One Month Down

Dear Jellybean,

It's been a month since your father and I found out about you. On the day after Easter, I got up and was getting ready for work. I had taken the pregnancy test, but I honestly didn't expect it to be positive, so I was very surprised to see the plus sign when I glanced down at it a few minutes later. I tried to make myself wait a little bit to tell your dad- it was before 6 am and he's definitely not an early riser- but I only was able to hold back about 7 minutes before I went back upstairs and snuggled up next to him again. "Hey," I said, "I just took a pregnancy test."

He was still pretty much asleep, and he didn't open his eyes, but his mouth curved slowly into a smile. "Really?" he asked.

"You wanna know what it said?"

"It better be positive if you're waking me up," he replied.

We stayed in bed for a bit, and then I had to get up to get ready for work. It seemed absolutely impossible to actually got through everything I had to do on a normal Monday morning. I kept going to the couch where Dad was dozing and making random comments about how now I'd have to give up sushi and trying to figure out a due date. But somehow I managed to get myself out the door and went through the normal day in a kind of fugue. In the next few days, we tried to figure out who to tell when, and how. We tried to tell everyone in the family first, before we told our friends, and we mostly succeeded in that.

And now it seems like everyone knows. Only one month that we've known, but you are already such a part of our life that I can't imagine all of the plans we're making if you weren't a part of it. On date nights now, Dad gives me shots of progesterone and even though he has no problem with needles in theory, he has to steel himself before injecting me. He seems impressed with the fact that I handle the injections without too much difficulty, and I guess if he's impressed by that then hopefully I'll blow him away when he sees me in labor. Hopefully we won't have to do the injections until you get here, but it looks like it will have to continue for a while.

Seven months to go. We've figured out names for you and started planning the renovations we'll need to make to the upstairs before you come. When people ask what we're hoping for, I'm surprised to realize that I don't truly have a preference. I used to thing people were being coy when then said that they just want the baby to be healthy, but now I get it. It's not like picking out a paint color for a room or options on a car. I know that that part of you is already decided, and we just need to wait to find out, along with all the other details about you that will make you, you.

And while I will admit there is a part of me that occasionally freaks out and thinks, "Wait, what have we done?" I know that whatever we need to be able to take care of you will be provided if we work and we trust in God. We cannot wait to see your face!