Surprise, Part 2

You know the saying, “When you make plans, God laughs?” That is currently the motto for this season of my life.

The dragon had been sick and I had been having symptoms of fatigue and an overall yucky feeling, so I assumed she had spread her toddler germs in my direction. The symptoms persisted and after doing a quick calendar check, I realized my period was (unusually) five days late.  

I thought for sure I had cancer.  Because this infertile body couldn’t get pregnant in my mind, so cancer was clearly the next feasible solution to a very late period.  It was early in the morning, and before heading downstairs, I dug out a lone pregnancy test I had leftover from our failed IVF cycle in May, with the plan to take it so when I called my doc the next to tell her I had cancer, I could also tell her I ruled out pregnancy (although, again, this was just a silly step that would prove fruitless). I took the test and then decided to clean up my bathroom while waiting for the inevitable blank window to show up as it had every single other time I had taken one in the past.  As I went to sweep it into the trashcan, I realized the window looked different than any times before.  There was a very dark, and stark, and immediate plus sign.  I dug the instruction manual out of the trash to make sure I wasn’t have an early morning hallucination, and swiveled my head between the positive pictures on the brochure and the clearly positive test in my other hand.  I was pregnant.

I ran downstairs shaking and found the Sir at the kitchen table.  In all honesty, he and I had been in a fight the evening before (#marriage) so the morning had up until that point been a bit frosty. As I stood in front of him, I honestly am surprised he understood my unintelligible, run on of a breathless sentence.

“I know that we were in a fight and angry but that was yesterday and I love you so much and that is over and I just took a pregnancy test, because I thought I had cancer, but I don’t have cancer, because it is positive.  The test is positive.”

The poor Sir looked at me blankly.  He later told me he thought I was so panicked and crazed because I had just found the Dragon hurt or dead upstairs…we apparently only come up with cancer or death over the possibility of pregnancy in our lives. I saw that he clearly hadn’t understood my eloquence so I thrust the positive test into his face.

“Babe, we’re pregnant.  We are going to have another baby.”

That next 60 seconds was the most raw joy I have ever felt.  We both just held each other and wept into each other’s shoulders as we faced the miracle before us. It was surreal and absolutely magical.

The next few hours were filled with a run for more pregnancy tests, which also immediately came up pregnant when I took them.  We reached out to a few close family and friends, celebrating and asking for prayer.  I sent a note to my doctor, asking for blood work to be done the next morning. We did a lot of staring at each other asking if this was really happening.

The following week, all three blood work results my elated doctor ordered for me came up positive for pregnancy.  My body started responding  by quickly becoming severely nauseated, 100% of the time (more on that in a future post). We bought the Dragon a  Big Sister book and she informed us the baby would be a girl, we would call that girl “Elsa,” and that Dragon would be the first and only person to hold the baby. We have had the privilege of seeing the baby multiple times on ultrasound, as it grows and changes.

And now we are 48 hours from Thanksgiving and I am 10.5 weeks pregnant, still quite a ways to go from our June due date. And even though I am still sick a good chunk of the day, my body is already changing in ways that I was not quite ready for, and we have a cross country move in between now and my delivery, my heart is so grateful to God that it is about to burst. 

This baby is a gift from God, just as our Dragon was (our first surprise).  And I can have a lifetime of Thanksgivings and never give God the thanks he deserves for each of those blessings.

I ended my last blog post with the idea that we would never be handed another baby…and God laughed and poured an unexpected and undeserved blessing into our lives. I have never naturally become pregnant and have also been doing nothing to stop pregnancy for six years, with no results.  But on October 13^th, God decided our lives would take an unexpected turn.

This June, someone will be handing us another baby.