ready or not

i’ve had a long time to figure out what i was going to say or how i was going to say this. honestly nothing sounded right other than ready or not… here comes baby albers!

whew! that has been one secret to keep. i honestly don’t know where to even start other than from the beginning. well… maybe not the very beginning. my grandma reads this and i’m sure you know where babies already come from. i hope.

so here it goes. about a week or so before thanksgiving i started having familiar feelings… like randomly waking up at 3am and just… being awake. when it happened three nights in a row… i knew something was up. i ignored it though thinking no way. i went to lunch a few days later with some coworkers to russ’. i got the same thing i always eat, a tossed salad with a burger. except this time.. the burger tasted like straight up blood. for the first time in my life i couldn’t finish my russ’ burger. after that i knew something was really up  but honestly wasn’t ready to acknowledge it myself. i wasn’t mentally ready. i didn’t plan for this. plus i was just down right terrified. i let a few days go by and and once i totally missed (and a few days after) i thought ok abby be a big girl and just take the dumb test.

i woke up again at 3am and snuck into the bathroom. i opted for the expensive test right away and skipped over the preliminary dollar store tests because lets be real…. i already knew the answer. sure enough within 30 seconds the digital “pregnant” appeared. surprisingly stunned but surprisingly not surprised (if that makes any sense) i tucked the test away in my shoe closet and went to work. i went almost four full days without telling joe. i know! i know! it’s so weird but honestly it’s just that i had to wrap my head around it. it wasn’t that i wasn’t excited. to be honest i was just absolutely terrified. i was terrified of repeating what happened to us almost exactly a year ago at this time. i wanted to be excited when i told joe.

finally one night while we were making dinner i was handling raw chicken and just couldn’t keep it quiet anymore. joe was sitting on the floor petting the dogs and i just say “butters can you just tell joe we’re pregnant”.

it took joe maybe 5 minutes to process what i had just said and i realized i should have told him right away because together we just got really excited. and amongst the fear i had i just had a gut feeling that everything was going to be ok.

the next day i called my doctor and she scheduled us an early ultrasound for 8 weeks. that was terrifying. i just remember this routine. the sterile rooms, the look on the techs faces, assuring them i already knew there was a potential for bad news. just really bad memories that i don’t think we will ever shake from our memories.

i sat there finding myself bargaining with God again and i sat there with my eyes just squeezed shut tight. preparing my heart and head for news that could be bad and just like that a sound that sounded like a little train engine chugging along came across the screen and there it was… our little person. we both just broke down sobbing.

words cannot describe that moment. we’ve had at least 6 ultrasounds from our last pregnancy that just kept coming up empty. every time we left just feeling absolutely defeated and totally lost. and just why. we just couldn’t believe it this time and couldn’t process what we were actually seeing in front of us. like is that for real? is that really our baby? holy moly i just said baby. as in we are having a baby. it’s just an overwhelming indescribable emotional roller coaster.

for the next few weeks we kept our mouths absolutely shut. i think it was a combination of fear, uncertainty and this terrifying “what if” feeling that was still lingering over me.

our doctor called us a few days before christmas and assured us that everything is looking great. the baby was measuring at where it was supposed to and the heart beat was strong. we decided to tell only our families at christmas. we printed off our family pictures on a nice canvas and included a little note that we were going to be adding one. to say they were a little shocked would be an understatement. i don’t think anybody, including us, saw this one coming.

now that i’m 15 weeks along it’s starting to feel a bit more real, at least physically. i’m going shopping this weekend for some new leggings and slightly bigger pants.  i’ve finally started to feel a lot better. the first trimester was a little rough. i would just dry heave all the time. now i just puke at weird smells and dog poop. i’m starting to be able to look at red meat and prepare dinner again which joe is thankful for. i also feel like i finally have some energy coming back to me. although i’m still passing out pretty much every night at 8pm.

the past 15 weeks have been a journey and an incredible learning experience. i’ve had to find the joy by letting the grip go on fear and enjoying this gift that God has blessed us with. thank him for his little surprises because sometimes he knows us better than we know ourselves. so here it goes. ready or not we are growing a baby due August 2!

thank you to my lovely and talented friend leah mullett who is always there to capture our life moments. you the best girl!