Secrets Don’t Make Friends..So Out With It!

Here you have it:

The night we found out we were going to be a mama and a daddy Kayla was actually on her way over to the house… (7 minutes away to be exact)! For those of you who are not so smart like Alex and I.. a word of advice “don’t take a pregnancy test when your friends are on their way to your house if you don’t plan on sharing it!”

We actually made up an excuse for her to take our pic so we could remember it as the night we found out!

Alex was terribly giddy that night, I kept telling him to “table it” and be in control of his thoughts but he made “little comments” all night long about a baby! I couldn’t believe Kayla didn’t hear him or catch on! Whew! 

After she left it was back to OH MY GOD is this for real!!??!! Telling Tucker and Milly!

Lou was so excited he couldn’t wait to buy a “mommy” related card the very next day! Which is also when the sleepless nights began for us (everyone warned us they come when the baby gets here but now about the lack of sleep you get due to the excitment of the whole idea!!) By now we are used to functioning without sleep!

We had many baby hurdles to cross keeping this a little secret since we decided not to tell anyone until after we were for sure, for sure… I had to explain myself a lot regarding why we waited so long to shout it out to the world and although i have always known these things about myself I never realized how rare it was to think this way…

A) It was way too good to be true and came so easy for us, I wanted to get pregnant this summer and have a February baby but I literally thought that was way too controlling of a thought and was too embarrassed to even sound that vein so i rarely ever even voiced it out loud…… the freaking child is Due in February people, come on!

B) Both our parents as well as  Alex’s sister had struggled with infertility at one point and many of our friends currently are as well so we had always hidden away that this too would be our issue….

C) We also felt and still feel (but even more now!) that our life is too good to be true plain and simple. It doesn’t help that I work with mom’s who have had trauma after trauma in their life and in my mind (as many of you have often heard me discuss) why do they get dealt 2874594857 traumatic horrific things to them and I get none? I hate being this way (survivors guilt i suppose) but I’m not even sure if it’s a pessimistic life style or a grateful life style… either way I’m finally just trying to soak up all this goodness and go with it!

Anyway back to our first hurdle, surviving Tara’s birthday weekend in Hilton Head (filled with drinkable opportunities) without letting anyone noticing me not drinking! How in the hell would I fake this!?!?!?

Get ready to drink up Lou! I ordered drinks and forced, yes forced Lou to suck them down all night “I don’t care if you don’t want it, hurry up and drink while they aren’t looking!”

Whew! We survived that weekend and were off to St. Thomas for our first “baby moon”- Minnicks’ Party of 3!

Would ya look at what the room came equipped with?!?!? The marriot has ESP!

  There’s a baby in there!

Our last day there we decided to buy a bottle of Grand Dad liquor for my parents as our way of telling them… this was the way they told moms parents when she was pregnant!

You know i love a tradition! We came home and  unpacked our bottle of Grand Dad and ran downstairs to share the news… AKA give them their souvenirs..

This was our “AHHHHHHHH we are really about to do this!”

Screen shot from our video of telling mom and dad, they were hilarious and over the moon!

  Grand parents to be… getting over their shock!

Leave it to mom and dad to make a celebration out of it!!

Her first book from grama and grampa!   Our little peanut’s first souvenir from our first “family trip” all together!

Officially, Official!! We are having a baby!

The due date was not what we originally thought… I ended up being less far along as i thought which made me 5 and a half weeks WHICH  put us into the month of February!! How perfect….it’s actually February 2nd, Pop-pop’s birthday! Does it get any better!!?!?!?   At this point I still had a normal appetite so out to eat to celebrate we go!

Lou had to stop for one thing on the way home…. pre-natal vitamins!  That boy.

I switched doctors after that first appointment confirmation (and after going patient advocate nuts on them and laying into them about how each appointment should be special, unique and specific to the client) but no worries they promised me they would call a staff meeting to address all of my concerns with their staff and I found a better doctors office anyway!

Our 8 week appointment, the first thing they looked at Alex and I and said was; “Congratulations, your going to have a beautiful baby!”

Now that’s more like it!  We celebrate each appointment with a mini date before Lou goes back to work! This one involved ice cream!

Our 9 week appointment and we have pictures!!

Our chalkboard is complete in time for week 9 to start documenting weekly updates!

  Oh yes and our board came in handy to tell Kayla!

“We’re having A baby”.

Our 12 week doctors appointment and we are so ready to tell the world!!

Telling the world made everything so much more real and was so exciting! I have so many videos of each of these moments thankfully even us “going viral” which is quite hilarious! 

This was our 16 week appointment, yay for 4 months and hearing that sweet girls heartbeat chugging along!

This little girl in the magazine was just too cute with her little belly and I felt the same way so Lou had to snap a picture of us and our bellies!

It has been so hard to find something I want to eat lately but when we got in the elevator to leave this appointment it reeked of French fries so we were on a mission to find some!

Mission complete!

I can not believe I’m almost 18 weeks now, almost halfway there to meeting this sweet girl and I’m still over here pinching myself daily to make sure I’m not dreaming… but then i remember ‘I can’t be dreaming… I’m still not even sleeping!”

Ok I think we should be caught up with baby news! Now back to reality and WOW do I have a lot to share! Lola and I have been quite busy bee’s lately and can’t wait to share some more exciting news about where we have been!!!

It’s A Girl!!It’s A Girl!!It’s A Girl!!It’s A Girl!!

So on our way to the “gender reveal” appointment I almost gave Lou a panic attack from just about having one myself….. I was a mess, jumping up and down, out of breath and smothering him literally overwhelmed with excitement!

This was me at work that day since my appointment wasn’t until that night… I literally thought i was going to die just waiting!!!

It didn’t help that on the way to work that day I heard the song “What a wonderful world” and Lou text me all day about how he couldn’t wait to find out! EEEEEKK!

So you can imagine if ALLLL of this was me before the appointment what I must be like now knowing it’s a GIRL…(obnoxious may sum it up) I thought it would relieve some of the excitement, giddiness and energy after going to the appointment and finding out either way what we’re having…. Oh was I wrong! It only got worse for both of us- yeah, now we are just annoying to be around :)

Anyway, those of you who know me KNOW I am never EARLY (Ok let’s be honest, I’m never even on time) to anything… Well, believe me, we were EARLY for this! I kept asking Lou “Is it time to go yet, there may be traffic we should probably go now huh!?!?!”

The receptionist  told me before we sat down that it would be a girl and then the next girl who walked in already knew she was having a girl so i asked her to sit next to me so it would “rub off on me”….

I know i haven’t posted any pictures from before we announced it yet but don’t you worry! EVERY appointment is documented just like this one  ;)

Then it finally happened… they took us back and we saw the most beautiful thing in the world displayed on a huge projector screen.. it was our baby girl!

She was such a wiggle worm, her hands were by her face and her legs were kicking the entire time, I was surprised they could get a good look! The lady asked her co-worker “did you see that”? And I instantly asked, “Wait so you know already? Tell me!”

She said “Your husband was right” I was so flustered I forgot what Alex said (last) to know what that meant so she then said “It’s a girl!” and started describing her movements as “she/her” when she talked about her wiggling….

I think the first day of the best days for the rest of our life started in that very moment.

I screamed so loud that when i walked back out the receptionist and the couple who was sitting next to me in the waiting room congratulated us on our way out!

Our world literally changed in that moment and I KNOW with her in our life I literally don’t want or need anything else.

I get it now mama’s, I get it.

We took a video after finding out the news once we got in the car but we were pretty much a blubbering mess…. in shock and in love. So we will just save that one for Lola one day!!

I told Lou the downfall of me getting excited about EVERYTHING  is that when things REALLY are exciting I essentially go into a manic episode, I swear I haven’t slept in days and when I do all I do is dream about her even before this appointment!

I love my sleepless nights though they usually leave me tossing and turning with the biggest smile on my face and the night before our appointment was the best! I had a dream I met her and it was actually “Lola”, our baby who i had dreamed about for years. I held her and she cried and when she looked at me she knew who I was… It was the most real dream I have ever had!

I swear this child will think we are psycho, I really feel like I have known her and loved her for years! This may be the longest 5 more months of my life.

Oh well, on to a celebratory dinner  and then shopping for our first girly outfits! 

It was actually Lou’s idea at dinner to buy her something that he picked out “just for her” and he found the perfect onesie that read “Daddy’s Sweatheart”…   The absolute hardest part was the entire night we wanted to scream and tell everyone about her and we couldn’t because Rachel and I had decided it would be cute to have a gender reveal party for family and close friends so they could find out in a special way…Rachel offered to host it and our first weekend where we could even find one day to do it was 2 weeks away… at this point i know knew….that clearly wasn’t going to work!

So she amazingly threw it together with a 2 days notice for this crazy mama and daddy! 

Click her to watch the gender reveal for the family! 

  I think Lou is actually the pregnant one… he was so hungry he just sat down and ate before anyone even showed up!I was SOO happy that i got to see my favorite loves at the party, this baby girl had no idea what a wonderful world of love she is coming into!

PINK bubbles!

Lou is bound to have his hands full!

Your looking at brand new GRAND mommy and poppys to a baby girl! 

Uncle Billy got to be a part of our party too!

Yayyy for baby girls! 

Mom and dad were so surprised!

Our sweet, amazing ready for anything i throw at them hosts’!

As you can see my phone was blown up and dead for most of the party due to all the excitement and phone calls to share the news for those who couldn’t make it but as I got in the car to go home I saw this posted by Ana… how adorable is she???

The party was absolutely perfect! Intimate and adorable amd just in time before i popped with the news! So happy Rachel and Andy pulled it off in such short notice for us!

The next day mom and I had one thing on our mind….. do i even need to say it….Shopping!!!!!

We were VERY excited to be on the girly sides of the stores!!   Cute, cute and cuter!  

Mom and I pretty much experienced the happiest shopping day of out life! Minus the hour commute to get to the brand new outlet and then realizing it was 10 minutes from my house! 

Oh well!!!

We got home and just had to spread it all out to show the boys what we got her!  Mom wanted to take pictures to remember what we already got her and what matching items she still needs! This whole size changing every three months and coordinating/predicting what season it will be when she is ready to wear it is super hard!  

Tucker was so happy to see us girls when we got home…. mom and I just knew Milly would not be happy with us after seeing how much we bought for the “new baby” so we got her new treats, a new collar and new babies to “smooth things over”…

  Mom asked if we should clean up all her clothes after we spread them all out and Alex chimed in with “no, no lets just leave them out for now ok?”

Ha we seriously have an entire shrine in the dining room for her just so we have something to look at everyday and Alex loves to come home and hold her outfits….

Also… even though Aunt Tara had to go home the morning after the party don’t let her fool you… she has already gotten Lola a chandelier for her room and painted a dresser PINK for her!

Ii think it’s safe to say we are ALL in LOVE!

This child is going to be soooooo loved it’s unreal!

Now if only we could meet her! Come on February!

Yay for baby girls!