Am I There, Yet?

O.K.  Here’s the story.  Everybody’s been asking and I know that a lot of people know our secret already…I might as well make it officially public.  For those of you who already know the ending of my story…act surprised anyways for my amusement.  LOL!!!

This past month has been extremely stressful for me.  On top of all the normal busy September stuff…our landlord decided to sell this house and so we had to find a new place to live.  Because the cost of living is so outrageous here, we’ve decided to downsize a bit and we’re moving into a 2-bedroom condo with very little storage.  We’re giving up the luxury of a garage, basement, a third bedroom and even a private driveway…we’ll now be parking our cars in a parking lot.  On top of downsizing, we’ve been dealing with our landlord’s realtor who’s been a bit unreasonable.  I won’t go into all the details…but, I will admit that I haven’t had the best attitude about all of this. 

I lost it last weekend when we found out that there was an open house scheduled and nobody bothered to tell us until that same weekend.  Last Sunday, I had to stay at home from church, clean the house to showroom quality and then we had to take the kids out of the house and entertain them at the mall for 4 hours…per the realtor’s request.  Not an easy thing to do when all of us would rather have been at home hanging out in our sweats, watching football, playing video games, etc…

That night I went to bed and was reviewing me week in my mind.  I was surprised at my reaction to all of this…or should I say over-reaction?  I was really upset about this unwelcome guest in our lives (our landlord’s realtor) who was dictating how we were living our lives.  But, this wasn’t the first incident this week that caused me to over-react.  I’ve been really emotional lately.  I just brushed it off as stress and vowed to have a better attitude.

The other thing that confused me was the fact that I was exercising and dieting like crazy.  My arms and legs look really great, but I wasn’t losing any weight in my mid-section.  This was extremely frustrating because I wanted to lose 10 pounds before some friends come to visit me in November.  I was gaining weight instead.

After dropping my son off at pre-school on Monday afternoon, I went to the grocery store.  While I was there I had an unexpected conversation with a beautiful elderly woman over chicken broth.  She said some kind words to me and as I walked away I started to get teary-eyed.  What was wrong with me?  I’m not an overly emotional person…why would I feel like crying over a simple conversation with a stranger?  I passed the pharmacy and saw those tests.  You know…those I-may-be-I-probably-am-not-but-should-check-anyways kinds of tests?  On a whim I walked into the pharmacy, grabbed the first test I could find and quickly walked away.  I was so flustered at myself for even thinking about taking this kind of test that I walked right into a large cardboard display of Cliff Bars and knocked the entire display over.  Cliff Bars where everywhere.  I got down on my hands and knees and tried to pick up as many as possible while people where staring at me.  I was so embarrassed…I wanted to cry again.

I got home, unloaded my groceries and grabbed the test.  I might as well get it over with.  I took it upstairs and read the box for the first time.  Instead of a pregnancy test…I accidentally grabbed (and paid for) a $25 ovulation predictor test.  I was disgusted by my carelessness, but by this time I had to know.  So, I jumped back in my car and drove to the nearest CVS and this time made sure I grabbed a pregnancy test.  I was still shaking my head the whole time.  What was I doing?  This is crazy.  I’m just wasting money.  I’m just trying to find an excuse for my extreme mood swings and weight gain…and fatigue.  But, that could all be symptoms of stress.  Of course it’s stress.  This is ridiculous.

Somehow I couldn’t talk myself out of buying the test.  I came home…took the test…

Positive.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.  I still don’t know if I should laugh or cry. 

Here are answers to a lot of the questions I’m getting:

How did Josh react when you told him?

I didn’t know how to tell Josh.  I just decided to place the test somewhere I knew he’d see it and see what his reaction was.  I didn’t know how he’d react.  I certainly wasn’t expecting him to walk through the door while talking on the phone with a board member.  I didn’t want him to see it while he was on the phone, but I didn’t have time to hide it.  It was pretty funny watching him try to process the sight of the positive test while trying to keep his cool with his phone conversation.  He mouthed, “Are you serious?  Is this a joke?  Are you serious?  Are you serious?”

When are you due?

I got a recommendation for a doctor from my insurance company and called her office.  The woman who answered asked a few questions and then said, “Oh my goodness…you’re almost through your first trimester.  Let’s get you in right away.”  By her calculations I have a due date of April 13^th.  This is interesting because two of my close friends and a daughter of another close friend all share April 13^th as their birthday.  However, I don’t think those calculations are right because my cycle isn’t normal.  I don’t think I’m as far along as that…so I’m not announcing the due date just yet.  My instincts tell me that it’ll be late April.

Have you told the kids, yet?

We wanted to wait to tell the kids until we could go hear the heartbeat.  However, Lilly overheard Josh tell a co-worker that I was pregnant.  She looked at him and asked, “Is that true?  Is Mommy pregnant?”  He didn’t know what to say and ignored her question.  He later told me what happened and so we went together to talk to her.  I said, “Did you hear Daddy saying that I’m pregnant?”  She said she did and asked again if it was true.  I asked, “Do you know what ‘pregnant’ means?”  She said, “It means you’re having a baby.”  So, we told her it was true.  She was excited, naturally.  She somehow knew that it was proper to congratulate me…so she did.  She said, “Congratulations, Mommy.”  For some reason that made me laugh.  We knew we needed to tell Titus because Lilly wouldn’t be able to keep a secret.  He was excited, too.  His first comment was that there would be 5 of us now.

How are you feeling?

I feel O.K.  I’m exhausted all the time and have experienced a little bit of nausea.  I have that hyper-sensitive smell thing going on.  I smell everything very clearly…this is not a good thing.  I am glad that I started some healthy eating habits a few months ago.

Here’s a picture I snapped of Josh on the phone with the board member trying to process the test results.  I’ve known him for a long time and I think it’s safe to say that he doesn’t look disappointed.  Whaddya think?