38 weeks - Today is my due date.

38 weeks!

(July 22nd)

It's 9:57pm PST Sunday, August 5th, 2012.

I was supposed to become a mom today. The baby obviously has different plans. It's been an emotional roller coaster of a day. I just remembered this post I wrote back in October last year before I was pregnant. I read it, teared up a little, smiled a little, took a deep breath, and decided I'd write this really quickly and go to bed.

I kind of feel like I've been pregnant for an eternity but at the same time I feel like I just saw that beautiful little digital word "Pregnant" just yesterday. It's a weird thing. Whew, all of these swarming thoughts have made for a long emotionally and physically exhausting day.

Here's to another day I get to carry this baby in my belly before he/she comes out and changes the world. (At least my world....)

Excerpt from what I wrote on October 12th, 2011:
"Maybe you're pregnant right now and barfing all over the place (your sense of smell is already ridiculous so I can't imagine what that's like when it's heightened)....just remember how excited me and Chad would be to know that we were going to have a baby in less than 9 months. 
Maybe you're in the week of your due date and miserably waddling around feeling like a beached whale (and I'm guessing feeling a little anxious about going into labor)....just remember how your non pregnant self is sitting here right now daydreaming about what it would be like to feel our baby kick from the inside. You're so close to being able to see our baby's face, you can do it! And try not to feel too anxious...Chad will be there with you and he always seems to know how to make us feel better. Not to mention all of the awesome people I know you'll have in that waiting room......If you weren't about to push a human out of your vagina, I would feel more sorry for the hospital staff. :) 
Maybe you're getting impatient on a wait list for an adoption.....remember that your kid is out there in this world somewhere and the universe is just waiting for the timing to be right. (We both know how important timing is.) And it when the timing is right...it will be perfect."

xo,
Brooke

"You like that daddy?"

11/30/11

No, the title of this post isn't a line from a dirty movie. It's something Chad has been saying for the past 5 years in this high pitched Spanish accent, mostly to my BFF Melis. And mostly because she's the only one that laughs at it every time he says it. :)

Anywayyyy........Chad is now aware that he'll be a daddy in 9 months. And he likes that. (You get the play on words there?? You like that daddy...Chad liking that he is going to be a daddy... Oh man, sometimes I'm just too much for myself. I digress....)

Sometime in August I was at a wine and art festival in Mountain View with a friend. There were lots of vendor booths and a little onesie caught my eye. I bought it knowing Chad and I were planning to start a family soon enough or if nothing else it would make a cute gift for someone who was expecting. Not sure why but I never told Chad (or anyone else) that I bought it at the time....and it ended up coming in handy last night when deciding how to tell him I was knockered up. I stopped by Target on my way home from work, picked up "What To Expect When You're Expecting" for myself and a candy bar for Chad. He didn't get home until 6ish so I made myself busy by wrapping Christmas presents in the meantime. I made a quick change on his candy bar and I decided to wrap it too.....so it would seem like an early Christmas present. Which it pretty much is. :)

His early Christmas present

What was inside the box. :)

When he finally got home I could barely say hello and act semi interested in how his day was before I was trying to be cool about saying I had an early present for him. He picked up his box on the couch and said, "Well, we aren't planning to do much for each other for Christmas so maybe I should just wait." I insisted that he "shouldn't wait...it was just a little something and not a big deal...you know me, I just like to wrap things." (Later on I found out he was expecting it was something golf related because he is golfing at a really nice course for work on Friday.) So he opens it up and holds up the onesie and looks at the candy....and then just looks at me with the most confused look on his face. Kind of like, "What in the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Apparently the baby attire and the "Baby Johansen" candy bar weren't big enough clues. :) I just say, "Sooooo.......I'm pregnant." Then he gets what's going on, throws the box across the room and gives me the biggest smile and hug I think I've ever seen. We laughed and cried and he kept saying "are you sure?" "what?" "when?" "are you sure?" It was a memory I will keep forever. :)

After talking for a while we decided making dinner ourselves was way too much work so we went out for Italian. While we were driving there Chad says, "I feel so weird driving right now...like I have to be extra cautious and stuff..." I laugh and say "I know I felt like that this morning too. We'll never get home from the hospital with a baby in our backseat....it's going to take us 4 hours to drive 3 miles."

I love my Baby Daddy.

xo
Baby Momma

Today is a good day. A very good day. (Part 2)

....picking up where I left off on yesterday's post....

11/29/11

At 6:53am that beautiful little digital test went from a timer display to "Pregnant" in about 2 minutes.

It was kind of funny that my first reaction after seeing it was not to freak out....I just said, "No I'm not." I even said it out loud. I kept looking at the test waiting for the "Not" to show up before the 2nd word. I've taken a digital test like that before and I know that the 2 words ('Not' and 'Pregnant') show up together....but for some reason I was so shocked by only seeing 1 word that I couldn't even believe it. So I sat and waited for what seemed like forever (but probably 30 seconds max) waiting for "Not" to show up....but it never did.

I don't get it...where is the 'Not'?

Then I just kept looking at the test, looking at myself in the mirror smiling like a goofball, looking at the test, looking at myself in the mirror smiling like a goofball. I went back and forth like this for a while. I silently danced and screamed in the bathroom while Chad sat working on his computer in the next room.

Evidence of my "smiling like a goofball." Please excuse my bedhead...it was 6:53am people.

I took a shower and went about my normal morning routine. I had a few more dance parties while in the shower and had my first "conversation" with my belly. :) Once out of the shower, I tried super hard to play it cool and act normal to Chad. I don't think he picked up on anything...but I absolutely could not look him in the eyes. I just knew he would figure me out if he looked hard enough. Plus...it's impossible for me to lie to him when I see his eyes so I had to avoid them. I most definitely had an extra pep in my step this morning so I tried toning it down in front of him. I know what you're thinking "Whaaaat?! You didn't tell him right away?! You're the devil!!!" I knew I want to tell Chad in a special way and because we were both leaving for work so soon...I didn't want to rush it. And I knew he had a day full of meetings and would have a lot on his mind today...so I'll steal his full attention tonight. Then we can talk about it for as long as we want, rather than have to rush out the door. Plus....he got to take me off guard when he proposed, this gets to be my surprise for him. :) He's going to be SO excited. He might even do his little girl scream that I love so much. I cannot WAIT to see the look on his face.

I was about 15 minutes late to work this morning because I just couldn't really focus on anything I needed to do without dazing off into space thinking about how awesome all of this is. There is an extra brightness in my face and eyes that even I can see in the mirror...and no, I don't think I have the "pregnancy glow" thing going on.... :) the cause of this is absolute and complete happiness. In fact I can't even remember the last time I felt this happy. Oh wait...yes I do...I felt this same way on June 12th, 2010. :)

To the baby that is growing inside of me- (Sidenote: Holy crap sack that's weird.) Please know that I love you already. I have wanted you my entire life. I hope you can feel the love I'm sending to you every second of every day from now on.

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Today is a good day. A very good day. (Part 1)

11/29/11

I'm pregnant.

I'm going to have a baby.

Chad and I are going to be parents.

I'm growing a human inside of me.

HOLY. BALLS.

I could just scream!!!!!!!! I have a permanent smile plastered to my face this morning.

The best part? Chad doesn't even know yet. No one but this girl knows the secret (well and this blog I'm saving as a draft). I'm going to tell Chad tonight. I could burst with excitement about it...I hope this day goes by fast or I'll never make it!!

However...it is fun having this huge enormous gigantic monstrous crazy awesome secret all to myself for now. It's making me feel this crazy and beautiful connection with this baby already. :) Omg...I'm going to have a baby.

So how come I know and Chad doesn't yet? Well, I found out this morning. I've had a sneaking suspicion just over the last couple of days that maybe...just maybe I really could be. But they were kind of the same symptoms I get when I'm going to start my period. Only magnified. My boobs are sore...so very sore. But that's usual this time of the month, although never this sore. I've been very sleepy. I didn't notice that until Sunday and I thought it was because of the Thanksgiving holiday and traveling. We had the drive down to southern California, then Black Friday shopping with my sister-in-laws Donna and Rachel and a friend from 12am-6am (but I caught up on sleep the next day), then we drove 7 hours home on Sunday and I slept just about the whole drive, then went to bed at 10pm and got up 9 hours later STILL tired, then finally last night I called it a night at 8:30pm because I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I mentioned to Chad on the drive home on Sunday that I didn't think this month was "our" month because I was feeling a little bit of cramping like I normally do a couple days before. But then I noticed yesterday that I had NO cramping...and usually the days leading up are pretty rough. I contemplated taking a test last night but decided I should wait until the morning.

At 6:53am the exciting thing I was hoping for happened in my bathroom.

Part 2 of the story coming up tomorrow! Ahh...cliffhangers. So fun. :) In the meantime...here is a picture I took that morning before I left for work as my first official pregnant picture.

xo
Brooke

Baby makin' thoughts.

11/14/11

Recently Chad and I have seemed to develop a new attitude regarding baby makin'. We are much more relaxed and have come to realize we are in no way in control of when the timing is right for us to get pregnant. It's strange that I'm having a much harder time with the "being in control" thing than Chad is. If you know us well, you know that when it comes to "rolling with the punches" and just going with things....I'm a little better at that than Chad. He usually feels more of a need to be in control of situations and how those situations effect him and can be more phased by unexpected surprises than me. But when it comes to this baby makin' business....I'm definitely struggling with giving up control over the situation. Obviously there is the one way that we are in control (because duh, we can't exactly make a baby without that part).....but all the rest is out of our hands. I can't control anything else. This fact has been stressing me out. But I think I'm over that now. I realized stressing about when and how will never help the situation and I will drive myself (and Chad) completely crazy in the process. Only positive thoughts and feelings coming from this girl from now on!

xo

Update and possibly TMI: Before you get all "whatta crazy lady to start panicking at all about not getting pregnant after only 3 months of trying." First of all, touche. Second of all, I hadn't been on birth control in over a year before this (it makes me a real crazy person) so it wasn't like I just went off of something and should expect my body to catch up. C) We all have our insecurities, don't judge me.....even though I'm choosing to share them all with you here in this blog. :) And lastly, now that I actually am pregnant...it's funny to me to think about how worried I was about all of it. I thought worrying about becoming pregnant would be stressful....there's even more of a feeling of helplessness and being out of control of the situation once you know you are. And I hear it doesn't get much easier in the Worrying-And-Hoping-Everything's-Okay Department as a parent for the next 50 years either! :)

I peed on the stick.

10/31/11 - Happy Halloween!

Well I peed on the stick last week. Because I'm Positive Polly....I was just sure that the stick was wrong when it said "Not Pregnant." Or maybe I took it too early, yeah that's it. Well Positive Polly left on Sunday because her unwelcome Auntie decided to drop in. Boo. And mer.

I spent a couple of hormonal hours moping around and feeling sorry for myself before I changed my attitude. I mean really...this was the 2nd month of not not-trying. There are worse things happening in this world...stop being ridiculous. And I didn't EXACTLY expect it to happen right away. (Read: Yes, I totally did.) I'm just impatient when it comes to something I've made my mind up about. Then there's that stupid woman fear I have inside of me that maybe it will be difficult for Chad and I to conceive. Maybe this will be a long and hard road for us. Maybe the universe has a different plan for us. Blah blah negative things blah blah..... My momma (who I let in on the little secret) reminded me we're young and there's nothing to worry about. Chad always seems to be Positive Peter about everything so of course it didn't really phase him or at least he didn't act like it in front of me. haha. He also reminded me of our little motto "timing is everything" and I felt a lot better. We firmly believe had we started dating at a different time in our lives...we wouldn't have had the ending that we have now. Any sooner and we both would have given up before it even started and any later and I would have literally ran out of the country and across the world (to Australia to be specific) from a relationship. So I know something will happen for us when the time is right.

:)

I'm gonna pee on something.

10/26/11

This week I am going to pee on a stick and the magic stick will tell me if I'm going to be a mother in 9 months. Holy. Balls.

So as I mentioned in the first letter to myself, Chad and I are officially not-not trying to be pregnant. This fun game started last month. I was able to contain my excitement at that time and didn't pee on anything. (Sticks or otherwise.) Obviously I wasn't with child so here we are again. I'm having a very hard time being patient this time. :) According to my "calculations" I should technically be able to test and find out starting today (4 days before) but the longer we wait...the more accurate test I could get...so that's what I'm trying to be patient enough to do. Truth be told I peed on a stick last Sunday morning.....I couldn't freakin' wait another second about not knowing. It came back negative. Although it was actually too early to get an accurate reading anyway...(7 days before)....but hey, when a girl wants to pee on a stick she wants to pee on a stick! :)

Did I mention my parents are here visiting this week? They leave next Tuesday. Yeah, there is no way I would be able to keep that from them if we find out any exciting news before they leave. Besides I'm pretty sure my mom would be able to look in my eyes and just "know" the second that I know anyway. She's always been like that with everything....good and bad. She just knows things.

But here's the thing....I'm pretty sure there's nothing going on in there right now. Yeah yeah, I probably shouldn't know or feel any different at this point if there is anything going on (I haven't even "missed" anything) but still! I think I would know if a human is starting to form inside of me, right?! :) So weird. Here's to hoping something super exciting happens in my bathroom on Saturday morning. (If I can wait that long.) :)

xo