Miracle in My Belly

I have been waiting so long to announce that Johnathan and I are expecting our first child! Right now I am about 8 weeks, and my due date is January 15, 2011!

So here's the… short story:

After 10 years of birth control I knew it might take a few months for my cycle to regulate. I went off the pill in December, and knew it might take a while to conceive. It took a few months, but I am so happy to say that the wait was completely worth it! If this process has taught me anything it is that I must have patience, and remember that God is in control. His timing isn't always our timing, and it's so sweet when His gifts are given to us.

On May 6th, Wednesday night, Johnathan went to work. I can't explain it, but I woke up in the middle of the night (5am) just feeling, well, different. I took a test, completely expecting and ready for it to be negative. Well, I'm impatient, so instead of walking away and waiting for the stick to show a line, I stared at it and watched the lines appear. Holy crap! LINES appeared... two of them, one almost as dark as the control line. I immediately started shaking, heart pounding, and couldn't take my eyes off of it. I grabbed my phone, took a picture of it, and sent it to Johnathan with a text message saying, "Good Morning Daddy!" His reply was, "is that real?" haha! Later he told me that he almost started crying. All I could think of was, calm down, you have to calm down. I tried to go back to sleep, and that was a joke... there was no sleeping after that.

Again, here is where God's timing works out perfect. Sunday was Mother's Day and my mother's birthday. I had planned a spa day with my sister and mom for Saturday. Before then I had thought through various fun ways that I would announce my pregnancy to my family, but this couldn't be more perfect. Johnathan and I decided before we started trying that we would only tell our mothers and my sister early on, and wait to tell the rest of the world after I had been to the doctor. So, I bought mother's day cards for my mom and sister, put similar messages in the cards, and wrote in the last line of the message something to the effect of, "we'll find out what kind of mother I will be in January!" Needless to say, there were hugs, kisses, and a ton of excitement!

Johnathan wanted to tell his mother in person too. So Friday night we drove up to Winston-Salem to see her "for Mother's Day." Shortly after we arrived we told her and John the good news. There were tears and a somewhat bittersweet moment because Johnathan’s dad used to always talk about us having children, and we all wished he was still here. Then, Johnathan’s mom tells us that she was hoping, and had even mentioned to John a few weeks ago, that we would tell her we are having a baby for Mother’s Day. Again, what timing! God works in mysterious, but wonderful ways!

Johnathan and I decided to keep it a secret until we had our first doctor's visit... which was yesterday.  The baby checked out great... once we saw it's tiny heart beating we both breathed a sigh of relief.