We Are Having a Baby!
Writing those words out makes it almost as real as the little movements I am beginning to feel. They are subtle, but every once in a while I will feel the little flutter of the sweet life we are growing inside my body. Pregnancy is so much different than what I thought it would be; but it has been wonderful so far and I feel fortunate to have felt better than I anticipated I would. I have to remind myself often that I am going to be a mother. It feels like something I have always wanted but was so fearful of for a long time. It has never felt like the “right” time for us. Whether it was getting married so young, finishing nursing school, Matt being in physical therapy school, not feeling quite at home in our cities or financially secure enough. There has always been too many reasons in my head for why I wasn’t ready for a child.
Toward the end of 2019, I was feeling absolutely drained. We had been traveling a lot for family functions, holidays, and working in between. I told Matt I was ready for a break from traveling for a while, so we quit planning trips for 2020 and decided our trip to Hawaii in January then my cousins wedding in Arizona in February would be our last ones for a while. We thought it would be good to take some time off to be home and reset. Around the same time I also started to feel this desire bubble up inside me that I had been so fearful of for a long time. I wanted to be pregnant.
Looking back on this time it seems almost like divine intervention that I somehow had no desire to travel anymore. If you know me, I love to stay busy and see new places. Traveling is one of the things that keeps me motivated and planning our next adventure always gives me something to look forward to. Suddenly this desire was completely lost and I wanted a baby?! Unlike other times, that feeling didn’t go away and we decided to stop preventing and let it happen whenever it was supposed to.
Although both of us felt “ready” to be pregnant, neither of us had a timeline we were hoping for. We had no idea how long it would take or if we would even be able to conceive. Also, we were happy with our life and although we felt like a baby would enrich it, we did our best to enter this new journey without expectations. Then COVID-19 hit.
It was mid-March and San Francisco was one of the first cities to place a stay-at-home order. Suddenly, traveling (let alone even leaving our apartment for anything but groceries or work) became impossible. I was starting to believe I had some real intuition back at the beginning of the year when I didn’t want to plan any more trips! With the world in a panic, I began to question whether we should continue to try to get pregnant. Matt’s clinic had to close for a short time at the beginning of the lockdown and had begun bringing him back with very limited hours. As for me, I was still working as a nurse in the emergency department and being exposed to COVID-19 regularly; did I really want to be pregnant? We talked a lot about it and decided if our hearts were telling us it was time, we didn’t want to stop allowing it to happen.
About two weeks after the shutdown, Matt asked me, “did you get your period yet?”
I calculated in my head and realized I was a day late. Unusual for me, but nothing to freak out about.
“I think it’s supposed to come today or tomorrow”, I said.
I moved the conversation to something else as I had a mini panic attack inside before casually walking myself to the restroom. It was two days before Matt’s birthday, in the middle of a pandemic, and I really did not want to believe this was God’s “right” timing. I closed the bathroom door and took the test, really having no expectation that I would be pregnant because I was only a day late. POSITIVE. What?!! I looked at myself in the mirror to see my own reaction. Now I was in the bathroom of our little apartment having another mini freak out and trying to manage my excitement along with my worry about how life had become over the last two weeks of this pandemic. We are having a baby!
I collected myself and decided to wait to tell Matt until his birthday. Those were two of the hardest days trying to keep that secret. I even wandered off into the baby section at Target after telling Matt I got my period. I pretended to have cramps and asked him for a back rub. Hey, I had to make it believable! On his birthday I gathered all the birthday card videos our friends and family had sent us and surprised him with a video card. Then I gave him his gift with the positive pregnancy test at the bottom. It was a special moment and well worth the wait!
I know that there are a lot of uncertainties in starting a family. In sharing my story I would never want to be insensitive to anyone who has struggled with infertility or other roadblocks. My heart breaks for anyone who has struggled and hopes for your hearts desires to be fulfilled. Although we have had so much fun together over the last 7 years of marriage, I knew I didn’t feel truly ready until this year. We all never really know when the “right” time is to start a family, and I have realized that is completely fine because there is never a “right” time.
Despite how challenging it has been to be pregnant and working during this pandemic and in the climate of our country, this pregnancy has been the little hope I needed to get through this dark time. There have been lots of nice things about being pregnant during stay-at-home orders as well, such as not having to deal with the pressure of social gatherings while dealing with morning sickness. It has been my sweet reminder that there is so much to look forward to; that there is a light at the end of this seemingly long and bleak tunnel. That the work we are doing now for a better future is indeed worth the struggle we have in the present. I have chosen to release my fear and choose joy during this time. I wear my PPE, eat a healthy diet, exercise, and spend time meditating and praying for our future. I hope you will do the same.