This blog post is part of a series that I began for telling our story. You can read the first post here.

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We had assumed for years at that point that pregnancy was impossible. We had pretty much given up, after attempts at fertility help and everything, we just assumed this was it for us. As most of you know, we had lost our son, Jonah, to stillbirth in 2003. In 2009 while we lived in Ohio, I’d had a miscarriage the day after taking a positive pregnancy test. By this point, we had resigned ourselves to being childless and moved on.

And then while walking through Walmart with my sister, I started to count days and realized that it had been far longer than normal… I told her and her face lit up for the first time since the accident. We bought a pregnancy test and I made a plan to take it first thing in the morning (as the instructions tell you to do). I also told my husband over the phone about my suspicions that evening. He was hanging out with his best friend who had come to visit from New York, so it was a lot of late nights for him while my mornings started extremely early. Even though we were in the same time zone, it felt like we were hours apart on the clock.

The next morning, I woke and did my thing… and the result was positive. So I called my husband – no answer. I kept calling. No answer. I contemplated heading downstairs, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide my expression from my sister, and it just seemed wrong to tell her before telling him. So I kept calling.

Finally, I called his best friend’s wife, who was in New York with their son (he had taken the trip alone), and asked her to call his cell phone and have him wake up my husband. Sometimes drastic measures are needed! Finally, my husband called me and I shared the news with him. We were thrilled!

I also shared the news with my parents and sister, who were all excited for us. But now my ability to be helpful had shifted. I couldn’t lift things. Technically I shouldn’t have been anyway, but now I could not help. It also explained the nausea I had experienced at camp and on the road, and even the bloody nose at the hospital. Suddenly these weird symptoms fit into place. I also understood why I had been so exhausted for the past few weeks.

This was on a Saturday, and my parents’ church had Saturday evening services as well as Sunday morning. We opted to go to church that evening since my sister had a hard time in the mornings. To my horror, my dad announced TO HIS WHOLE CONGREGATION about the pregnancy. Prior to that moment, it was only immediately family who knew. I would have preferred to share with our congregation first, but that’s how things go.

My husband drove to Nebraska sometime the beginning of the next week, although I’m not sure when. He drove straight through, which was about a 12 hour drive. The next day we drove back as far as Oklahoma City, and then finished the drive home the following day.

My summer had gone from teaching/daycare to family emergencies to preparing for a baby. At each point along the way, I remember thinking to myself that I would get organized at home and settled in once life calmed down. We were starting to learn that life would not calm down anytime soon…

Next post coming tomorrow.