Surprise!

Several weeks ago after returning from my family's place for our pre-Thanksgiving gathering, I knew I better take a pregnancy test. We weren't exactly planning on being pregnant, but all the signs were there--I was late and had been especially tired and hungry lately.

Much to my surprise, we are indeed pregnant. Many emotions ran through my head those first several days. How will I make it through the rest of the year teaching? Is this really fair to Ethan? We really enjoy just being with him and now he'll have to share us. What will I do with two kids under the age of two? We'll have to buy another crib and we'll have two little ones in diapers! What will our parents think?! Won't they be surprised! I even had a dream that I was pregnant and not married, and then I woke up and laughed and realized there was nothing wrong about having another baby--lots of people have kids even closer together than 20 months, and they all say they actually prefer it that way! Besides, we had always planned on having our kids close together. Even right after Ethan was born, I thought to myself how fun it will be to do this all over again with our next baby.

Since the initial shock, we have gotten used to the idea. Several weeks ago we shared the news with our parents. Gabe and Karen were especially surprised, more in a shocked and stunned sort of way, might I add. Well, they had always encouraged us to make them more grandchildren, so I guess we showed them. ha ha. I thought my mom would be more surprised, too, but she was happy and understanding. She kind of thought it was funny, in a way, because my two oldest brothers are about 21 months apart, as well.

Back in October my staff had an overnight conference and while we were there Gabe led a funny activity that involved goofy things from the dollar store. One of the things was a pregnancy test and whoever drew the item out of the bucket didn't need it, so Karen brought it home for me. I left it on the counter in our kitchen. Tim saw it one morning and thought about it all day long. Finally, over dinner he asked, "What's the deal with that pregnancy test? Is there something you need to tell me?" Ha, ha. I laughed. "Oh, no. That's just from our conference" and I told him the whole story. Well, we had a good laugh and I told some of my friends at school about it the next day.

Well, not even a week later I had to use that pregnancy test, and I assure you that it worked just fine, despite it not even coming from a real drug store.

This week was my 10-week dr.'s appointment, and everything looked good. I could see that tiny little heart fluttering. Pregnancy is a good time for me. I'm almost to the end of the queasy feeling and soon I won't have to go to bed at 8 o'clock every night.