I love surprises. I think their the greatest thing ever because it shows that someone has been thinking about you without you even knowing it. In my mind, when you surprise someone it is an expression of love as you’ve had to think about what the person would want & enjoy. It’s difficult to surprise someone you barely know, but sometimes even harder to surprise someone you really really know! It’s almost like you know too much about them to make a decision on what they’d like best. I think that’s why I love them so much. Because it shows that the surpriser has really put in some time and effort.

All of that being said – Brice is the TOTAL opposite. He HATES surprises, some might even describe it as loathes surprises. So now that you know these little tid bits about us, here’s how it went down.

In the midst of Brice finding out he was losing his job and searching for a new one, we had decided to put the baby making (but not practicing 😉 ) on hold. I kept waiting for aunt flow to make an appearance so we could begin preventing again, but two weeks came and went with not even a slight ‘hello old friend’.

We were sitting at the dinner table on a Friday night and I poured myself a nice, tall beer to drink with dinner. We finished dinner and I had only taken about 3 sips of my beer because there was something in the back of my mind that kept saying… preggo, preggo, preggo. Thankfully, it was a relaxing Friday evening at home, so Brice started watching TV and I went to the bathroom to take the biggest test of my life to date. Hands down those were 2 of the longest minutes of my life.

Other long 2 minutes include…

• Waiting at my job for my parents to bring the first of my adopted sisters home from the hospital
• The silence of my father after picking me up from a Florida college I had been kicked out of – which lasted much longer than 2 minutes.
• Walking down the wedding isle towards a smiling, teary-eyed Brice
• The final push to crest the crater rim of Mt. Rainier while holding hands with my life long adventure partner

My heart raced as I flipped over the pregnancy test. Positive. I re-read the directions to make sure I had read it correctly. Yep. Definitely pregnant. My heart was racing knowing that I couldn’t just walk into the next room and surprise Brice by telling him he was going to be a daddy. I went about the night as if nothing had changed. We climbed in bed with my mind racing – how was I going to tell Brice??? Could it be a false positive? I pulled up a new note on my phone, labeled it “Grocery List” because no one would ever check that, and started typing my thoughts. It read:

10.21 Friday – took a test tonight after dinner. I’m not ready. I’m not sure it’s real. Going to try again tomorrow. Feeling pretty neutral and surreal right now. I’m going to be fat in the summer. Totally throws off my whole – be big in the winter plans.

Obviously, I needed to throw in some humor so as not to totally freak out! If you don’t already know, I sometimes make jokes in uncomfortable situations or when I’m really unsure as to what to say/do next.

We woke up on Saturday and the first thing I did was take another test… positive again! Geez, can a girl get a break?? My mind stayed in a non-belief state as I just thought about how bad the timing was. With a full day ahead of us, we got ready and left the house. We spent the morning watching kids play soccer, and the afternoon walking through a pumpkin patch drinking hot apple cider. I saw so many kiddos having breakdowns over not getting the pumpkin they wanted, being scared to touch the goat, and running around the soccer fields screaming and yelling.

The reality of being pregnant right now was like getting a new bike on Christmas when you live in an apartment building with no driveway or garage and there’s 3 feet of snow on the ground. It’s something you had been wanting, and when you got it you were happy but bummed because you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it for a few months. Deep down you are secretly wishing you had gotten it 6 months earlier when summer was in full bloom, or wishing you hadn’t have received the bike until 6 months later when you were ready to play. All in all, you’re happy about the bike but the real excitement and joy hasn’t kicked in yet.

*He had nooooooo idea in this picture that this time next year, we’d need one more face hole!*

To be continued…