How it all began..

First, honestly for the past 3 months I have been fighting the urge to share this news with everyone and anyone I meet!  It's so hard not to share that there is a BABY, an actual human, growing inside of you! So, needless to say, I'm really excited to start talking about it more :)

From the beginning Dan and I wanted to wait a little bit before we started a family.  Since we got married young, we didn't feel any "pressure" to start trying right away.  Our plan was to pay off debt, and since we were planning on putting my complete salary toward that every month, a baby would have interfered just a little bit with that.

This past summer, we knew we were getting closer to paying off our debt (hopefully in April, Lord willing no huge unexpected expenses come up, which at this point may happen with Dan's car :/  But, I'm trying to think about that now) and I was going to be done with my degree in May.  As I thought about how blessed we have been so far in our marriage- going on trips, enjoying time with friends, spending lots of time in ministry, traveling a lot, training and running in races, etc.- I started to feel ready to start a family.  Really, at that point everything that originally was "holding us back" wasn't anymore.  So, I asked Dan to start to pray about it and I said I would, too.  We both realized that we were getting to that point, but weren't ready to completely start "trying" so we started doing natural family planning in the spring with plans to start trying at the end of the 2011. 

Flash forward to August.  A couple weeks before I was expecting my period, I start noticing some pregnancy symptoms- namely bullet #2 here- (which I really wasn't complaining about...) and when the huge pregnancy sign came up- late period- I took a test.  Can I say that is one of the most nerve wracking minutes of your life? There's not too much you can do to occupy yourself for a minute- seriously, longest 60 seconds of my life.  Anyway, I checked it, and there was only one line.  I would be lying if I wasn't just a little disappointed.  But, I knew it wasn't God's timing.  I said a little prayer, and started to walk over to the trash can, but took one more look at it right before I went to throw it away, and realized a very, very faint line had shown up.  Immediately I checked with my on call doctor, Google, and read on what appeared to be a trusted site, that any line- no matter how faint, means a positive test.  Still, not convinced at all, I called my doctor.  This is how our conversation went:

Me: "Hi, this morning I took a pregnancy test and it came up with a really faint line- I'm sure I need to wait to make sure it's the real deal, but I wanted to call and talk to you just to be sure."

Doctor: "Nope if you saw a line that means you're pregnant! Is this your first?!"

Me: 'Ummm, yeah."

Doctor: "Congratulations! Ok, so let me schedule your 8 week appt... blah blah blah" I had pretty much blanked out at this point

I could not believe what I was hearing!  It was all happening so fast.  Obviously, I was excited, not scared, but just in disbelief.  I called Dan and told him the news and he immediately didn't believe me, but when I told him that we had our 8 week appointment scheduled he knew this was definitely happening.  

Well, that weekend we headed off to my brother's wedding and it took everything I had not to tell my family.  We definitely didn't want to make a big deal about it on his special day! And actually, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because when we came home, I took another pregnancy test (because I'm crazy like that) and it turned out to be negative, and later that day I got my period.  We had miscarried. 

It's hard to really describe what a miscarriage feels like.  Even though it was still early and we weren't technically trying to have a baby, Dan and I were both more upset than we thought we would be.  I obviously thought of tons of questions like "What did I do to cause this?"  "Why is this happening?"  "Are we going to have trouble getting pregnant now?" Anything you think of we thought about.  It was really hard, and I have a new respect for anyone who goes through one- whether it is week 6 or week 25.  

It was after that happened that Dan and I decided we were ready - we weren't going to actively try but we weren't going to prevent.  And, we were so blessed.  The very next month we got pregnant.

After we got the test results back!

Definitely two lines! And yes that is a crumb stuck on the test- right by the word pregnant.  I'm really good at cleaning our counters lol

And of course, we took another test a week later just to be safe- and it was still positive!! Huge sigh of relief.

We're gonna be PARENTS!

We were SO stinkin' excited.  I couldn't believe that we were so fortunate to get pregnant the very next month.  After the miscarriage we were very ready and it was such a huge huge blessing to get pregnant right away.  We have met so many couples already who either can't, or have tried for a really long time to get pregnant and it honestly breaks my heart.  For years you are told sex = pregnant.  Really, I always assumed I would get married, and eventually be a mom- I never really thought there was another option.  So, needless to say I can't imagine being ready and desiring a family, and month after month getting the same negative result.  I have a full new appreciate for their struggle and can honestly say I pray for those couples often.

There is so much more- but in light of how long this is getting, I will break it up for you and bring you up to date in other posts.  More to come this week!

Also, thank you so much for your sweet comments on Friday!!!  We are so excited and really appreciate you sharing in our joy :)