baby girl white

This story really starts almost 2.5 years ago when Zach and I were married. I was on the pill and it made me crazy. We knew we wanted to wait at least a year before starting to try to have a baby. Skip a year into our marriage, I was having trouble with my period so I stopped taking the pill and we decided it wasn't a big deal if we held off on finding another form of birth control. FUN FACT: when you are a virgin and you get married, because you start having sex you automatically think you're pregnant. At least for me, I am pretty sure if my period was 30 seconds late I would buy a test because I thought I was pregnant. Pretty sure we bought like a test every month because I was SURE I was pregnant haha. Woops, sorry Zach! Anyways, I was off the pill and I wasn't getting a period. Come 2 months later (probably closer to 3 months sans my monthly gift), I get a period. Yay, right?! Not quite. It was irregular from that point for months.

I always wanted to pregnant/about-to-pop have a baby when I graduated from school. The months came and went. I was having symptoms of pregnancy probably because I was hoping so much to BE pregnant that I was searching for any signs I could be. It was so hard for me to go every month and not be disappointed. It was 90% (generous?) what I thought about everyday until I was supposed to get Mother Nature's gift. Skip to the month before graduation; Zach and I decided it was going to be hard to continue living month to month in hopes of me becoming pregnant so we put in a deposit on a puppy. A sweet, little female Goldendoodle puppy. We weren't trying to replace a child with a pet, but I needed something to have when we moved to Durham! We love animals (particularly dogs, particularly golden retrievers) and knew when we got married we wanted to have children but if things didn't go how we wanted we would get a pet before kids. Or get a pet after we were done having kids. Anyways, we were all ready to get that sweet little puppy and bring her here with us!

A whole month passed, puppy on my mind. One day, May 7, I was home. Zach wasn't, he was helping his older brother move gravel into their yard to build a shed. I was leaving in like 30 minutes to take a family's photo's in the park but was idling in the bathroom. I had started to think about packing our things, what we would take and what we would give away. I opened the drawer and saw a lone pregnancy test. They come in packs of 2 and I had taken one already, probably the month before. Anyways, a thought popped into my head, "Well, I'm not gonna pack a solo pregnancy test when we move. I may as well take it now." Usually, I don't watch the lines because I feel like it takes longer but this one, I knew I wasn't pregnant. So I watched. One line... Two lines. Wait, what? 2 LINES?! I looked at that thing for 2 minutes straight. Maybe longer, maybe shorter. I started to panic. "Oh my gosh." I just kept saying it out loud, then faster, then crying. I COULD NOT believe it. I wasn't supposed to be doing this by myself! Zach and I decided to look at the results of pregnancy tests together; because if it was negative we could comfort each other and if it was positive, which it never was, we could celebrate together. I called Zach, probably 20 times, with no answer. I had to leave to go meet our friends at the park to take their photos yet Zach still didn't answer! I didn't want to show up at his brother's house for fear that he wouldn't be able to hide it or that he would be mad at me for taking the test without him. FINALLY, he answered. I was hysterical at this point so I really don't know how he understood me but I told him I was sorry for taking the test without him but that I was pregnant. He was so happy and I could've chatted with him forever but I had to leave! So I went to take the photos and once we were done, I sped home. While I was out, I had him buy me ANOTHER test (you're welcome pregnancy test companies for keeping you in business by myself) and I showed the first one. We cried and hugged and laughed and were so shocked! The second test was a digital one and it was also PREGNANT! The one month I wasn't thinking about being pregnant or becoming pregnant or babies was the one month that changed our lives.

^^Fun fact: I made fun of people that took pictures with their pregnancy tests. Like, you just peed on that. Now you're taking a picture of it. Why? Well, BECAUSE! That is proof that you are, in fact, with child. And it's cool and whatever.

We couldn't really wait to tell our folks so we told them the next day. Nothing fancy or special, we just told them. They knew it was hard for us to want a baby so bad for so long and not have anything happen so they were thrilled for us. This will be Zach's parent's 10th grandbaby and my parent's FIRST grandbaby! We are all so excited. Here are some other relevant pictures of me/my belly since then that are a part of our journey thus far. Bump updates to come!

^^ Our first ultrasound! Zach's uncle did it for us and I was so grateful to him. I think I hugged him like 3 times haha. Doesn't look like much, and really didn't look like much to me, but hearing the heartbeat that first trip was really something else. 

^^ We had Zach's other uncle, Uncle Sean, do an ultrasound for us at 16 weeks. I didn't have any prenatal care while we lived in Utah because of our wonderful family who would do the ultrasounds for us. Anyway, Uncle Sean is a Perinatologist so he was able to do a pretty hi-tech ultrasound for us. We were able to see her little hands, profile, legs, bum and lady parts... that's right! GIRL! We are thrilled. 

^^ Trying on my bridesmaid dress with the bump. I think this was 20 weeks.

^^ Pretty sure this was the same day! Haha. Just wearing a different dress. Do not be fooled, much of that is fat that was there before BUT there is definitely a baby in there. I can feel her attacking me regularly ;)