Becoming Parents...

You often hear that a woman becomes a mother the second she finds out she's pregant.  And this makes sense, since many women are forced to change their lives immediately once they find out they are pregnant.  Suddenly, everything that goes into your mouth must be discussed, scrutinized, and then analyzed for this mercury content. 

There are also the added benefits of morning sickness, constipation, heartburn, fatigue, insomnia (I know--fatique and insomnia at the same time--just how does pregnancy do it!) and headaches.  Added to the fact that, at about the same time that the sperm reaches the egg, you will need to urinate every thirty seconds or so, give or take a second, UNTIL THE BABY MAKES ITS DEBUT.  Do you know what it's like to need a bathroom within earshot for 40 weeks? 280 days? 6,720 hours?  My local grocery store practically commemorated a stall for me in its bathroom facilities since I couldn't get through my weekly shopping trip without making a pit stop at least twice.

I had returned from my honeymoon in mid July of 2007.  The dogs had spent two weeks in our house with a twice daily visit from a pet sitter.  The house was not smelling its best upon our return, and I spent a good two days cleaning and desanitizing in hopes of eliminating that horrible smell that appeared to be eminating from every crevice in the house.  Several days later, the smell was still present.

I remember talking to Greg about it and explaining that we needed to move.   That didn't go over well.  He didn't smell anything out of the ordinary, but this is a person who will add more garbage to the already over-flowing pail and step over a dirty sock on the floor before he would actually do anything to eliminate these issues.  So, sorry to say, but his opinion? Did not matter.  This house was stinky!

I was talking to my friend Catherine on the phone a few days later and, because I was now obsessed with this smell, we got to discussing the alarming state of my home.  I might have also mentioned how I was waiting for a certain something to make its monthly arrival but it was taking its sweet time.  She asked me a few other, ahem, personal questions, and suggested that I take a pregnancy test.  Lo and behold, I was pregnant.  Like any sane human being, I spent the next four hours googling everything related to pregnancy.  And, to my surprise, a heightened sense of smell was one of the symptoms.  Go figure.

I proceeded to head to Target and purchase several more tests.  I took one in the Target bathroom (classy) and a few back at home.  I placed a couple of them up in a watch box and put a bow on them.  Greg loves watches, and I thought it would be oh so funny to give him a watch box as a present.  Only for him to see that it wasn't in fact a watch he was getting, but, instead a moody, irritable, opinionated wife for nine months!  Followed by a moody, irritable, opininated baby! Forever!  Oh, how fun it was going to be!

When he returned home, I handed him the box, and told him that I had gotten something for him while out shopping.  I am just the wittiest person!  Right?

He didn't know what they were at first.  Or, maybe, he was hoping they weren't what he thought.  Either way, he was pretty surprised.  We really weren't expecting a child to come so soon, so this was a shock.  We were super scared about how our lives would change, but we were really excited too.

A couple of days later we told Greg's parents while at a wedding in North Carolina.   We told my parents back at their home when we stopped there on our way home from the airport.  My mother cried.  Of course!  She was so happy.  The presents for her future first grandchild began coming immediately.

A few weeks later I was driving in my car, and it hit me.  I was going to be a mother.  There was something growing inside me that was going to be a baby.  My baby.  It really surprised me, and I started crying.  I don't think I realized what was really happening until that moment.