The Beginning

It was December 26th, 2011. My husband, Adam, and I had been 'trying' for about two months to get pregnant. Adam had been at work for about two hours, and I all of a sudden felt like I should take a pregnancy test. I hadn't even missed my first cycle yet, but something was nagging at me while I was doing the laundry. I took the test, thinking for sure it would be negative. As I washed my hands, I glanced down at the test and saw the word that changed everything: pregnant! I couldn't believe my eyes! I immediately started crying. I couldn't stop smiling! I wanted to tell Adam, but I didn't want to do it over the phone or text message. I decided to wait until he got home. He was supposed to get off at 10pm, and it was only 3pm, so I was praying that he'd get off early! Meanwhile, I tried to think of a fun way to break the news. Since it was the day after Christmas, our tree was still up, and of course we had boxes and wrapping paper around. I wrapped the test and put it under the tree. Because of the holiday, Adam got off about 3 hours early (thank God! I couldn't hold the news in much longer!!). When he got home, I told him there was a present I forgot about under the tree. He was confused at first when he opened it, and then all he could say was, 'Are you serious?!'. Once he was convinced it wasn't a joke, there were happy tears and lots of hugs and kisses. That night we went out for dessert to celebrate. We waited until New Year's Eve to take another test to be sure (I was so nervous!) and sure enough, there was that happy little word: pregnant! The next few weeks were for telling family members and enjoying our little secret. We waited until about 16 weeks to share the news with everyone else.

I really enjoyed being pregnant! I had no morning sickness. The first trimester I was exhausted, and all of the time! I lost whole weekends to napping. We had decided (for a lot of reasons) to try to have a home birth with a midwife. Happily, I was a low risk pregnancy and had no complications, whatsoever, throughout the entire pregnancy! We really enjoyed having our visits with our midwife. She came to our home every month, then every other week and eventually once a week at the end of the pregnancy. It was so nice, because we never had to drive to appointments, or wait at a doctor's office.

At about week 20 in the pregnancy, we had an ultrasound to find out the gender. I knew as soon as I saw the screen: a boy! He made it very obvious. I had always thought I would have a girl first, so I was a little shocked, but so happy. Seeing my baby on that screen was incredible! Our due date was September 10th, 2012.

The weeks seemed to fly by and drag on at the same time. I got a lot of, 'are there twins in there?' and, 'oh, you're all belly!' etc, etc. Honestly, I really didn't mind! I was enjoying being pregnant, so much. Every kick and wiggle filled me with joy. I had a few aches and pains and a tiny bit of swelling as the day got closer, but nothing to complain about. I won't lie, though, I got a little bit tired of rotating the same 4 or 5 pieces of clothing once I got close to my due date!

On Tuesday, September 4th I went to work. I had been having some braxton hicks, but nothing too major. I got off work at 10pm, and went home. Little did we know our lives were about to change!