what i did on my summer vacation

Sometimes life has a way of sneaking up on you, changing your plans, and blowing your mind.

For most of my adult life, I have had pretty much zero interest in having kids. Don't get me wrong-- there are a lot of kids out there I really like, and a few that I absolutely love. My closest friends also happen to be amazing mothers and people I greatly respect. In fact, the vast majority of Joe's and my friends are parents of pretty awesome children and yet, still, the desire to be a mom never really overcame me. I have always gotten a ton of joy and satisfaction from my work, my loved ones, my ample amounts of personal time and freedom to do what I want, when I want, and where I want.

A couple years ago, things changed a little. Joe and I both started feeling that maybe we did, in fact, want a family. So, we planned on trying.... in the "near future." And then the "near future" got delayed, over and over again. Around my 40th birthday at the end of March, we decided that if we couldn't figure out when to TRY to get pregnant, maybe this whole kid thing wasn't really want we wanted. And so we decided to own the fact that we were kid-free and we liked it that way.

And then 2 days after our 10-year wedding anniversary celebration in mid June, we found out we were pregnant. And we were-- we ARE-- thrilled. Go figure.

I guess the universe had different ideas about our "plans."

























People continually ask if this was planned, if we'd been trying for awhile. The answers are no and no. But it wasn't entirely a shock either.

This is the part of the blog post where your personal beliefs about life and spirituality may conflict with mine and that's perfectly okay. I'm just sharing MY experience here, so do with it what you will.

Back on May 28th, while I was sitting in my basement, multi-tasking with media, (ie: watching tv and working on my laptop at the same time), I was suddenly overcome with a feeling-- a knowing-- so strong, I wrote it down in my planner. It was all about my relationship with Joe, about what we are working on in this life together, and the reasons we are together. And the last line of what I wrote was "We're meant to have a family."

I sat and stared at those words for a few minutes and then, out loud, said "Okay, if that's what's meant to happen, I'll be open to it, but I need some things to be in place to feel safe." And then I listed off my parameters, (I need to have a healthy pregnancy and baby, I need to not be traumatized by this whole experience, etc. You know, the usual.)

We conceived the next day.

I'm happy to say I've had a very uneventful pregnancy so far-- no morning sickness, no debilitating exhaustion, no cravings, no complications. However, it hasn't been a walk in the park either. My emotions have been, in a word, CRAZY. My digestion has totally changed, and not in a good way. I have been able to successfully exercise much of the time and yet, I am gasping for breath when I walk up a flight of stairs. This was shocking at first since I don't even have a baby bump yet, but apparently it's normal due to all the extra blood my body's making and trying to circulate. Crazy.

The hardest part, however, has been all the worrying. Despite the fact that everything has looked normal since day one, and my doctor has reassured me over and over and over again that I am very healthy, my fears of something horrible happening have been absolutely debilitating at times. It's been an incredibly eye-opening experience, and I don't like it. I don't want to be this person who is afraid of every little thing that could go wrong all the time. It sucks the joy out of every single moment. And, so that is my mission now-- to figure out how to have a little more trust, a little more faith that things are okay.

For now, though, I'm just going to focus on this photo.

(PS- I promise to be back soon with work related photos and stories! And travel! There's lots of that coming up. Stay tuned...)