expecting

On Wednesday the 9th I took a home pregnancy test first thing in the morning. I left it on the bathroom counter and did a couple of things to get the house ready before getting Malakai out of bed. I went back to the test real quick, expecting it to be negative like the one I had done just a week before, but was completely surprised by what I saw. A plus sign.

When we found out I was pregnant with our first, Malakai, it was a weekend and Ben checked the test with me. This time, he was at work. I was so filled with excitement and disbelief. I went in to tell Malakai that he's going to be a big brother. Then I agonized all day over how to tell Ben when he got home. I wanted to do something special and creative, something different. We only have one car, which Ben takes to work, so I was limited to what was in our house.

I finally figured something out and waited until Malakai's afternoon nap to put it all together. I decided to mimic the reveal after Ben's proposal (a story I'll share here in detail some day). I set up a stuffed animal he had bought me when we were dating, Gregory the elephant, with the first note.

Next was one of Malakai's first toys, Gaffe the giraffe, with the second note.

Last was this box, with a note inside...

and the pregnancy tests. (I took a 2nd one that afternoon to really confirm the positive result).

I couldn't wait for him to come home, the anticipation was killing me! He didn't even notice set up on our dining room table at first, I had to point it out. I had the camera ready and took a few photos as he read each note. He had an excited grin on his face, but he wasn't quite sure what to expect.

When he read the last note he asked "four?" and I said, "yeah, the 3 of us plus 1 more equals 4..." and then he smiled big and said sweetly "you're pregnant!"and got up to hug me.

Hindsight is almost always 20/20. We looked back on some of the signs, although they were a bit different than last time. The biggest thing is how dead tired I've been, but we just figured it was my nasty chest cold and the fact that I lift + chase a 27 lb. toddler all day. I haven't felt nauseous but with Kai I didn't feel it until 7 weeks, so I'm not thinking we're in the clear for "morning" sickness yet. I am already having some nasty round-ligament pains, worse than the first time around, which doesn't make sense to me.

I know it's early to make the big announcement, we're estimating I'm at about 6 weeks. We decided that this time around, if something were to go wrong we'd rather have the support of those we love and care about rather than keep our excitement a secret for 12 weeks.

My first appointment is this afternoon. We're really hoping for an early ultrasound since a number of things make figuring out the due date a bit more difficult this time around. As of now, it's October 7th, 2011.