And the very next day...

I found out I was pregnant!

I still can't believe that day even happened. I still can't believe when I look down I see a little belly sticking out. That I get to have the memory of Cory's face when I told him that he was going to be a father, that I get to keep that memory and bring it to mind whenever I want to, because it's mine and it's real.

That Sunday morning I woke up and told myself that I would take a pregnancy test (not a new experience at this point). This time, I told myself, I wouldn't build up false hope but I also wouldn't let myself get discouraged. I would simply take the test and look at it and process whatever the results were as they came.

So I peed on a stick. And I got in the shower because I hate the waiting while the line either shows up or it doesn't. As I got out of the shower I crept (literally) up to the stick and held it in my hands and slowly, very slowly, held it up to my eyes. And I swear to you, there was a line. It was faint, very very faint, but it was there! I honestly did not know what to do. I pulled myself together and did what any normal girl would do...I hauled ass down to my best friend's house which is right down the street. She must have thought I was losing it. I show up at her house and barely acknowledge her husband and pull her into her sun room. I pulled the shaking stick out of my pocket. "Kelly, I need you to look at this, and I need you to be rational for me, because I am freaking out..." She looked at it and I could see in her eyes a look of someone who really loves me. The guarded look of joy. She told me, like a good friend, that yes there was a line but I should just wait until the next morning and pee on ANOTHER stick, and if there was something there again then I was pregnant.

Rational? Yes. Impossible to follow through with? Absolutely.

I tried, I really did. I followed through with my day exactly as planned. I drove to Gardnerville to spend time with my adorable nephew. I chatted, I cooed, I went through all the appropriate motions. But I was FREAKING OUT. As I drove home (in a snow storm) I realized I had to pee. I realized that if I could hold it all the way back to Reno, through Wal-Mart, and home again I could take another test. So I survived the drive, the rushed trip through Wal-Mart, and the drive home (nearly peeing my pants no less than three times) and I peed on another stick.

And there was another line.

I think most people would be convinced at this point. But I wasn't. After so many negative tests, so many months of trying and being disappointed, it was going to take more than a few faint lines to convince me.

Two hours later I had to pee again, so this time I pulled out the big guns. The Digital Test. I peed. I waited. I did laundry. And as I was folding it I jumped back and forth into the bathroom waiting to see the results. Fold two shirts, jump into the bathroom. Fold some socks, jump into the bathroom...and on my last trip, my last jump, I came upon the words I had been waiting my whole life for. PREGNANT. Clear as day, beautiful as anything I've ever seen.

So of course I hauled ass back down to Kelly house, and pulled her back into her sun room, and pulled out the stick that could not be questioned. The tears in her eyes matched my own and we jumped and screeched in whispers because her sister was sitting in the living room. It was one of the many moments I had been waiting for.

This is a ridiculously long post, I realize. But I want to get this all down so I will remember what this all felt like.

Part II will include how I told Cory, and how the last 13 weeks has been!

Hope

We decorated for Christmas this afternoon.

I have been a little shy with the holiday this season, not sure if I want to fully commit to the traditions I'm usually so quick to jump into with both feet. This time of year always brings with it a feeling of expectation that you always have yet are never quite sure why, not sure what it is that you are waiting for.

This year as I was pulling out the decorations from the dusty storage bins and placing them purposefully on shelves and tables, I stopped when I turned back and saw this:



Just a cheap little decoration I got from Target last year. Usually a little too glittery for my asthetic, but if you can't use glitter at Christmas when can you? It wasn't the glitter that got my attention though, it was the word itself. HOPE. Suddenly seeing that word perched innocently on my shelf brought to a head the river of emotions that has been coursing through me for so long now. Hope is something I have had build up and crash down every month, every failed pregnancy test, for the last 15 months. It's something I've fought for, fought against, prayed for, and prayed to have taken away so I wouldn't be disappointed when I've let myself believe it might be fufilled. Right now hope seems to be as illusive as that expected something that comes every Christmas. I can't seem to find it, and oh, how desperately I want to believe that soon it will be my turn, that I will get to see that look of shock and joy on Cory's face as I tell him that we are going to bring a child into this world together.

But with each passing month my hope turns to fear, fear that it might never happen. And so as I turn towards Christmas and bring its colors and emotions into my home, I pray that I will let the spirit of this season give me hope again, that anything is possible at Christmas, even this that seems too big for the child-like wishing that comes this time of year.

Survival instincts

I have started and deleted numerous blogs before this one. I don't know why I am so hesitant to commit to putting down my thoughts in this way. I think it is the transparency of it all. The thoughts I have and the thoughts I share are, like most people, usually very different.

I used to wake up in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep until I could get a certain thought or idea down on paper. For some reason since I have gotten married that feeling has subsided. I don't know why, it was like all of a sudden when "I" became "we" the thoughts I for so long kept to myself never felt fully mine anymore. For some reason I felt like writing down all these feelings and longings and not sharing them with my husband felt like betrayal. Then with each passing year I "needed" to write less and less, and now I hardly even give my journal a second thought.

I hope this blog will be a place where I can share those thought that are currently stuck inside my head, and get used to getting them out again.