plus one.

This post will be kept hidden until we have decided to share the big news with everyone.  I want to document things as they are happening like I have done with our previous pregnancies so I don't have to struggle to remember things that happened months ago!  

Post originally written on 12-12-15.


Some big news today...  I am pregnant!  As I write this I can't believe that I am.  I don't know what made me take a test this morning, it shouldn't even register positive for several more days.  But there it was this morning, a loud and clear blue plus sign on that little white stick.  I didn't tell Erik right away.  I don't know how I kept it a secret all through breakfast, but I wanted to tell him in a sweet way that would make it special for all of us.  A couple of months ago, when we were starting to talk seriously about trying for 2.0, I found the perfect shirt at Target on super clearance for like $2 to help me make the announcement to Erik.  I was hopeful that it would still fit Arlo by the time I was pregnant, and luckily, it fit just right.  So this morning after breakfast, I took Arlo upstairs to get him ready for the day, pulled out the shirt from the back of his closet where I had been hiding it, and brought him downstairs in it.  Erik was in the other room, so Arlo and I sat in the playroom and waited for him to come in.  It didn't take him long to notice it, and he read it really slowly out loud.  "Number one, best... what does that last word say?  Bro?  What are you trying to say with that shirt??"  I asked him what he thought I was trying to say, and he responded "Pregnant?!  Are you really pregnant??"  It took a few seconds for it to sink in that I wasn't kidding, and then he got really excited and came to sit next to me on the floor.  We talked about the due date (late August), whether or not we will find out the gender (he wants to, I don't), and then immediately Erik proclaimed "woah, we need to get you a new car sooner than later!" and I kid you not, within ten minutes of hearing the news he was sitting at his computer shopping for a new (not brand new, just bigger) car.  And that my folks, is my husband, ha!

I know the pregnancy is still very early (I am barely three weeks) so I think we are both trying not to get overly excited in light of what happened the first time around.  But still, chances are better than not that things will go as planned and we are really looking forward to adding another family member.  And I am really happy about the timing and the fact that we will be having a warm weather baby.  I was hoping to have our next kiddo born in late summer or early fall so I am pretty excited about the due date.

When Erik and I started talking about adding another family member, it was sometime last spring.  We thought that we would probably start to feel ready at the end of the summer, and that is when we would start trying for 2.0.  However, August arrived and I was in no way feeling ready to be pregnant or even think about another baby.  Erik was still getting used to his new job, we had just moved into our new house in a new city, and still hadn't sold our old house.  I had a bit of a hard time adjusting to all the new changes in life, and was not feeling ready to bring on any additional stress.  As well, I had the realization that I really needed Arlo to be a little older before another kid entered the picture.  I decided it would all probably be a lot easier if he was potty trained, moved out of the nursery and sleeping in a big boy bed in his new room, and closer to three years old in age.  So, we decided to put it off for a few more months.  Eventually we settled in to all the big life changes, our house started feeling a lot more like home, and I started to feel ready for 2.0.  Well, things happened pretty quickly and I guess that's why I am still somewhat shocked that I am sitting here today writhing this post!

Soooo....  I know that it's going to be a while before we get an actual confirmation that this pregnancy is progressing normally, and for that reason we are still debating on when to spill the beans.  We will be visiting my family in two weeks for Christmas, and Erik's family is coming to our house the week after for Arlo's birthday, so it would be great to tell them all in person.  But at the same time we really don't want to get everyone all excited before we know for sure that things are going as they should.

Somehow during my pregnancy with Arlo I wrote a pregnancy update every week.  How?!  I guess I didn't have a toddler to look after, that's how!  Well, this time around my goal is to check in every month or so.  I really did love documenting Arlo's growth in my belly and hopefully this pregnancy will go just as smoothly as his did.  So, there are a lot more things I want to write about but for today I am just going to try and soak it all in and enjoy the day with my boys.

A funny thing happened today...

So how is this for a coincidence...

Exactly a year ago to the day, I woke up and took a pregnancy test...  And discovered we were expecting!  Unfortunately that pregnancy ended too soon and I lost the baby at 10 weeks.

This morning, I woke up and took a pregnancy test....

And found out that we are expecting!

I really didn't plan to take a test exactly a year later, I was instructed to take a pregnancy test every three days after day 28 of my cycle for the fertility study I enrolled in.  Honestly though, I was pretty sure I was pregnant on Thursday when I took the test before this one.  It was initially negative, but after sitting a while it developed the faintest line.  That combined with the familiar feeling of sore and enlarging breasts, was a pretty good indicator that indeed a baby was on the way.

This morning I took the test that was provided by the fertility study, and initially it registered negative!  Not even a faint line appeared.  Confused and a little nervous (as I expected by today it would register loud and clear) I tried one of the digital tests I had leftover from last time...  Relief and happiness set in when the word PREGNANT registered on the screen.  Shortly after, the first test started showing a very faint line...

Erik and I are both so excited and a little surprised it happened so fast!  Not only that, but I have realized my due date (early January) is almost exactly to the day the same as it would have been last time around...  What a strange coincidence.

Even with all the happiness I am feeling right now, I can't help but think about what happened last time, and how it could happen again.  Instead of planning ahead for the milestones - hearing the heartbeat, finding out the gender (if we decide to), and thinking about the other things that lay ahead, I find myself thinking "If I make it that far..."  Hopefully these fears will be alleviated at the study ultrasound in a few weeks, which is the primary reason I enrolled in the study in the first place.  We will wait to tell anyone (even our parents) until after we know if everything is okay at that visit.  (Side note:  if you are just starting to read this blog, at the time of writing this the settings were still set to private.  It did not go live until after we shared the news with everyone...)

Until then, we will be focusing on the big move to the new house, which happens in just 13 days!!  We are so close to being done I can almost taste it, haha.  Speaking of which, I am headed out the door in a few minutes as we still have quite a bit of work to do before we move in.  At least as I work today I will have something good to daydream about!  :)

In the home stretch...

Its nearing the end of March, and this is my first post for 2013?!  Obviously this blog has not been a recent priority of mine.  In my defense, I have been insanely busy lately with (you guessed it) the new house.  I am happy to report that while there is still a lot of work to be done, there is an end in sight!  We are finally nearing the end of the *big* projects, and will hopefully finish those up in the next couple of weeks.  Next month will be spent working on the little tasks such as hanging up new lights, switching out the old electrical plugs and switches, and a few other misc tasks.  This past weekend we had a couple of helpers, Eriks Aunt Katy and Uncle Jay came down from Maryland to help us tile the downstairs closet and bathroom.  They wanted to learn how to tile, and Erik was sure happy to have the extra help!  It was great to have them and made the weekends work a lot more fun.   Here are a few photos we took on Aunt Katy's phone...

Uncle Jay drawing out a map of how they wanted to lay the tile in the coat closet

Coat closet tile before grouting.

Me painting, painting, painting the master bedroom windows.  Formerly a dark teal, they are now a lovely shade of white, but only after three full coats of paint!  Luckily, they all still open and close just fine - I somehow managed to avoid painting them shut.  The walls went from a lighter teal to a "primer" color as seen above, and are now a nice creamy beige.

I had one request for the downstairs bathroom tile, and that was a herringbone pattern.  I was inspired by this pin, and have had the idea stuck in my head for months now.   We were lucky to find a natural stone tile in the exact size and colors we wanted.  I am so happy with how it turned out!  Erik, Uncle Jay, and Aunt Katy worked all weekend to finish the bathroom part of the floor.  Erik will finish the closet tile and grout everything within the next week.

The bathroom light (which has yet to be changed out) is casting a terrible yellow hue to this photo...  But anyway, you get the idea of the pattern.  I am in love!!

I finally got to install my painted kitchen cabinet doors!  I can't believe what a difference a few coats of paint makes...  This is just a little preview, the before and after shots will come soon!

 The idea that we are almost done with this crazy house "project" has turned into the realization that we will soon get to live in the house we have put so much time, effort, and love into.  We are hoping to move in early May, giving us just under a month to get our current house ready for the new tenants arriving June 1st.  We think we found the perfect couple, and although it is a little nerve-wracking to think we are about to become landlords, it is pretty exciting at the same time.

In other news...  Erik and I had planned to be done with this house months ago, or at least be at the point where we would start trying to get pregnant again.  The "date" I had stuck in my head for this to start was January, but at that time I was still scraping/sanding and painting walls, surrounded in dust and paint fumes nearly every day I was there.  Not exactly something I wanted to be doing while pregnant...  February came and went with the same realization that it was safer to just "wait another month..."  I did enroll in the fertility study I was accepted into, and had my initial visit last month where they took blood samples and had me fill out paperwork.  We were all ready for the baby-making this month (March), but when the time came around I panicked again because I still wasn't *quite* done painting.  Now, finally, I am almost done, and next month it is on.  Every month has been filled with a fair amount of disappointment when we had to yet again postpone something that we have been waiting so long for.  I realized that it has been almost exactly a year since we first got pregnant, and it's hard to believe we have had to wait this long to even start trying again.  I keep reminding myself that really, really great things are worth the wait.  And now that we are getting ready to start trying again, I can honestly say that I am ready and in a really great place.

house progress

Yikes!  How is it almost Christmas already?  I posted that last post on Halloween, like, sometime last week  ;)  The new house has been consuming every spare moment of free time keeping us quite busy, but I have to say our hard work is paying off.  I took all of last week off from my real job, which gave me 9 solid days of working on the house, all day everyday.  Next week we will be in Tennessee staying with my parents for Christmas so we will both have a much needed break from all this work!  Here are some photos of our progress so far:

corner of the guest bath where 1960's vanity once lived (it was actually a sink in the guest bedroom, and the toilet/shower is in a separate area to the right.  people in the 60's did some weird things!)

Erik building new walls in guest room, creating a new bathroom, linen closet and large walk-in closet around where the old vanity once sat.

Walls (partially) built.  Actually this is now complete - mudded, primed and painted but all these photos came from Erik's iPhone and I can't seem to find a more recent one...

I can build work tables.... Or at least pretend...  This is in the master bedroom aka "upstairs workroom!"

  

New master bath shower that Erik is in the process of building.  It started as a tiny square fiberglass shower stall.  He knocked out the back wall, extending it into the bedroom.  Then he built new walls and moved the plumbing.  The photo on the left is the poured "bed"  of the shower and on the right is the floor tile just after it was installed.

Wood-look floor tile for the master bath.  Still needs grout.  I am so in love with this tile...

Step by step plug installation by yours truly.  I also spent a lot of time changing out plugs and switches last week, and only received two electrical shocks, yay.   Also, I am the only person I know of that wears self-crocheted ear warmers while doing electrical work.  What can I say, I was cold!

There are no pictures of it for some reason, but I spent the majority of my time priming and painting the upstairs bedrooms.  I only have the master bed/bath and hallways to go, then I can start working downstairs.  Almost halfway done!!  At the start of this project we thought we might be done in January... Then it became February...  Now our projected move in month is March.  I think this is a pretty realistic goal, but we will see how things go when we start the projects downstairs, which includes the kitchen and a another complete bathroom renovation...

In other news, I found out last week that I was accepted for a fertility study which I had inquired about a few weeks back.  I had actually wanted to participate in it last spring when we first started trying to get pregnant, but I was not yet 30 years old.  This time around, I meet all the criteria so I can join the study.  I have a couple reasons for wanting to participate in it.  First, I have actually always wanted to join a study, and the idea of being a part of research is pretty cool.  Second, the study program provides you with up to 60 free pregnancy tests during the course of the study.  You already know: a.) how expensive those things are and b.) how much I like free things...  And finally, probably the most attractive part of it, is that once you become pregnant, they perform (also at no charge) an early ultrasound around 7 weeks.  I went back and forth on whether or not this was a good idea, but given what happened last time, I decided this would be good for peace of mind.  I know the beginning of the next pregnancy will be full of anxiety as I wait to pass the 10 week mark, and knowing at 7 weeks that things are all good (hopefully), will hopefully alleviate some stress.

So we were planning to start trying again at the end of January as I was pretty sure I would be done with the painting by then.  I don't want to be breathing in all those weird chemicals (even though we are using all zero VOC paint) while pregnant.  However, this whole painting thing is a way bigger job than I thought it would be, and we have decided to postphone trying until the next cycle, which should be the end of February.  Right now, that sounds like a million years away, but I know how fast time is moving right now and it will be here before I know it.  I keep telling myself to enjoy this time of working on the house with Erik, and I am, but the whole baby thing is always on my mind.  There is not a day that has gone by since that day in June that I don't think about it.  And I guess perhaps that is how it will be for a while still.  Anyway...

 Until next time...

4 Weeks

So this morning, just to verify, I took another test...

Yup, still preggo!  :D

This time Erik was with me to watch the results "develop."  I think two tests confirms that in fact, we are going to have a baby!  We decided to celebrate with brunch at Weaver St. Market, followed by a family photo session together.  I would be lying if I said I haven't been dreaming of finally being able to take the "belly photos" that everyone does with their first pregnancy.  According to my calculations, I am around 4 weeks and 3 days pregnant, so of course I am not even close to showing yet but we decided to do some photos of me as more of a "before bump."

The B family... for now!

4 weeks

4 weeks.  I have always had a little "roundness" to my belly but I blame any extra puffiness on the hormonal bloating and large brunch I had just consumed..

4 weeks

belly love ♥

even though we can't see it yet, something is growing inside  :)

4 week facts:

• At 4 weeks the baby is about as big as a poppyseed and is now classified as an embryo 

• The brain, spinal cord, heart, and gastrointestinal tract begin to form

• The amniotic sac and fluid are forming into protective cushioning for the baby

poppyseeds!

me + poppyseeds

Symptoms that I am currently having are very large and sore boobies, bloating, hungry more often, and a weird sharp pain in my right lower abdomen/pelvic area that is starting to concern me a little.  From what I have read online it seems to be normal in most cases.  I am trying not to worry about it but I will surely go to the doctors if it becomes severe.  In the next week or so I will be calling to make my first appointment with the midwife, as well as schedule a tour of the Birthing Center that we have actually been trying to make it to for the last couple of months. Very excited for all that!

 After we took the photos together we headed back to Weaver St. and picked up some gluten-free vegan treats from a vegan bake sale they were having outside on the lawn.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love Carrboro?!)

All vegan, all gluten-free.  Good thing the "4 week" photos were taken before these went in my belly  ;)

Pig face on cupcake!

Chocolate espresso pecan brownie

Gooey chocolate-covered smore... amazingness!

And finally...

We decided this morning how we will announce the pregnancy to our families.  Since we will be visiting my parents at their new house in Tennessee in just two weeks, we have decided to make the big announcement to our immediate families that weekend.  Originally I wanted to wait a little longer (just to be safe) but I think it will be perfect timing being Mother's Day weekend and all.  Plus I am dying to let this cat out of the bag!  I don't know how people keep this kind of secret for any length of time...

To tell Erik's parents, we are going to frame the photo below, mail it to them, and have them open it while on the phone with us.  It is going to be disguised as a Mother's day gift so they certainly won't expect to find this photo when they open it!

To tell my parents, I think we are going to do something a little different...  Have not decided yet.  More on that later!

I plan to do weekly updates from here on out, hopefully every Sunday.  I started this blog as a way to document our pregnancy journey, the growing belly, and other things that happen in our life during this time. I look forward to sharing the next nine months of this journey with y'all!

This Day.

This day was suppose to go like this:

Wake up.

Eat breakfast.

Yard sales.

Walk Lucy.

Grocery shop.

Go for long run.

Plant tomato plants.

Do laundry.

Clean house.

Make dinner.

Spend evening with Erik.

Sleep.

Instead...  I decided to start my day with a pregnancy test.  And this happened:

I AM PREGNANT!!!

Even as I type these words I can't really believe it.  I was seriously 80-90% positive that I did NOT get pregnant this month.  In fact, for the last week and a half I have been experiencing the worst PMS ever.  It started only a few days after I believe I was ovulating so I figured there was no way that I was having pregnancy signs already.  Plus is was all my usual PMS symptoms (x 10): starving ALL the time, irritable at times, chocolate cravings, bloating, and the most noticeable one of all - my breasts are ginormous and super sore.  For the past week I have been telling Erik that they just keep getting bigger and bigger, and that this must be a really bad "cycle" for my symptoms to be so severe.  Little did I know, it was not at all what I thought it was!

So anyway, the main reason I even decided to take the test in the first place was that Erik is leaving on Monday for a week in New Mexico, and if I was pregnant, I didn't want to find out while he was gone.  I took the test very early this morning right when I got up.  Erik was outside with a friend loading up his car for a bike race today, and they were just about to leave.  He had already came in to the bedroom and kissed me good-bye and I didn't think I would see him again until late this evening.  I was still half asleep when the pink lines started developing, and after I realized there were two, I stood there in shock for at least a minute.  Fortunately Erik came back in the house to pick up something he forgot, and I immediately yelled for him to come upstairs for a minute.  I held up the test (with trembling hands) as he walked into the bathroom, and he was like "you're pregnant?!"  I said something like "I think so, read this test and tell me what you think!"  We both couldn't believe it, and just stood there hugging (and lets admit it - me crying!)  Sadly, he pretty much had to leave after I told him since his friend was waiting outside (which I made him promise not to tell) so we will have to celebrate this happy news together later tonight.

I know it is still very early but I am beyond excited and can't believe this is happening.  After we didn't get pregnant the first month I sort of got it in my head that it was going to take a while.  But just one month later, and here we are with two pink lines!  :D

As far as my previously scheduled activities for today, I pretty much threw that agenda out the window.  I did manage to make it to a few yard sales this morning, and this time didn't feel silly at all buying baby stuff - ha!  I did score some awesome deals today (more on that in a later post) and am slowly trying to tackle the rest of my "chores" for the day.  But given the exciting news (which is ALL I can think about) I have found myself online reading all about how big the baby is right now (poppyseed!), calculating my due date (1-3-13!), what to expect in the next few weeks (morning sickness and more breast tenderness - yay!), and trying to figure out if it is safe for me to go for that long run I had planned for today (YES thankfully it is!)

The rest of my list is just going to have to wait until another day...

The waiting game

I am not very good at waiting.  In fact, I would consider myself a rather impatient person.  Probably about a 7.5/10 on the impatient person scale.  Waiting usually brings on an assortment of emotions for me that can vary from anxious, bored, or restless.  I really dislike waiting in supermarket lines.  I never turn off my laptop (only put it in standby) because the minute it takes to boot up is a minute too long.  If I am put on hold during a phone call it takes me about 11 seconds before I start picking up dog toys from the floor, watering plants, or some other neglected house chore that somehow feels like it needs to be done the second I am forced to sit and wait.  I have tried to just "enjoy the moment" in those instances, really I have.  Unfortunately I rarely succeed, although I think my house is a little cleaner because of it...

So this past week since I last checked in on here has been a mix of a whole bunch of excitement and a whole lot of nothing at the same time.  The past two weeks or so have been a "waiting game" to see if our baby-making attempts this month were a success or not.  As you just learned, I am not very good at waiting, so as you can imagine this has not exactly been a stress-free time for me.  Earlier in the week I had some signs (one in particular) that made me thing I could be pregnant.  In fact I convinced myself that I was.  Unfortunately that turned out not to be the case, and after the initial extreme disappointment subsided, I realized we begin the waiting game again...  sigh.

Likely you are thinking "just enjoy this time, you can't get it back."  And I know that.  I often try and tell myself that it's about the journey not the destination.  Then some little voice inside my head says "that's a bunch of crap.  In this case it's all about the destination and the time is now, damnit."  I know in the months to come I will look back and read this and think of it as no big deal.  I probably won't even remember how I felt.  But right now all I can think about is the impatient, baby-fever stricken girl inside me that is anxiously awaiting for that pregnancy test with two pink lines, and no amount of housecleaning is going to make that time pass any faster...

So far we have not really tried anything extraordinary to help us conceive.  We are only one month into the baby-making process so I have not broken out the basal body thermometer just yet.  However today on our weekly trip to Whole Foods, while perusing the tea isle for something new, I noticed a box of Raspberry Leaf tea.  I remembered reading somewhere that Red Raspberry Leaf tea can somehow help a womans cycle and does something beneficial to the uterus.  Figuring my uterus needs all the help she can get right now, I tossed it into the cart.  Does it really work?  I have no idea.  What I do know is that it is made by a company called Traditional Medicinals.  This company also makes a tea called "Smooth Move" which I can assure you, does do what it claims to do.  So if their poo-inducing tea is any testimonial to the effectiveness of the products they make well then bring on the baby-makin beverages!

I expected this tea to be pink in color with a fruity taste when steeped.  While it really was neither, it still was absolutely delicious!  I can see myself drinking so much of this stuff you may want to consider buying stock in it...  just sayin'...

I realize that I have included more personal information in this post than I usually do.  For that I am going to apologize and at the same time tell you to get used to it!  I may be quiet and reserved in person, but as it turns out I am somewhat of an over-sharer on the internet.  Who knew?!  Keep reading, it's likely to get even better...

You're doing it wrong... and other random thoughts

So a few weeks ago I typed up a rather personal post, read it through a few days later, decided it was TMI, and deleted it.  That is the beauty of having a blog that is not yet visible to other people, I can easily "take back" information if I decide later that I don't want to share it.   Well hopefully soon that will not be an option anymore because I will finally be able to share all these posts with real, live people (who care to read them, maybe no one even will!)  All along I have known that this blog would not "go live" until we were pregnant, mostly to avoid all the unwanted questions people are likely to ask if they know you are trying to have a baby...  But now that we have started trying (yes, it's now official!) hopefully soon we will have some happy news to share (and I will be able to click "publish" at the end of each post without being saddened that no one is actually reading what I am writing, ha!)  The original post a few weeks back was around the time that we started trying, but ended up too long and detailed and you probably wouldn't have wanted to read it anyway...

Now here we are a few weeks later, realizing that in fact last month when we "thought" we were trying, was too late in my cycle to have actually conceived.  Darn my unpredictable body and irregular cycle!  When I realized that the timing was off about a week I told Erik our mission had failed.  He said something like "we were doing it wrong?"  Which of course he didn't mean like it came out, but it was still quite funny at the time!  Well this month we are getting a head start if you will, so there is actually a chance this time around.  I have done all the research and know that the odds of conceiving right away are not great (about 20% each month) but of course the idea that we are even trying right now is so exciting to us!

So yea, here I am getting way ahead of myself again...  This morning I went to a church yard sale down the street and they had the cutest little baby pj's for only $0.50 each!   I couldn't pass up that deal, even if a baby is still a ways away...  I bought mostly yellow gender-neutral stuff except for one little pink jumper and that was because it is organic.  If we have a boy (and that has always been my prediction for our first) then I am sure I will have no trouble finding someone to give the girl stuff to.  I can't wait for yard sale season to get into full swing this year.  Combine baby fever with the fact that I am a big yard-sale junkie and I will probably have everything for the nursery plus clothes for his or her first year of life before we even know we are pregnant.  Ha!

But really, how could I not buy something this cute?!

Ducks!  I love these so much!  If they were my size I think I would be wearing one right now  ;)

This is where I start...

I have really been meaning to start a blog for quite some time now... I did start one actually, about three years ago. It failed however after I posted a single post and never put up another one. Initially I wanted to write about food and recipes but now it seems that there is so much more to share. Not to worry, since cooking and trying new recipes is such a big part of my life, I am sure it will be hard to leave that topic out completely... This time around, I wanted to make my blog a much more personal place than just food. And I figure, if I can put up more than just one post, that automatically makes it way better than the last one... ;)

If you have made it this far you probably already know me. You know that I am a nurse, I live in North Carolina, have three cats and a dog, recently got married to the most amazing, thoughtful, and handsome man that I have ever met, am a vegan, can crochet/sew/craft all day and still have a list of 37 projects that I want to make, that I enjoy scooter rides (but almost never drive it myself as it makes me too nervous to be alone on the road), like to do yoga, enjoy photography, and that the mountains are one of my favorite places in the world to be. Okay, so maybe you didn't know all those things, but probably most of them. So there is no need for a super long formal introduction here..

What maybe you don't know about me, is some fun and exciting plans my wild little mind has been making lately... You see, it started sometime last November, of twenty eleven. Right after we returned from our annual trip to DC to visit Eriks family for Thanksgiving. We got home, and shortly afterwards I developed a Fever. This was no ordinary fever.. Tylenol wouldn't do a thing for this one. The doctor has no medicine. You see, this was a fever of a different sort. This was... the baby Fever. Not at all expected, not at all planned. It was like someone flipped a switch in me overnight. At first it confused me. The plan was to wait until we had been married for at least a year before we even started to think of all that baby stuff. If you had asked me two months ago, babies were cute and cuddly and I knew it was in the plans someday but that day was definitely not right now, for I had other plans. We were actually in the process of planning a summer trip to Europe for this year. Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, and likely England we were going to visit. We had researched plane tickets, cities we wanted to visit, Castles I was dying to see... A baby would get in the way of all that and really change the romantic trip we had been looking forward to. Also, after the wedding I started investigating the possibility of a career change into photography with the hopes of starting up my own photography business. Plus we were newly married, and why rush into something we seem to have the rest of our lives for? Well that all changed the day I came down with The Fever. Suddenly the trip to Europe seemed like a waste of money that could be better spent on baby-related expenses. Who really cares about the Neuschwanstein Castle anyway?! In fact, all things that once seemed important went out the window in my mind. I had a new set of priorities, which somehow included onesies, diapers, and a desire for 3am feedings... At first I had to let it settle in my mind to make sure I wasn't going crazy for lack of sleep, vitamins, or some other such problem. I had to keep it to myself for a bit, I couldn't say these words out loud to even Erik in case the thoughts just went away on their own and the problem resolved itself. But it didn't. The Fever just got worse. When I brought it up to Erik finally, it had to be in a casual way since I was dropping quite the bomb and I knew it... It was something like, "I work until 4 today, Lucy has already been out, I am making sweet potato cakes for dinner tonight, and by the way, how do you feel about having a baby sometime soonish?" Well, maybe it wasn't just like that, but it still didn't make Erik any less surprised when I brought it up. After the initial shock wore off, and we had many good long talks on the topic, I could tell the wheels in his mind were starting to turn... Not that I ever had to convince him that this was a good idea or anything.  We have said from the very beginning that we both very much want children, and often discuss what they will be like, who is going to help them with their math homework (not me!), how we are going to raise vegan babies, etc..  It was more the idea of speeding up the timeline that caught him off guard...  However, it wasn't too long before he started to show some symptoms of the very same Fever that I had acquired not long before.  Wouldn't you know, it seems to be contagious!

Fast forward about six weeks and we are at the present moment. The idea of adding to our family is now becoming a very real possibility in the soonish future. Lot's (and I mean LOTS) of homework has been doing regarding the topic, how we are going to fit this plan into our lives financially, physically, and emotionally. The majority of my time researching the financial aspect has been spent on the phone with insurance companies, trying to figure out the cost of the prenatal care and birth itself. Once that was figured out, it made the rest seem easy! And I have to keep the advice of friends and family in mind when it comes to making plans such as these... If everyone waited until they were 100% ready in terms of having enough money, the perfect job, and the perfect house, well no one would ever have kids! So, to sum this up because it is now late and my dear husband is trying to sleep next to me, I will say that obviously this is a huge decision, and not something we are taking lightly.

Another thing I will say, is that for right now this blog will be kept private. I will share it with y'all when I am good and ready, I promise!  For now I want to avoid all of the obvious questions and discussions that come with the territory when people know you are in the process of family planning. I wanted to document this time of our lives though so I can look back and remember what was going on and how I was feeling during this whole process. A diary blog I guess you could say. A Blogiary! Haha... Okay it's late and my mind is just getting silly.  Much more to come, so stay tuned...