From faint to dark

It's taken me a lot to get to this point.

Over three months of panic, worry and completely trying to (unsuccessfully of course) detach myself from the feelings of complete and utter love and excitement that I undoubtedly feel...trying to avoid the possibility of terrible heartache once again.

Because...I'm pregnant.

It's taken me a lot of courage to even start telling people this time, because when you have a miscarriage (at least for me) it somehow feels like if you acknowledge the pregnancy, speak of it, or allow yourself to fall so completely in love with this little being as you always do..it might be taken away from you again.

But I'm over three months pregnant now and after seeing our three month ultrasound and watching our sweet little baby bouncing around and watching that flicker of his/her heartbeat, I feel like I'm finally able to let my guard down now. I feel like I can breathe again. And I can't even begin to tell you how excited Terry and I are.

I still remember it like it was yesterday--the day that we found out.

We had just put the kids to bed, back at our old house, and I started to sneak back upstairs to quietly take another pregnancy test, when I heard Terry coming up the stairs behind me.

"I'm going to take another one" I said to him.

And I snuck into the bathroom, pretending that I was fine with whatever the test might say...preparing myself for another negative result.

So when I glared at that little stick, watching one line quickly appear...and then nothing else, I slumped myself over and took myself back downstairs, telling Terry that it was negative again. And he hugged me, reassured me that one day we'd see those two beautiful little lines and that we'll just have to be patient.

I hoped that he was right.

So I went back upstairs to throw the test in the garbage, but as I took one last look at that little line I thought I might actually be losing my mind--because I swear I might have seen an incredibly incredibly faint second line now.

"WHAT?!" I said right out loud.

And I grabbed that little test right off the bathroom counter and held it so close to my eyeballs that it started to go blurry. Then I held it up to the light---oh my gosh, still a very faint second line. So I ran into our bedroom, convincing myself that I might have actually just willed my eyes to see this extra line that I wanted to see so badly...and I held it up to our bedroom light and squinted my eyes, not believing what I was actually seeing.

A SECOND FAINT LINE. I'm not crazy.

So I ran downstairs, almost falling on the way down since my legs were moving faster than I could even keep up with...and I swung myself around the corner to the living room where Terry was, waving that little test above my head.

"There's a faint line!" I said. "I swear...I see it".

And I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to the light.

"Look!" I said,  "It's right there...squint your eyes, you'll see it too".

So he took that little test in his hands, and tried to see what I swear I saw.

He smiled for a second, then quickly got serious. "I don't know honey", he said, "I kind of see it I think, but I'm worried about getting too excited right now, because what if it's not actually positive? I don't want us to be disappointed if it's not true".

So I ran upstairs and took another one of course.

Same deal.

So we waited another day, and I think I took a million tests after that, each of them progressively getting darker and darker second lines.

So it was real. It was true.

And finally that last perfect little ultrasound proved it.

We're having another baby.

Erica xo