So, if you saw my post earlier this week, you know that this happened:
Woo!
This exciting, life-changing thing was both planned, and unplanned. Let me start by telling you that just like most of your life’s plans, pregnancy will not happen the way you expect it to. I was previously on the birth control pill for 4+ years to regulate my hormones, and not getting pregnant when I didn’t want to was a nice little bonus. Jeremy and I always knew we wanted kids, and started talking about trying for a baby shortly after our 2 year wedding anniversary. We continued to talk about it (and avoid getting pregnant) for another full year…because we were terrified of how HARD it is to raise a child. We’ve never made any joint major life decision quickly or without a lot of thought, I mean – we were together for 8 1/2 years before we got married if that tells you anything. So when it came to thinking about a baby, we spent months on end asking ourselves a million questions, like:
Are we ready?
Why do we want to have a child?
Can we afford to add to our family?
Can our relationship withstand parenthood?
Are we capable of raising our child not to be a stabby, demon-spawn hell baby?
These are all important questions, guys. After that year, we’d decided that we were as ready as we were ever going to be, and I quit the birth control pill. And then we got pregnant! And then we tried for over half a year, with no success. I wasn’t too surprised that it wasn’t happening because I knew it would take time for my hormones to regulate again after being on the pill so long. But by month 6, those creeping thoughts of “Is there something wrong with my body? Did the pill permanently screw up my fertility?” started, and I was feeling a lot of pressure. It became really stressful, and much less exciting than it was in the beginning. Somewhere in the middle of month 7, Jeremy and I had a conversation and decided to take a few months off, to take the pressure off, and avoid having a holiday baby since late October through Christmas is the busiest time of the year for him at work. I was so relieved.
…and also two weeks pregnant.
By the time I missed my period a few weeks later, I chalked it up to my hormone imbalance and stress at work but I *KNEW* it would show up any day. After being a week late, I *KNEW* I hadn’t started because I was stressing about not having started. 10 days late, I decided to end my stress by taking a test to confirm what I *KNEW*: that I wasn’t pregnant. And then, before I could even blink, two lines appeared.
My simultaneous thoughts in that moment:
How did this happen?!
Wait, what?
This isn’t following the plan!
Holy shit.
How in the heck did this happen?!
Yay?
All plans of telling Jeremy with this adorable card that I bought for when the time was right flew out the window when I ran downstairs, practically threw the test at him and started sobbing like an idiot.
Card by WrittenInDetail on etsy
Not like I envisioned it at all! It wasn’t that I was unhappy, I was just so, so used to not being pregnant that this was a COMPLETE shock. I wasn’t sure it was possible. I’ve talked to a few friends with kids who have confirmed that these feelings are normal, no matter how badly you wanted the child. It was also going against the plans we’d just made to wait until summer to start trying again – and if you have a type A personality, you know how thrown off you get when plans are spontaneously changed. I’m a planner! I’m a planner with a biomedical sciences degree, and I couldn’t figure out how this happened. (Hint: trying for a baby is how it happened. Science!)
Thankfully, it only took about a week to get over the initial shock and guilt that I wasn’t over-the-moon right away – and Jeremy was wonderful about reassuring me that this was going to be amazing, albeit a few months sooner than we’d planned.
Now that we’ve made it through our first few appointments, the first ultrasound, and I’ve gotten through the all-day sickness of the first trimester, we’re pretty excited! Baby Smied is due to arrive in late November, and we’ve pretty much settled on leaving the gender a surprise. We’re excited to meet this little one! Thank you to everyone who has called, emailed, and squealed their offers of congratulations. We definitely feel the love!
