Pregnancy: How we found out.

The positive pregnancy tests I didn't believe...

I realized I had never done a recap of the crazy story of how we found out we were expecting - probably because the entire thing was a whirlwind, but so so incredible. 

How we found out: 
We had been married for about 11 months when we found out we were pregnant. We were shocked! Although we wanted kids within the next year or so and had always talked about having kids soon after we got married, we were not *entirely* planning to get pregnant within the first year of marriage. I had been on birth control & due to a change of jobs for me and subsequently a change of insurance, we had a two week gap where I wan't on the pill while I was getting my new insurance activated. Like my mom said, "it only takes one time!" 

I had been feeling nauseous for a week or two in the beginning of May in 2019. I would eat something and go stand over the toilet feeling like I was going to gag, but wasn't sure what was going on. I was so tired and felt like I was fluffier than normal (but kept blaming it on our rather consistent pizza date nights LOL). I had started a new birth control with my new insurance, and googled symptoms...turns out they're the exact same symptoms as pregnancy. Something felt...off, but wasn't sure how to describe it to Harrison. We had gone to Austin for a wedding & I had a glass of wine and immediately felt like I was going to throw up, and I just had a feeling something was different. We went home & I texted my mom and asked her what the symptoms I was having could mean. She plainly responded, "have you taken a pregnancy test?" That Monday night on the way home from work, Harrison stopped and got a pregnancy test (4 to be exact). Harrison waited outside the bathroom while I peed on the stick, we waited, and it was...negative. I remember looking at him trying to hold back tears -- I hadn't realized how badly I wanted a baby until that moment. We sat on the couch and talked and prayed for our future family; I went to bed feeling exhausted and confused. I knew something in my body felt different. 

The next morning, we woke up and went to our usual 5:00 am CrossFit class. I was WINDED during the warm up. Like having a hard time doing lunges, winded. Something was not right! We drove back home after the workout and I casually peed on the unused stick while Harrison was getting ready for work. I remember my mom saying that your pee is more "concentrated" in the mornings -- and it sure was. The stick gave me a positive almost instantly. I just held it up to Harrison and said "it's positive." and he said "no it was negative." "ya but this one is positive." I was confused and also couldn't believe it. I called my mom instantly and asked her "what does a positive pregnancy test mean?" "sweetheart, you're pregnant," she responded. Harrison and I just stared at each other in disbelief. 

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I was so overwhelmed and confused that I went to work and called my midwives on the way to work to schedule an appointment. She assured me that a morning pregnancy test is more accurate than an evening test. She told me that "a positive is a positive" but I still had such a hard time believing anyone that I was ACTUALLY pregnant. I kept thinking, don't people try for months to get pregnant??? How?? 

I couldn't focus all day long at work, and google led me to the Fort Worth Pregnancy Center. They do free lab-grade pregnancy tests! They are INCREDIBLE and our church is a huge supporter of them! I drove there on my way home, panicked and in search of answers. BUT when I got there, they were closing and had already taken back their last patient for the day. I made an appointment for 10 am the next morning and called in sick to work. I headed straight from the pregnancy center to Walgreens to pick up yet ANOTHER pregnancy test. I got home, peed on it, and it was negative. Cue the utter confusion. 

I left to go to happy hour with 10+ of my girlfriends and had no idea what to do. I didn't order a drink (blamed it on feeling tired) and tried to engage in conversation, but was so out of it and distracted. All I could think about was my appointment the next morning & how our lives could change because of it. 

The next morning, I woke up with so many knots in my stomach. I felt like I couldn't breathe driving to the Pregnancy Center. There was a torrential downpour while I was driving and the ladies at the Pregnancy Center called me to cancel my appointment because their parking lot was flooded. I told them on the phone, "I will park down the street and walk in the rain, but I need you to confirm this." I signed in, peed in a cup, and waited. The ladies came and got me and we went into a room to discuss the test. They had me use a dropper to take some drops of my urine and drop it on the test. Immediately it turned positive. We just stared at it and the woman said, "what do you see?" "a positive," I responded. "And what does that mean?" she asked. "That I'm pregnant," I responded. It was the first time I had actually said it out loud. It felt foreign. It was new. It was the first time I felt absolute peace flood over me in the past three days. 

They gave me six months of prenatal vitamins & I left the appointment and cried out of relief and gratefulness in my car. I sent Harrison the picture and he immediately responded, "I'm gonna be a dad? And you're the mom?" His response was so simple and so sweet. We were so relieved and thrilled. The word we kept using to describe the feeling is "undeserving." 

When Harrison came home from work, we cried and hugged and laughed and "oh my gosh"-ed over and over. We told our City Group that night and were flooded with tears and hugs and prayer. We told our families & close friends that day!

I was 6 weeks pregnant when we found out. Over the next couple of weeks, the fear sunk in that we weren't promised anything. That we had no control over anything. That we could lose the baby at any moment. Google became my worst enemy as I searched for the meaning behind every cramp, every feeling, and every "what not to eat while pregnant" blog. Our prayer quickly had to become one of gratitude rather than fear-filled and pleading. Nightly we learned to thank God for the six weeks He had given us as parents already. We thanked Him for the six weeks of carrying life, and asked Him that he would do it again the next day. 

Pregnancy is scary! There is so little that you have control over. Your body starts to change, your hormones are changing, you feel a weight of responsibility that wasn't there before. And yet, how cool that the God of the universe created pregnancy? Out of all of the ways he could have brought people into this world, He chose the intimacy that pregnancy brings. He chose to remind us of our little control. He chose to grow us over a long period of time, that we would sacrifice ourselves, our bodies, our appetites, etc. for the sake of another's life. What a gift and what a Giver.

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The photo we sent to friends after our 10 week appointment!

The photo I sent Harrison, teary eyed and heart full of gratefulness after a confirmed "YES!"