I started feeling pretty nostalgic this morning. It might just be the pregnancy hormones, but I saw a commercial for a pregnancy test and started to feel all warm and fuzzy inside, thinking back to 7 months ago.
I found out that I was pregnant super early. Keith and I had been trying for a few months, and I had been reading quite a bit about the early signs and symptoms of pregnancy. I had my first sign about 10 or so days after my period (this is super early, but at the risk of providing too much information, which I have already done several times in this blog, I have a really short cycle, which adjusts the time tables for everything associated with early pregnancy). There is something called implantation bleeding where the fertilized egg implanting in the uterine wall causes a teensy bit of bleeding. I noticed this and got really excited. In fact, one of my friends facebooked me around that time (after bleeding, before pregnancy test) and I told her that I thought I might be pregnant, but it was too early to take a pregnancy test so I wouldn't know for about another week. It turns out I was right!
I became a little bit OCD with pregnancy tests. I calculated the amount of time it would take for pregnancy hormones to reach detectable levels (hormone levels double daily), added that to the day that I started bleeding, and decided that would be a good first day to take a pregnancy test. However, I was too impatient for that, so the day before the day that I had come up with from my calculations I took a pregnancy test. It was negative. But that didn't discourage me. I went out and bought another box of tests and decided I would retest the next day (the day that I had calculated). The next day (two Tuesdays before Mother's Day) I took another pregnancy test. It was around noon, and after 2 minutes the test was negative. But after 10 minutes the test was maybe positive. The problem with this is that you are supposed to read the test in a certain window because if you wait too long to read it you can get a false positive. So I decided that I would test again the next day. I didn't quite make it to the next day. I made it until about 6 pm before I became impatient enough to test again. That time, the test looked maybe positive after about 5 minutes (the line was faint). Once again, I was out of pregnancy tests, and didn't have a definitive answer. I decided that I was having too much trouble reading the tests with the little lines, so I would get some digital tests. But then I was worried that the digital tests wouldn't work right, so I also bought some more of the tests with the little lines. I retested the next day on one of the digital tests and it said "Pregnant!" Then I wanted to confirm the test, so I took another test with the little lines. Both lines showed up! (Yes, you counted correctly. At this point I had taken 5 tests.)
I decided it was time to go shopping!!! Mother's Day was only 2.5 weeks away and I had some soon-to-be grandmas to shop for!!! I made my way to Halmark to see if they had any good grandma items. I found countdown calendars that said "XX Weeks Till I'm A Grandma." I figured that would be a good way to announce my pregnancy!
Then I went home because I had to prepare to tell Keith. I had already bought a couple of baby items that I was going to wrap up. I was going to have Keith open the present and gather from the items in the box that he was going to be a daddy. I had purchased some baby fire boots (Keith is a volunteer firefighter whenever we go home to visit his parents, and has been for years) and put them on the feet of a little baby Eeyore stuffed animal. I made a trifold diaper for Eeyore and put him in the box.
Keith came home that night, opened the gift, and didn't understand right away. He looked a little confused regarding why I bought him a stuffed animal and fire boots. I think he may have been in disbelief, and just hadn't let it sink it what a stuffed animal and miniature shoes might mean. I told him that he was going to be a dad. :-)
A couple of days later, Keith's parents came into town. We decided to tell them on Saturday night by giving Keith's mom her mother's day gift. But before we told them I decided that I wanted to take another pregnancy test, just to be sure. Early in pregnancy, you never know what might happen, and I didn't want to tell Keith's mom that she was going to be a grandma and then her not become one. But test number 6 was still positive! We gave her the gift, she opened it, and said to Big Guy (Keith's dad), "I told you so!" Apparently by taking a 3 hour nap Friday afternoon, and then shopping with Lou (Keith's mom) and mentioning that I had been craving pickles (a normal craving for me when not pregnant...sometimes you need a little low calorie salty snack) she had decided that I was pregnant. I told my mom in a similar way on mother's day, and I told my dad and his wife by sending them a book about going to grandma and grandpa's.
I wasn't done with the pregnancy tests, however. I scheduled a doctors appointment for when I was 4.5 weeks pregnant in order to get a blood test done to confirm that I was pregnant. But before going to the doctor I wanted to make sure that I was still pregnant. So then came pregnancy tests 7 and 8. Yes, during the month that I found out that I was pregnant, I took 8 pregnancy tests. But I figured that I might as well use them up since pregnancy tests have an expiration date, and I was pretty confident that we wouldn't try to have another baby before they expired.
So that's the story of how Keith, his parents, my parents, our siblings and I found out about Baby Gwen.
I found out that I was pregnant super early. Keith and I had been trying for a few months, and I had been reading quite a bit about the early signs and symptoms of pregnancy. I had my first sign about 10 or so days after my period (this is super early, but at the risk of providing too much information, which I have already done several times in this blog, I have a really short cycle, which adjusts the time tables for everything associated with early pregnancy). There is something called implantation bleeding where the fertilized egg implanting in the uterine wall causes a teensy bit of bleeding. I noticed this and got really excited. In fact, one of my friends facebooked me around that time (after bleeding, before pregnancy test) and I told her that I thought I might be pregnant, but it was too early to take a pregnancy test so I wouldn't know for about another week. It turns out I was right!
I became a little bit OCD with pregnancy tests. I calculated the amount of time it would take for pregnancy hormones to reach detectable levels (hormone levels double daily), added that to the day that I started bleeding, and decided that would be a good first day to take a pregnancy test. However, I was too impatient for that, so the day before the day that I had come up with from my calculations I took a pregnancy test. It was negative. But that didn't discourage me. I went out and bought another box of tests and decided I would retest the next day (the day that I had calculated). The next day (two Tuesdays before Mother's Day) I took another pregnancy test. It was around noon, and after 2 minutes the test was negative. But after 10 minutes the test was maybe positive. The problem with this is that you are supposed to read the test in a certain window because if you wait too long to read it you can get a false positive. So I decided that I would test again the next day. I didn't quite make it to the next day. I made it until about 6 pm before I became impatient enough to test again. That time, the test looked maybe positive after about 5 minutes (the line was faint). Once again, I was out of pregnancy tests, and didn't have a definitive answer. I decided that I was having too much trouble reading the tests with the little lines, so I would get some digital tests. But then I was worried that the digital tests wouldn't work right, so I also bought some more of the tests with the little lines. I retested the next day on one of the digital tests and it said "Pregnant!" Then I wanted to confirm the test, so I took another test with the little lines. Both lines showed up! (Yes, you counted correctly. At this point I had taken 5 tests.)
I decided it was time to go shopping!!! Mother's Day was only 2.5 weeks away and I had some soon-to-be grandmas to shop for!!! I made my way to Halmark to see if they had any good grandma items. I found countdown calendars that said "XX Weeks Till I'm A Grandma." I figured that would be a good way to announce my pregnancy!
Then I went home because I had to prepare to tell Keith. I had already bought a couple of baby items that I was going to wrap up. I was going to have Keith open the present and gather from the items in the box that he was going to be a daddy. I had purchased some baby fire boots (Keith is a volunteer firefighter whenever we go home to visit his parents, and has been for years) and put them on the feet of a little baby Eeyore stuffed animal. I made a trifold diaper for Eeyore and put him in the box.
Keith came home that night, opened the gift, and didn't understand right away. He looked a little confused regarding why I bought him a stuffed animal and fire boots. I think he may have been in disbelief, and just hadn't let it sink it what a stuffed animal and miniature shoes might mean. I told him that he was going to be a dad. :-)
A couple of days later, Keith's parents came into town. We decided to tell them on Saturday night by giving Keith's mom her mother's day gift. But before we told them I decided that I wanted to take another pregnancy test, just to be sure. Early in pregnancy, you never know what might happen, and I didn't want to tell Keith's mom that she was going to be a grandma and then her not become one. But test number 6 was still positive! We gave her the gift, she opened it, and said to Big Guy (Keith's dad), "I told you so!" Apparently by taking a 3 hour nap Friday afternoon, and then shopping with Lou (Keith's mom) and mentioning that I had been craving pickles (a normal craving for me when not pregnant...sometimes you need a little low calorie salty snack) she had decided that I was pregnant. I told my mom in a similar way on mother's day, and I told my dad and his wife by sending them a book about going to grandma and grandpa's.
I wasn't done with the pregnancy tests, however. I scheduled a doctors appointment for when I was 4.5 weeks pregnant in order to get a blood test done to confirm that I was pregnant. But before going to the doctor I wanted to make sure that I was still pregnant. So then came pregnancy tests 7 and 8. Yes, during the month that I found out that I was pregnant, I took 8 pregnancy tests. But I figured that I might as well use them up since pregnancy tests have an expiration date, and I was pretty confident that we wouldn't try to have another baby before they expired.
So that's the story of how Keith, his parents, my parents, our siblings and I found out about Baby Gwen.
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