Week 27: Tis the season… to freak out

This happens every year.  In the blink of an eye lazy summer days are over and you are sitting down with your family for Thanksgiving then running around like a crazy person getting things together for Christmas.  Each year that passes feels shorter and shorter and it feels like there is only a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas rather than a month.  So you can only imagine how I feel to have the normal holiday pressure with the added physical weight and lack of mobility of this baby sitting on my bladder causing me to run to the restroom every half hour and creating endless back pain.  Oh yea, and I am now in my third trimester which means that I only have about 80 days left before baby girl makes her appearance into this world.

I feel like the checklist of things to do before D-Day is constantly growing without me crossing anything off the list.  Plus everything was put on hold to do just the normal day to day stuff that happens this time of year.  Christmas shopping, work, decorating, holiday parties, etc.  I’m not trying to complain – these are all fun activities and I don’t want to skip out on them, but each obligation in my day means one more day to push off the other responsibilities that I have.  Setting up the nursery, taking the classes at the hospital, setting up an appointment with the pediatrician, etc.  What I would love is for time to stop for about a week.  In that time I can sit in a cozy chair, snuggled up with a cup of hot chocolate enjoying this amazing week Florida gets once a year where it is cold enough to wear a sweater and reflect on what the Christmas season is all about.  I get so caught up in the consumerism side of the holiday that I forget to reflect on the amazing gift that gives me a reason to celebrate this joyous day each year.  But alas, I don’t have the super power to stop time so I will just have to make an effort to make the time to have a little quite moment to be still in reflection. 

Logan and I did get a short moment to spend in reflection of all the accomplishments we’ve had over the past year and what we have to look forward to in the year to come on Saturday night.  He just finished a big project for work that his boss rewarded him for with a date night out with his wife.  So for the first time since being pregnant, I got all dolled up for a night on the town.  It didn’t hurt that we did a maternity shoot earlier that day so I already had my nails and make up looking good.  I found a dress that didn’t make me feel like a manatee, threw some curls in my hair and let my man wine and dine me.  The whole time I couldn’t help but think about how much our life is about to change.  These date nights are going to be few and far between.  Some people might see it as depressing that my night is ending at 9 on a Saturday and I’m looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep vs. the days where I didn’t start getting ready to go out until 9.  Or that I’d rather spend a Friday night after a long week of work in my PJs sitting on my patio with a glass of wine then listening to a local band at a bar.  But these are changes that we are ready for and are excited about.  Besides, if a fancy date night or a night out to the bars becomes a rare occasion rather than a weekly norm, we might actually appreciate and remember those experiences vs. just being a part of the blur of the past year that always overcomes me right around Christmas.  

Week 1 (technically week 4)

Logan and I really enjoy our freedom.  I mean, a lot.  We always had plans and activities going on every weekend, would take extended vacations and would use any moment we had to play.  We also do not rush into any decisions that we make in life.  We dated for 5 years before Logan proposed to me, then spent two years engaged before finally getting married.  We were also married for 5 years before we even began the conversation about having children.  The truth is we both were so in love with each other and had so much fun being carefree that having a family wasn’t a high priority.  

But then we had a change in our mindset.  We bought a beautiful home that was much bigger than the two of us needed, I celebrated my 30^th birthday, and all of our friends were catching up to us with getting married and settled down. 

After many discussions we decided that it was the right timing for us to try to start a family.  We had a few events coming up and agreed that June was a good time to begin trying.  We also discussed the possibility that children might not be in God’s plan for us.  There is always a chance that we could try for years, and it just not happen.  But we were okay with that.  If kids weren’t in our future, we would continue being happy together just us.  (Secretly though, we were both crossing our fingers and praying that our plan B would never come to fruition.)

Little did we know how ready we were to have children because after only one month of trying we were pregnant!  They say that you just know, and I knew that morning when I took the test what the response was going to be before I even looked at it.  As soon as I saw that word on the digital screen, I woke up Logan with the news.  The only way to describe the feeling was surreal.  It was actually happening.  Right after the surreal emotions of excitement came a big mental question mark of ‘now what?’

Because I am a smart phone addict, I quickly jumped on Google and started doing searches of ‘I just found out I’m pregnant, now what do I do.’  I downloaded a few apps on my phone to track my progress and started obsessing over what I needed to do to make sure I kept my body as healthy as possible.  The coolest thing about the app is it tells you the size of your baby each week.  When I put in the date of my last period, I discovered that my ‘week 1’ of being pregnant was actually week 4 of the child’s development.  If he or she grows up with a taste for whiskey, I will be the one to blame since that is what I was drinking at a wedding the weekend before.  (Don’t worry; I did extensive research that said that there is nothing to worry about this early on.)  After I found out I was 4 weeks a long I also discovered that my baby is now the size of a poppy seed. 

I made a big mistake by taking the test first thing Monday morning.  You can only imagine how productive I was at work that week.  Luckily, it was July 1^st and we had a short week.  There weren’t a lot of people in the office since we had a long weekend ahead of us so I didn’t have to worry about too many people looking over my shoulder as I Googled every subject from what foods to avoid to baby announcement ideas.  

Just because I was proud of my crafting,
here is my 4th of July wreath

Timing is funny though because a few days later, Logan and I were hosting a 4^th of July party with about 40 of our friends and family in our home and I couldn’t tell anyone this big secret I am keeping inside while also avoiding alcohol without making it obvious.  And I HATE to lie.  I was able to dodge the issue for the most part though.  I wanted to tell every person that crossed our path the exciting news, but our better judgment told us to wait until I am at least 3 months along.  (A LONG 3 months.)  For now, Logan and I just get to share the best secret we’ve had so far.