This year, one beautiful day in the month of my very own birth, Jeremy and i found out that we were pregnant.


Sitting there in the bathroom, waiting to find out what my fate would be before Jeremy returned home from work, my chest was filled with butterflies. How many women, whether hoping for a positive result or not, come face-to-face with this moment each and every day, their bodies nearly numb as that throng of emotions starts to take over? One life, or a pair of lives, forever changed by the presence of one or two pink lines on a stick.


Two pink lines.


I think my heart swelled, and my skin tingled, and my mouth went dry. Sounds like the symptoms of an illness, i know, but these were good symptoms. I was happy. I was BEYOND happy. I was ecstatic, and scared out of my mind.


Jeremy walked in within minutes, leaving me very little time to contemplate matters on my own - which i think was a good thing. We were thrilled...nervous...content...anxious. More than anything, it just felt surreal. Naturally, we spent time trying to let the news seep in. But pregnancy doesn't change your life too drastically until you start to grow and feel your baby moving inside you and suddenly you're ready to deliver. The first few months (unless you spend them hanging over the toilet, which i, thank God, did not) are spent doing the same old things you did before you got pregnant: Going to work, cooking meals, playing outside, etc. You often look at each other and wonder, "Is this really happening? Are we sure the test was accurate? Is there really something growing inside here?" Because you don't look much different, and if you're lucky like i was, you don't even FEEL different.


So you book your first appointment with an OB/GYN. I've done lots of reading about what to expect during each appointment, and i've talked to a lot of women who are pregnant or have been pregnant, and i've come to the conclusion that these appointments are simply different for everyone. I chose a midwife as my doctor, and i felt comfortable with her right away - which was a huge relief for me. She gave me a blood test and a urine test and a papsmear, and she felt my cervix...but she never actually told me i was pregnant! My husband and i left saying, "Well, she didn't say we're NOT pregnant..." which is kind of funny, but i wonder how many other women out there leave their first prenatal appointment without confirmation of their pregnancy!


Finally, four weeks (and 4.5lbs) later, we got our confirmation. We were supposed to have our first listen at the baby's heartbeat, which my midwife attempted to find with a Doppler device. This little instrument works just like a stethoscope, except you don't have to put it in your ears to hear. It's a little handheld box connected to what looks like a tiny microphone by a single wire. You lie down, the jelly-like stuff goes on your stomach, and your doctor rubs the microphone around, trying to locate the heartbeat. Except that MY doctor couldn't. She kept rolling the microphone all over my belly, saying "that's your heartbeat...that's yours...that's you too" until Jeremy started to look nervous. It didn't occur to me at this point that anything could be wrong or that nothing was in there (i kind of assumed it was just too tiny), but apparently it was occurring to him. My midwife informed us, however, that sometimes the uterus still hasn't risen above the pelvic bone this early, and that she would send us to the ultrasound technician. Now THAT was a lady i couldn't wait to meet!!


Her room was small and dark, and i'd never seen an ultrasound done before (maybe on TV, but you don't really pay attention to these things until they happen to you). The machine looked like a giant copy machine with a monitor on top. Onto another table, more jelly stuff, more microphone-rubbing. Suddenly, there it was...our baby, moving around on that computer screen like it was learning how to dance. "You've got an active child here," the technician said, "it's no wonder she couldn't find the heartbeat!" And Jeremy held my hand and we watched the screen in complete awe and adoration. Here was the little miracle we created together, alive and active and well. Bouncing up and down and kicking its tiny legs up in a pool of amniotic fluid. Oblivious to anything going on outside of its safe, secure, perfect little world. Completely unaware that we were watching it, and falling in love.


The picture we received doesn't do our baby justice. Nevertheless, i haven't stopped staring at it since it came home with us that day. It's the last thing i look at before falling asleep each night...which makes getting up every three hours to pee a whole lot easier to endure. :)