I had been having some weird hormonal issues for the first part of the year and was working with a specialist who recommended trying a specific oil to help with the pain. She told me to start as soon as I knew I wasn’t pregnant and to check back with her three months later. That appointment was on a Wednesday. I took note and headed off to meet Greg on Oahu for the weekend.

When we got home from the trip I realized that the pain I’d had daily for months was gone over the weekend. Knowing that we’d narrowed the pain down to a hormonal issue, the thought that maybe we were pregnant popped in my mind, but I tried not to get too excited. (This is a post about this baby, but as a bit of explanation for “not getting too excited”, we experienced the loss of our first pregnancy during the holidays last year.)

Greg was leaving for a longer than usual work trip on Tuesday, so I decided to take a test Monday morning even though it was a littler earlier than recommended. I jumped in the shower without bothering to look at the results. I had seen a lot of negative tests over the previous 10 months and wasn’t expecting much. To my surprise, there were two lines looking back at me when I got out of the shower.

I didn’t really have a brilliant idea for telling Greg since I took the test last minute. I stuck it under his wallet then weirdly sat at my computer in my towel waiting for him to come upstairs and get his things for work. As he put two and two together, I snapped this picture of him. I kind of love that our “The Best Is Yet To Come” print is the background. That evening we took this amazing family photo of the three of us. Ha. I love our little family.

Because I was only four weeks when we found out, the wait until our first appointment felt like forever. We went in at just after eight weeks and had a great first appointment at our midwifery clinic. We started the appointment with a breakfast date and a selfie in the parking lot. Let’s hope the photo documentation thus far is not a sign of the photos to come in martian’s life.

I talked the midwife into letting us schedule an ultrasound (typically they would not have done one until twenty weeks given that the practice is a little more hands-off/non-intrusive). With a prior loss, I just really wanted to see a heartbeat to make it seem real and ease my worries. We went in the next day and saw a tiny, mini human bean with a great heartbeat. Talk about relief and excitement.

Telling our families was such a fun experience. Instead of waiting until we saw everyone in person we jumped on FaceTime later that night and went to town. We started with Mike since he is on East Coast time. Greg’s family was all shocked and it was fun to surprise everyone. We found out with the first call to my family (my brother and Brittany) that everyone already “knew” and were taking bets on when we’d let them in on the secret. Apparently not having a beer at my grandmother’s memorial was a sign of pregnancy! It was still fun to share and let the exciting news out to a few people.