Announcing Your Pregnancy II
I wanted to tell you the story about how I told my fiancé that we were expecting..... We had decided in May that we wanted to try to have a child together. I was taking birth control pills at the time and had to discontinue using them. My fiancé took me for a drive and wouldn't tell me where we were headed. We arrived at the lakefront. He turned off the car's engine and we both got out. I got out first and decided to leave my purse in the car, figuring that we would be by the water and I didn't want it to get wet. He asked me about my purse and I told him that I thought I would leave it behind and just lock the doors to the car. He leaned back inside and told me that he was going to slide it under the seat so it wasn't as noticeable to passers-by. We walked on the sand and arrived at a long pier. We walked down to the end of the pier and it started to rain a little.....just a light mist. It was a nice day but it had been a little overcast most of the early afternoon. The rain stopped very quickly and my fiancé told me to take his hand, he wanted me to climb down off the pier and onto the large rocks below. There were several that made good chair-like places to sit. I took his hand and climbed down after him. When we were both settled, he reached into his pocket and took something out. I noticed the color of it first..it was pink....and immediately realized it was the case containing my birth control pills. He looked over at me and smiled. He told me he had wanted to get rid of those pills and make it official that we were going to remove any barriers to having a child together. He took the pills and threw them as far as he could out into the lake. We watched together as the little pink packet floated away...until we couldn't see it anymore. He leaned over and kissed me. It was a wonderfully romantic gesture and I didn't think that anything could make that moment more special to me. I was wrong. Just as we broke the kiss, the sun shone down through the clouds and a rainbow appeared overhead. It was huge and very vibrant! We were both thrilled by how beautiful and colorful it was. All of a sudden my fiancé got very excited and pointed out a second rainbow a little way off from the first! It wasn't as large but it was clearly visible and very beautiful as well. That moment was to become very significant to us months later in a way that neither of us could have predicted.... From that day in May, we hoped each month that we would conceive a child. May, June, July, August and still no luck. My fiancé was getting discouraged and started to question whether or not there wasn't something wrong...most likely with him. I tried to reassure him that everything was going to be alright and that it might take a little bit of time before all the artificial hormones flushed themselves out of my system after taking those pills for so long. I knew that what I said didn't really take away the disappointment we were both feeling but it was entirely possible that I was accurate. September, October and still nothing. I was a little discouraged myself by this time and I decided that maybe I was jinxing us by thinking about having a baby so often and wanting it so much. I told my fiancé I felt that way and said that I wasn't going to focus on it anymore....and just let whatever happened happen. I put the thought of conceiving in the back of my mind as far as I could..it wasn't easy! I had been keeping track of my cycles on a calendar and I knew the exact day that I should begin my menstral cycle each month. Well, finally in November my cycle didn't start on the day it should have. I also didn't feel any cramping or back pain like I usually did around this time. I was afraid to get my hopes up again so I said nothing to my fiancé about being late. One day, two days, three days went by and nothing! I couldn't stand it anymore! I couldn't control the urge to go to the pharmacy and buy a pregnancy test kit. My fiancé took me to work that morning and as soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I ran across the street to the pharmacy there and bought the kit. When I got back to work, I took it into the bathroom and followed the directions carefully. It didn't take long and I watched that all-important second little blue line appear in the window confirming that I was finally pregnant!!! It was so hard not to shout with joy at that moment!! But I didn't want my employee's (I was the manager of a convenience store at that time) to know anything and I naturally wanted my fiancé to be the first person that I told. It took a couple minutes to get my excitement under control enough to leave that bathroom! We had wanted this baby so badly!! Now, to tell Daddy!!!! A few months earlier I had had a false alarm and believed that I was pregnant. At that time I had started planning the way that I wanted to tell my fiancé that he was going to be a Daddy. Well, now I could finally put that plan into action! But that required that I return home to get a little "package" that I had carefully hidden in my side of our bedroom closet. My fiancé had driven me to work that morning so I had to borrow one of my employee's cars and drive the one mile distance back to our house to get my little package. I wasn't gone very long. I returned to the store and went into my office. I knew that my fiancé would return to my store to have lunch with me before he had to start his own job that afternoon and I didn't have much time left! I opened the package to make sure that everything was still there after all this time. I had purchased a baby bib that said "I Love Daddy" on the front of it. I also had made him an adorable greeting card by using our computer at home...it had little baby footprints on the front of it and a personal message inside from me telling him that we were going to have a baby. I had placed these two things inside a gift bag made for a baby gift. I also decided that I was going to include the positive pregnancy test inside my little package for him! I knew he would want to see for himself after waiting all these months! Earlier, back in May, I had anticipated that we would conceive sometime during the summer months which was part of my plan for that little package. I had wanted to drive to the park on my own, hide the package somewhere in a secluded wooded area away from the public area of the park, and then take my fiancé there to find it. I was going to make a series of little notes and hide them in the park as well, one note leading to another with clues that would finally lead him right to the package. Well, I was at work and that plan wasn't going to happen. So I decided to improvise. Some landscaping had just been done behind my store....there was a small woods back there and part of them had been cleared to form a lawn-type picnic area. It was November and thankfully there was no snow around yet! It was a sunny day with only a slight breeze. I took the gift bag and placed it inside a slightly larger brown paper bag and stapled the brown bag shut. On the outside I wrote my fiancé's name in red marker and drew a huge heart around it. I walked outside the store toward the back wooded area to find the perfect place to hide it. There it was! There was a tree along the lawn's edge that was distinctive. It was growing at a complete angle to the other trees and easy to pick out from the others. I placed the brown bag right along side the tree and went back into the store and waited in my office for my fiancé to return for our daily lunch. It seemed like forever but it was probably only about 45 minutes later that he arrived. I heard his voice as he greeted my employee's before entering my office. I tried to make sure that nothing showed on my face as he came thru the door. I smiled at him and he came over and kissed me. He talked to me about something (until this day I truly don't know what that was!) as I was waiting patiently to tell him about his surprise. When he finished talking, I told him I had boughten something for him. We exchanged little gifts with each other all the time so this wasn't totally out of the ordinary. I told him I had hidden his gift and where he could find it. He looked at me a little oddly this time.....I usually just handed his surprises to him and to have to go searching for one was pretty unusual. He left my office and I watched him thru the glass windows as he left the building and rounded the corner to the backyard. I couldn't resist following him because I wanted desperately to see the look on his face as he opened the package and saw what was inside! I snuck around the corner of the building just in time to see him open the brown bag and pull out the card I had placed inside. As he started to read the card, I saw the expression on his face as his eyebrows went up and his mouth dropped open. I cleared my throat so he would see me standing there and he looked up at me with tears in his eyes. The first words he said were, "Are you sure!!??" I said, "Yes, I'm sure....look inside the gift bag and you will find the pregnancy test that I just took this morning." He never got that far....pure joy washed over him and he dropped to his knees as tears of joy streamed down his face! I rushed over to him and hugged him to my tummy and kissed the top of his sweet head!! I gently pulled at him so he knew I wanted him to stand up....he did and he kissed me deeply and held me so close it felt like we had melted together! We have shared many very special moments in our relationship but I knew that this one would be one of the most precious....one we would tell our grandchildren about someday. Remember earlier in this story when I told you that that "double" rainbow we saw over the lake would become especially significant to us later on? Well, at our first ultrasound when we were 17 weeks pregnant, my fiancé and I were watching the screen as the technician told us that we were expecting twins!! There on the screen were our two precious babies, our "double rainbows"! My fiancé calls them his "punkins" and my tummy his little "punkin patch". Our babies are due sometime in July.....July 29th to be exact if we reach the 40 week mark. I have never been more in love in my whole life.....I'll have to make sure to email you again after our "punkins" are born to tell you what our little "double rainbows" turn out to be...boys or girls or both. *smile*
At Christmas my mom had given us an ornament for the Christmas tree that read "Baby's First Christmas" so we could hang it next year on our tree. Well, when we found out about the twins, my fiancé called my mom right away at work to tell her the good news because he couldn't wait!! He called her direct number to her office and when she answered the phone he said, "Mom, remember that ornament you bought us for the baby next Christmas? Well, do you think you could possibly find another one exactly like it? We're going to need two of them...." I was listening on the other phone when I heard my mom repeatedly say with total joy in her voice, "Don't you tell me that, don't you tell me that!!" And then she started to shout it to all her employee's that her daughter was going to have twins!! She was so excited!! And then suddenly she said, "How in the world am I going to find another matching ornament like that one!!?? I bought that months ago!!" We both laughed and told her we were just kidding. If one of our babies turns out to be a girl, we are giving her my mom's name as her middle name to honor my mom. My fiancé lost his mom 3 years ago. He and his mother were very close! We have decided that, if we have a girl, our daughters' first name will be his mom's middle name. She will honor both of her grandma's.
My husband and I found out we were pregnant one week before Easter. We decided to send Easter cards to everyone from the baby. We sent cards to Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt and Uncle. They were all signed from the baby. They were all thrilled and the greatest bonus was that they all called us; we didn't have to call anyone and give the news.
At work my husband sent an e-mail to his closest friends introducing a new member on the volleyball court; however, he/she wouldn't be of much assistance.
Jama
Since Mother's Day is around the corner, I purchased "Grandma's Brag book" photo albums for the Grandma's to be, they will be sent, along with are card from "Baby F" saying see you in November. For the Great Grandmas to be I have purchased "From Grandmother with Love" book, which the grandmother can tell/write the story of their lives, along with a card from "Baby F". I figure between them they will spread the info to the rest of the family. I love the fact that I am 13 wks and Mother's Day is this weekend. The timing could not have been better.
