hungry or overly tired. Really there were only two things I noticed that I thought possibly could be symptoms of pregnancy. I had a couple of days where smells were exceptionally strong--an awful bathroom at work, and an almost rotten-egg like smell in my kitchen that only lasted for a few moments. And I didn't gain any extra weight. Usually around AF I went up a pound or two based on carb cravings, water weight, and bloating. The day before I took a pregnancy test, my weight actually went down a pound. And one pregnancy site I visited said you don't gain pregnancy weight right away--you're more likely to gain weight from AF.
But that was it. Everything else felt normal. If it weren't for that test--and the digital one I took after it that clearly said "Pregnant" on the screen, and the one I took after it in the evening just to make sure nothing had happened, and the two I took the next morning to confirm again after all this time--I would have no idea that I was actually pregnant with a poppy seed-sized baby inside me instead of just waiting a few more days for AF.
The day passed quickly, and I wasn't even hungry for lunch as we went from Barnes and Noble to the mall to the cemetery to my parents' house, to Hubby's parents' house, and then to his aunt's house in the evening.
My dad's reaction was the best, because I'd given him a card that said I had a hero inside me, waiting to meet the new grandparents. He thought it was an anniversary card since my parents' anniversary was the next week, and smiled kindly at me.
"Thank you, Sweetie," he said after closing the card. His voice was as natural as if I had given him a DVD for his birthday.
My mom had been reading over his shoulder. "Uh, I don't think you read everything in the card," she said as I urged him to open it again.
He re-read, and you could see the look of shock on his face as his mouth opened. My dad proceeded to give me the biggest, tightest hug while my mom warned not to hug my belly too tight!
The cards I gave to my brothers told them they were official uncles now, though my younger brother suspected something was going on when my mom had called him excitedly and insisted he stop by their house while I was there.
Next was Hubby's parents. Since Hubby's dad is a huge Raiders football fan, we bought a Raiders shirt at the mall for him that said the classic Raiders catchphrase, "Just win, baby!" and folded the shirt so the first thing that could be seen was the "baby." Hubby told his parents that since the season had been off to a rough start, he hoped this gift for both of them would cheer them up a bit.
Hubby's mom told us she was "non-partisan," not really supporting any football team, but she stayed in the room to watch his dad open the box, just as we'd wanted.
Hubby's dad almost missed the message as he started to unfold the shirt. Hubby had to push it back down into the box for him and ask him to look at it first. When he read the word "baby" he got it immediately, and Hubby's mom watching over his shoulder realized it a second before him. They both screamed with mouths open and Hubby's mom thrust her arms in the air.
At the end of the day, after I had to sit through a planned outing with friends and not say a word about my news, I came home to Hubby's aunt's house where he had been waiting for me to tell her. Our excuse for taking a photo of her was that both she and my husband had been going to the gym lately and were looking pretty good. He wanted to take a photo together for their progress and also in front of the large portrait of his grandma. After I took the photo of them together I texted Hubby a photo of the digital pregnancy test he requested. He looked at the photo with fake puzzlement and asked, "Auntie, can you read that for me?"
She nodded and read, "Pregnant" in a normal voice before the realization dawned on her and her jaw dropped as well.
The evening was spent just basking in the news and feeling excited of what was to come. Nine months of what is to come, that I will do my best to document on this blog. Originally planned for notes on the kind of mom I want to become, I hoped one day I could use it to document a future pregnancy.
That day begins today.
We'd been trying for a baby since after our wedding in December of 2017, really getting serious in the new year, and hoping month after month that our baby dreams and start of our family would finally come true.
By September I was dejected, but still hopeful. It hadn't quite been a year--the time when my doctor said he would start doing fertility tests--but it was getting close. I'd written sad poetry and short stories to get out my emotions. I'd stayed up late so many nights just perusing the "Glow" ovulation and pregnancy app on my phone, reading the experiences of other women trying to conceive (TTC). Some had been trying for three months and expected it to happen already. Some had tried over a decade with nothing. Many joyfully posted the pregnancy announcements they'd be sharing on Facebook or the videos of how they surprised their husbands/boyfriends/partners. Others posted pregnancy test sticks with extremely faint lines hoping for confirmation. I never posted, but I knew I was a part of this TTC community. I'd memorized the acronyms (BBT: Basal Body Temperature. DH: Dear Husband. LO: Little One. POAS: Pee on a Stick. O: Ovulation. HPT: Home Pregnancy Test. AF: Aunt Flow. And many more). I sympathized with those who said AF had arrived late, but was definitely there. I read the terrifying birth stories of new mothers with pregnancy complications. I browsed through nursery decor photos and dreamed.
After almost nine months of serious TTC, I dreaded the day when I could finally take a pregnancy test for this month. Well, dread is not quite the right word. But I wasn't as excited as I'd been before. The TWW (Two Week Wait) had been agonizing in past months as I tried to distract myself during the time after I'd (supposedly) ovulated and the time AF was due (or when I could take a pregnancy test). I had wanted to wait until September 25--the day the app said AF was due--even though my last one had been August 18. But it seemed better to test on Saturday, September 22, because it was a weekend. I would be home and could take my time, and if I was pregnant I would have time to absorb it all.
I really didn't expect to be pregnant.
I expected that I would see no trace of a second line on the First Response Early Result Pregnancy Test (which can detect pregnancy up to six days before a missed period). Seeing no trace of a line would prepare me for when AF arrived around three days later. Maybe I wouldn't be quite as disappointed because I'd already know it was coming.
I woke up on Saturday at 6:30am. I'm generally terrible at sleeping in, and had to go to the bathroom anyway, so I climbed out of bed and headed to our master bath with trepidation. I opened the pink foil wrapper of the test I'd set out on a shelf the night before. I followed the instructions and then closed my eyes. The test was supposed to take three minutes before you could read it. I counted to sixty three times in my head, keeping my eyes shut tight. I didn't want to see that lack of a line. But I knew it was coming. It was what I'd seen every month before.
After opening my eyes and staring downward, I truly couldn't believe what I was seeing. Not only was there a second line, but it was so very clear, so very bright. Three days before AF and the test was already picking up enough to give me more than the faint lines I'd seen posted on the Glow app.
Holy cats, I was pregnant.
My hands shook as I picked up the test. I ran to grab my phone, still charging beside my bed, and took a picture to have permanent proof. Some women on the app used their wedding ring to encircle the result window in order to get a better focus of the lines and to prove in photos that the test was theirs and not something they had stolen from Google (it happens, trust me). I figured my unique brown bathroom tiled floor was proof enough. I didn't want to go downstairs to get my wedding ring from its jewelry holder. I didn't want to move.
Climbing back into bed woke my husband, who sleepily asked if I was okay. I wanted to shake him awake and show him the test, but I'd been planning for months a way to surprise him with the news if I ever got pregnant. No way I could ruin it now.
"I can't sleep," I said shakily.
"Oh. Do you want to go to the gym then?"
I agreed. If Hubby got dressed for the gym, he would be wearing decent clothes to take a picture in and I could film his reaction. He quickly prepared for the gym and waited for me downstairs. I hurriedly prepared my plan.
I'd purchased Captain America baby shoes on March 24, 2018. That's how long I'd been planning this surprise. Captain America is Hubby's favorite superhero and he has his own Cap backpack shield that I now grabbed from our closet and set up in his "man cave" room by the window. My original plan was to take Hubby to the place he had proposed to me (a hilltop overlooking the lake across from our neighborhood), but I'd since decided that might be too much trouble. And too suspicious. I was going to ask to take a photo of him heroically posing with the shield on his back to give to my comic book fan of a dad for his birthday in April. I would place the baby shoes behind him, take a photo of him wearing the backpack with the baby shoes in the shot, and then ask him to turn around so he could discover the shoes and determine the news. Then April passed without success and the photo excuse in my mind changed to a present for Father's Day in June. Then June passed and my new excuse for a Captain America photo was to celebrate the Fourth of July. Then July passed. Maybe I could request a special photo of Hubby for my birthday in August. By September I'd run out of good excuses to take a picture of my husband with a Captain America backpack, so I came up with the least likely yet.
"Hey, um, you know how we're visiting my grandfather in November? Well, it's going to be Veterans Day and since he is a veteran, I just had this idea of taking a photo of you with your Captain America shield backpack for him since he's the superhero that represents America. Do you mind if we do that really quick upstairs?"
Hubby was already waiting in the kitchen with his shoes on to go to the gym. He looked confused, and still a little sleepy. But he gave in and followed me upstairs and into the man cave. I positioned him in front of the window and told him to stare out while I took the photo. While he was turned, I removed the baby shoes hidden in my DSLR camera bag and set them up on the little storage bench we had in the room. I snapped several pictures, but the shoes were so low beneath my husband. I asked him to kneel down (but didn't say why). Now the shoes were more visible in the shot, but Hubby was thoroughly confused and maybe just the tiniest bit annoyed. He didn't complain though. He knelt down. I snapped my last picture and then turned the camera to video mode.
"Okay, I'm done," I said, recording my husband. "You can turn around now."
Instead of turning in place to see the shoes, he immediately stood up and missed what was perched on the storage bench. I moved the camera to the baby shoes and he finally looked in the direction I was facing.
"What are those?" he asked.
"What do you think they are?"
He kind of chuckled. "They're cute little...Captain America baby shoes," he said.
"Uh huh."
He stared at the shoes for a moment and then his eyes flashed with a clear moment of understanding. He turned to face me (and the camera). As the news sank in the emotion could be seen on his face and my own voice broke as I told him, "I took a test this morning."
We both broke down crying and hugging at the amazing news and realization that we were going to have a baby.
So much for the gym.
The rest of the morning was spent pacing and chattering, just trying to figure out what to do next. I showed Hubby the double lines and he suggested our first move be to take a second test to double confirm. He knew as a librarian and former journalist I would want at least two confirmed sources. I agreed, but didn't have to go to the bathroom yet. We should tell our parents (not the whole world just yet but at least them), but they wouldn't be awake for a while on Saturday. It was still only just around 7am. Breakfast then. We would go have breakfast. We would take a second test. Then we would go shopping to get a few gifts for when we told our parents. We would visit the cemetery to tell Hubby's grandma first, who had passed away on September 26 of 2017 and the one-year anniversary was coming up next week. Then we would tell my parents and siblings, his parents and siblings, and his close aunt. No one else until at least a few weeks had passed and it was "safe."
We ran our errands in the morning and discussed what we had done different this month. I'd bought a Clear Blue Fertility Monitor for the first time, which determined I had ovulated a week after I would have expected to based on the Glow app. It was a little expensive--just over a hundred dollars--but clearly worth it based on the results.
We talked about the "symptoms" I had been analyzing, wondering if they were pregnancy symptoms but doubting they could be this early and based on my previous experiences. I honestly felt identical to last month when AF had arrived. Breasts a little heavy and full, but not really too sore. A lot of new "fun" bouts of acne and bloating. The occasional, very light tummy cramp. Hungry a lot. Tired a lot. But not overly hungry or overly tired. Really there were only two things I noticed that I thought possibly could be symptoms of pregnancy. I had a couple of days where smells were exceptionally strong--an awful bathroom at work, and an almost rotten-egg like smell in my kitchen that only lasted for a few moments. And I didn't gain any extra weight. Usually around AF I went up a pound or two based on carb cravings, water weight, and bloating. The day before I took a pregnancy test, my weight actually went down a pound. And one pregnancy site I visited said you don't gain pregnancy weight right away--you're more likely to gain weight from AF.
But that was it. Everything else felt normal. If it weren't for that test--and the digital one I took after it that clearly said "Pregnant" on the screen, and the one I took after it in the evening just to make sure nothing had happened, and the two I took the next morning to confirm again after all this time--I would have no idea that I was actually pregnant with a poppy seed-sized baby inside me instead of just waiting a few more days for AF.
The day passed quickly, and I wasn't even hungry for lunch as we went from Barnes and Noble to the mall to the cemetery to my parents' house, to Hubby's parents' house, and then to his aunt's house in the evening.
My dad's reaction was the best, because I'd given him a card that said I had a hero inside me, waiting to meet the new grandparents. He thought it was an anniversary card since my parents' anniversary was the next week, and smiled kindly at me.
"Thank you, Sweetie," he said after closing the card. His voice was as natural as if I had given him a DVD for his birthday.
My mom had been reading over his shoulder. "Uh, I don't think you read everything in the card," she said as I urged him to open it again.
He re-read, and you could see the look of shock on his face as his mouth opened. My dad proceeded to give me the biggest, tightest hug while my mom warned not to hug my belly too tight!
The cards I gave to my brothers told them they were official uncles now, though my younger brother suspected something was going on when my mom had called him excitedly and insisted he stop by their house while I was there.
Next was Hubby's parents. Since Hubby's dad is a huge Raiders football fan, we bought a Raiders shirt at the mall for him that said the classic Raiders catchphrase, "Just win, baby!" and folded the shirt so the first thing that could be seen was the "baby." Hubby told his parents that since the season had been off to a rough start, he hoped this gift for both of them would cheer them up a bit.
Hubby's mom told us she was "non-partisan," not really supporting any football team, but she stayed in the room to watch his dad open the box, just as we'd wanted.
Hubby's dad almost missed the message as he started to unfold the shirt. Hubby had to push it back down into the box for him and ask him to look at it first. When he read the word "baby" he got it immediately, and Hubby's mom watching over his shoulder realized it a second before him. They both screamed with mouths open and Hubby's mom thrust her arms in the air.
At the end of the day, after I had to sit through a planned outing with friends and not say a word about my news, I came home to Hubby's aunt's house where he had been waiting for me to tell her. Our excuse for taking a photo of her was that both she and my husband had been going to the gym lately and were looking pretty good. He wanted to take a photo together for their progress and also in front of the large portrait of his grandma. After I took the photo of them together I texted Hubby a photo of the digital pregnancy test he requested. He looked at the photo with fake puzzlement and asked, "Auntie, can you read that for me?"
She nodded and read, "Pregnant" in a normal voice before the realization dawned on her and her jaw dropped as well.
That day begins today.
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