Happy Valentine’s Day dear . . . I’m pregnant!

(see yesterdays’ post for part 1)

So there I was, at about 4:30 pm on Monday February 13th, alone in the bathroom with a peed-on, positive pregnancy test in my hand. My heart was racing, my face felt hot and happy. I looked at myself in the mirror. I am looking at a pregnant woman, I said to myself. I have a baby inside me.

The wheels started turning–how was I going to tell my husband?

He was due home at about 6:30 pm, and of course one option would be to run into the hallway screaming as soon as I heard his key in the lock “I’mpregnantI’mpregnantI’mpregnantI’mpregnant!”

But there was a small hitch–we had friends coming over at 6:30 as well. I was going to be making dinner, which incidentally I really needed to get a move on. No, I didn’t like this scenario at all. There was no way I was going to let him walk in the door, shout “I’m pregnant!”, run back to the kitchen to make sure the eggs weren’t over-poaching, and then have our friends come in 60 seconds later as the astonishment was still playing all over my husband’s face.

Uh-unh. That wasn’t the way I wanted to make my revelation or have our first precious talk about the joys ahead.

I’ll just wait, I told myself. The next day was Valentine’s Day, and wouldn’t that be a perfect and memorable day to tell him? I knew I could keep it to myself for 24 hours, and I actually started getting excited about having this wonderful secret that no one could guess at–and it would be just mine. For one day.

Anyway. My husband came home. I acted normal. It was kind of fun, actually, modulating my speech to sound like I thought I would under regular circumstances. He noticed nothing, which is incredible since he really can normally detect the smallest change in my behavior or tone of voice. Our friends came over shortly after (Hi Felipe! Hi Rebecca!) and we had that awesome Tomato Kale skillet over rice. We talked, we laughed, we had fabulous madeleines courtesy of Rebecca’s baking skills, and all along I held my secret in my heart like a precious treasure.

The next morning I glowed on my ride to work. I could feel the happiness radiating from my face as the train rocked me back and forth, as the bus made its starts and stops. I’m having a baby. No one knows, no one can tell, but I’m having a baby.

I stopped in at Walgreens to buy another pregnancy test on my way to work, and took it in the little bathroom as soon as I got to the office. Why, you may ask? See, I was afraid that some funky thing with my body may have given a false positive. I’d recently watched a ridiculous (and hilarious) episode of 30 Rock in which Liz Lemon gets false positives on a whole bunch of pregnancy tests because of a whacko ingredient in a bag of Mexican chips she’d been inhaling. And since I had just started juicing in the morning that very Monday, what if all those micronutrients that my body wasn’t used to came out in my urine and tricked the test?

Irrational, yes, but I had questions. I had doubts. Thankfully, the second pregnancy test still showed a line. A little faint for my taste (it was the cheapest test), but obviously there. I was relieved, and let myself feel a little more excited.

Will you laugh at me if I admit that I took yet another test a few days later–just in case?

Anyway, that same day while I was still at work, Tuesday February 14th, I called my insurance company. I asked question after question until I had a firm grasp on my benefit package. What’s included, what the deductible is, what doctors are in-network, if midwifery is covered. Incidentally, the first person I told “I’m pregnant” was the Blue Cross Blue Shield customer service rep. She said “congratulations.” Thanks, customer service rep. I’m sorry I don’t even remember your name.

I read up on the midwife group at Swedish Covenant Hospital and made an appointment with them for March 28th, when I would be at the end of my 12th week. The woman who answered the phone said anywhere between weeks 8 and 12 was normal for a first appointment, so based on that I had no qualms about waiting that long.

I wanted to wait a little longer anyway to get in to a medical professional–that may seem odd–but I figured that if I was going to have a miscarriage (which is more likely to happen in the first trimester) then I would prefer not to go to the doctor beforehand. Because that just makes pregnancy seem more real. And the more real it seemed, I reasoned, the more pain I would feel if I lost the baby. Does that make sense? Anyway, right or wrong, it was simply the way my heart was reasoning.

Valentine’s Day evening, I got home from work. I started dinner. My husband got home from school. We filled each other in about the various events in our days. I was bursting with my news, but the moment wasn’t right yet and I let my husband think that I was just really excited to give him my Valentine’s Day gift. I suggested that we eat dinner in the living room (way more intimate and snuggly) and give each other our Valentine’s Day gifts there. He had written a card I wanted to read nice and slowly, and I had personalized a mug that I bought at Starbucks, which had been hiding in a dresser drawer for a few weeks. That very evening I had filled this very tall mug with a bunch of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and buried the positive pregnancy stick in the middle.

I brought out the cup. I handed it to him. He read it slowly, turning it around in his hands (it’s a cup with a long list of all the nicknames I have for him, in case you were confused).

My heart was beating hard, and I noticed my hands had started shaking. Am I nervous? This was not what I was expecting to feel.

Then he started rummaging in the chocolates, and pulled out the stick. “What’s this?” he asked, genuinely confused. And then he thought for a moment and looked at me. He was still looking a little perplexed, so I squealed “I’m pregnant!”

Embraces, tears, and an evening of dreaming out loud ensued. I forced him to sit through an out-loud reading of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” weeks 1-6.

Of course, the next step was to decide when to tell people. Some people would have picked up the phone immediately, but we decided not to. I was experiencing no symptoms, no morning sickness yet, nothing, and the “miscarriage” refrain kept singing in my head. So we decided to wait until the risk was more minimal before sharing with our families or anyone else.

Needless to say, that plan didn’t work out so perfectly. Because that very Thursday, two days later, my friend Carrie came over to hang out before Bible study, looked me in the eye and asked in a no-nonsense tone: “Are you pregnant?”

We’ve been pretty open about our cycles, our dreams and our hopes with each other, so this wasn’t an altogether unusual question. I wasn’t planning on telling, but I hesitated a second too long with my answer.

And in that split second, she had my number. I didn’t even have to say anything before she was embracing me and saying “Oh my gosh!!”

So she and Eric were the first to know, and have been faithful friends in prayer about this baby ever since.

Since I have many women in my life who wouldn’t hesitate to ask a direct “Are you pregnant” question, I had to prepare an answer that wouldn’t be a bold-faced lie but also wouldn’t give away something we had decided to keep private for a little longer. Our solution was “well, no news yet,” which yes–I totally had to use on my Mom. Sorry, Mom.

Despite our efforts, the news slipped out to a few more people–some church friends (especially after I almost fainted in front of them), some people in our Bible study, etc.–but I’ve enjoyed the slow and gradual reveal.

So there you have it! As of today, the first trimester is over. I’ve been dreaming about baby James a lot. I had my first appointment one week ago, and there will be so much pregnancy and baby talk on this blog that you can’t possibly be ready.

More soon, and thanks for accompanying me on this journey!! I’m excited to share it with you all.

Two blue lines

Hi everyone!

So yesterday I alluded to exciting news. Well, let’s not beat around the bush. I’ll just lay it on you, and lay it on straight:

I’m pregnant! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.

I’ve been waiting soooo patiently to tell you, and now that I can finally spill the beans it’s such a relief. It’s been hard sitting on this news, and I feel like I’ve just been holding my breath in. Exhaling feels . . . amazing.

WARNING: If you don’t want to hear talk about periods and bodies and birth control and the like (ehem, gentlemen), you can just mutter ‘congratulations,’ look a little awkwardly at your left toe, and close your browser window. I’m not getting too graphic here, no worries there (though the words “period,” “cycle” and “blood” will appear repeatedly), but since I love hearing the details of pregnancy stories, I want to share the details with you guys and gals too! Plus, I gleaned so much from women who were willing to be open about their stories that I want to pay it forward to anyone else out there who may be wondering about . . . stuff. Right.

Anyway.

We decided last year that in September of 2011 we would start the “baby process.” In preparation for this, I stopped taking the pill in June 2011 and we used natural family planning during the summer. I’m so glad that the Spirit honed my instincts to make this decision, because it took my body 3 months to get a period again. Can you believe it? I mean, I was on the pill for 6 years, but I wasn’t expecting not to actually get a period until the end of September. Thankfully, September was the month in which we had decided to initiate Plan Babytastic. In other words, start trying.

“We’re trying.” Those words are so intense. When you’ve finally come to realize you want a baby, entering the “we’re trying” phase–even if you only say those words to yourself in your own mind–opens up a big old emotional . . . thing. Suddenly, you start a mental calendar. You start tracking how long you’ve been trying, and looking ahead to when you think the “we’re trying” might become “I’m pregnant.” Those words “we’re trying” hold the past, present, and future in tension with each other, saying clearly to yourself and to everyone “we’re ready to leave our old life behind and start a new chapter,” and more than that, “we are daring to hope.”

In an effort to keep his heart free from the anxiety that the hefty, weighty “we’re trying” can bring, my husband (and this is just my opinion–though who can fathom the mysteries of the masculine brain?) referred to the process not as “trying,” but as “seeing what happens.” His approach sounded almost like a casual flinging of the odds to the winds by a carefree spirit who wasn’t worried about the cycle of fertility, and definitely could have a baby if things panned out, but would be fine with whatever, really. I’m so happy he took this attitude. I encouraged this, because I didn’t want to make this a time of anxiety for him, or for us as a couple. But . . .

. . . in my little arrangement, I was counting days. There was no ‘casual flinging of the odds’ or losing track of the fertility cycle. Oh man was I counting days. I was counting days and making moves and making moves and counting days. Yup.

I tried to prepare my soul for this process. I coached myself on a regular basis saying, “It takes some people years and years to get pregnant. In the end, it might turn out that one of us is infertile. And there’s always the possibility of miscarriage. Just chill Jenna–just chill. Anything can happen.”

I didn’t dwell on these scarier realities for long or get myself down imagining the worst-case scenarios in high resolution detail (believe me, I know what it’s like to walk in fear, with the discouragement, dragging, and dreadfulness of it–that wasn’t what I was doing), but I wanted to make sure my heart didn’t leap ahead of reality, expecting to get pregnant immediately and for everything to go smoothly. I’ve had too many friends go through the pain of miscarriage for me to go into this assuming that nothing bad could happen to me.

Throughout everything, I tried to look at reality, recognize the possibilities, and then turn to God and say, “You are good. I trust you.” And move on.

Overall, I didn’t feel obsessed. I felt good, ready for anything. Trusting. Until my period came due every month. . . and then I would take a pregnancy test. Or two. They would be negative. I’d wait a few more days, and when that first blood inevitably showed up, my heart would sink. For a split second I would feel a rush of emotion and sadness, almost like an adrenaline wave–and then I would move on and start counting days again. Trying to look forward, not back.

When I heard other women announcing they were pregnant, in person or on facebook or by email, I had to make a conscious decision not to go down a certain path–the “what about me, God?” path. The “why does she get that blessing when I’m still waiting?” I could either let myself embark on a path of jealousy, dissatisfaction and whining, or genuine joy and thankfulness for their good news. With the help of God I chose the path of joy each time (and not thanks to my own strength–I know myself too well to claim that!), but I was always aware of the temptation to do otherwise, lingering on the sidelines. It wasn’t too hard yet, but I could see how every month was going to get a little more challenging as we waited.

Then, January happened. My cycle started on January 4th. I counted days, made moves, prayed for trust, tried to chill out, and generally succeeded in staying calm, living life, not thinking too hard about it. And then day 32 arrived. This was totally normal, since my cycles since September had consistently been 35 days. But I was getting impatient to know, so I took a pregnancy test anyway. It was negative, but . . . was that a tiny, faint, tiny, almost invisible line?? I bought another packet the next day and took another test. Clearly negative.

Oh well.

When day 35 came, I held my breath every time I went to the bathroom. Was my period going to start? Would I be able to quickly step through the disappointment and out the other side?

Then day 36, 37. Still no blood, but I told myself that meant nothing–just that when my period did finally start it would be a little harder to take. I examined myself for symptoms, but I really had none. I mean, my dreams were really vivid (something Heidi has experienced), but they’re always pretty dang vivid.

I told myself I was completely out of control with my heavy pregnancy test usage, and decided to wait until Valentine’s Day to take another. But on Monday February 13th (day 41) I just couldn’t wait any longer. I took one, and as the colors washed into the little circle and the little oval, a line started to appear quite quickly–then two lines.

I was pregnant.

My heart was racing. I got a rush of joy.

. . . to be continued tomorrow . . .