Pregnant #1

Not today, but October of last year. (Gotcha Mom!)

Last month I discovered the pregnancy test that I used with Hannah, still showing positive, and decided to give Chris a little scare.

I thought it was funnier than he did. I got him pretty good.

Don't get me wrong, I love my babies more than anything. But we have had a really stressful year, only partially related to pregnancy or baby stuff, and a "surprise" baby would really throw us for a loop right now. As I'm sure most surprise babies do. But now I'm rambling.

Anyway, I always enjoy listening to people's stories about how they discovered that they were pregnant, how they told their spouses, their families, etc.

I also love when people announce it on Facebook. Whether it is in a straightforward manner, or slightly vague or creative, there is fun in the bombardment of congratulations and well wishes that come after such an announcement.

The "story" of the beginning is sometimes lost in the excitement of the baby stuff, particularly when people wait about 3 months to tell people about it, as we did, so I thought I'd share my stories. I also want to get them down for myself while they're still relatively fresh in my mind.

When I found out that I was pregnant with Jayce we were still living in Scotland.

I suspected that I was pregnant, but we had guests staying with us for about 5 days in that "take the test now" period, so I wanted to wait until they left. We were friends with them, but not close friends, and we didn't want to share that potentially joyous discovery with semi-random house guests.

It was a Wednesday and I'd been feeling really sick all day at work. Our guests had left that morning, so I stopped by the store on the way home to pick up a test. When I got home, I walked in the door, dropped my bags and went straight for the bathroom. Chris was in the kitchen cooking, and when he heard me come in and figured out what I was doing, he rushed out to the hallway and said, "Erin...you're not...wait...!" I think he felt like we should take a minute to prepare ourselves or there should be a bit more prominence or something. But I just wanted to get the "are we or aren't we" part over with.

The results showed up immediately. I started to giggle.

I opened the door with a smile on my face. "I am." I said.

But...you need to wait 5 minutes!

It doesn't matter. It's already done. It's not going to change back.

Chris came over to examine the test himself, and let out a whoop. We laughed and hugged. I cried. We took a picture. We took pictures.

Then we went and ate dinner. I remember thinking about how strange it was that we should just carry on like normal and do normal things even though our lives had just changed. But for the moment we did carry on as normal.

We didn't tell anyone right away. We wanted to let the news sink in a little bit and be just ours, silly as that may sound. That weekend we called our parents and our siblings.

8 weeks

We went to dinner at the home of some good friends that weekend and told them as well. We hadn't planned to.

The last time we'd had dinner at their house, I had turned down wine with my dinner, and the husband loudly asked, like it was a joke, "No wine? What are you, PREGNANT?"

"No." I said quietly, and Chris and I looked down, probably communicating that this wouldn't be such bad news. Our friend was quiet under his wife's glare.

We later found out that he'd gotten into a lot of trouble with her over that after we left.

This time when I turned down the wine at dinner the room was silent. We waited for him to say something like last time, but his lips were sealed, so we announced the news without any prompting. 3 weeks later they discovered that they were pregnant as well, (surprise!). So we got to go through all of the 1st pregnancy stuff at the same time as our good friends, which was a nice bonus.

We told everyone else about the pregnancy when I reached the 2nd trimester, had my sonogram photos and due date.

When we put our news on Facebook it was back in the days when Facebook prompted you with is for your status. So we went simple.

Erin is going to be a mom.

Chris is going to be a dad.

It certainly was a very efficient way to spread the news.

My due date was May 20, 2008.

Jayce arrived May 21, 2008.

Anyone else care to share their "beginning of pregnancy" story? I'd love to hear it!