Details, details!

A few more details on our exciting news!

Anticipated arrival date: July 16, 2014.

Number of babies: One.  Ha!  This is always Mark's number-one burning question.  In fact, despite two prior ultrasounds showing just one fetus, when we had our twelve-week ultrasound recently, Mark wanted confirmation that there is just one baby in there!  Yep, just one; no extra stowaways for us.

Finding out: This is an interesting story.  I just had a "feeling" I was pregnant.  Nothing really demonstrative, just a feeling that something was different.  So, I took a pregnancy test one night.  It was negative.  I tried again the following night, thinking maybe it had been too early the night before: still negative.  At this point, I was already a couple of days past the time in the cycle when I had gotten a positive result with Henry.  So, I shook off the pregnant feeling and decided to go ahead with a flu shot I had scheduled for the following day (I did not want to get a flu vaccine in my first trimester).  The evening after the flu shot appointment, I was getting ready for bed and  out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the test sitting in the trash can.  Something told me to pick it up to look at it one more time.  This time, I noticed a slight pink line next to the dark control line.  I looked at it again: still there, but very, and I mean very, light.  I couldn't believe it.  But the line was so light I thought it could still be negative.  So I took another test the following morning and this time it was darker!  It was all I could do to laugh at this point: Best laid plans, right?  I decided it wasn't worth it to worry about the effect of the flu vaccine on the pregnancy, and just celebrate the good news!

Telling Mark: Interestingly, Mark was in Japan on a business trip when I found out.  He had been home for the two negative tests, so he left thinking I wasn't pregnant.  I had purchased the "big brother" shirt for Henry several weeks earlier because I wanted Henry to break the good news to Mark when the time came.  My plan was to have Henry wear the shirt when Mark first saw him when he returned from Japan a few days later.  I was so excited to tell Mark this way, and it was hard not to spill the beans when we spoke on the phone.  But, again...best laid plans.  Two days after I got the positive test result, I had a scare at work and thought I was losing the baby--or that I had never really been pregnant in the first place.  I freaked out and called Mark crying, telling him the whole story and saying that I was sure I was losing the baby or wasn't actually pregnant.  It was around 1 am his time, so not only was he disoriented because it was so late, but he left thinking I wasn't pregnant and now I was throwing all of this new information at him!  So much for the cute reveal I had planned!  A nurse at my doctor's office told me to monitor my symptoms and come in for an appointment the following week if things got worse.  Talk about anxiety during the next few days...but the symptoms subsided and I took several more pregnancy tests which each showed that I was, indeed, pregnant.  This baby just wanted to make things interesting for me! 

Sharing the news: Like last time, we told our parents almost right away.  My mom happened to be coming into town when I was 5 weeks pregnant, so we told her in person.  This time, we were able to share the news via Henry and his big brother shirt!  I texted a photo of Henry in the shirt to my dad....who didn't really get it, and I had to call him to explain what it meant!  We told Mark's parents by Skype that same weekend, again by having Henry wear his shirt.  It took a LONG time for them to notice the shirt...it was pretty funny! 

We waited to tell the rest of our immediate families until Christmas.  This pregnancy has been a bit more eventful than Henry's--details in the weekly posts--and I wanted to wait until closer to the end of the first trimester to share the news.