We’re Pregnant ” The Baby on Board Edit.
Keith and I are expecting a baby in July!! Boy does it feel good to write that sentence and share our news with all of you. These past months have been hard for me, hard because I was going through my first trimester(hello nausea) and hard because I was keeping a big life changing secret from all of you. In todays post I am laying it all out on the table because I haven’t been able to tell you and now I just want to share everything so we can talk about it!
Our road to getting this baby has been for us a long one. Keith and I met when I was in high school, we dated, fell in love and after we were grown decided to get married. Because we married young we purposefully did not want to get pregnant until we were “Older” we wanted to enjoy our youth together, get through college, get settled in our careers…blah blah blah. So we put off having a baby, and after seven years we decided to just stop “not trying” to conceive and see what happens, and after 3 years of that I turned 30. And I wrote THIS life changing(for me) blog post. After I wrote my “This is 30” blog post I realized that I was done not knowing why I hadn’t conceived yet. Keith and I were ready to really try for a baby.
And months went by, I wasn’t pregnant. So I started with ovulation tests, and when those showed that I wasn’t even ovulating I knew it was time for some intervention. I started researching and learning and reaching out to people I could trust to talk about what I worried would be a long road. And after much research and learning Keith and I decided to act. We both joined WW, and collectively lost 50lbs(25lbs each).
And guys, I worried, I worried that my weight loss would effect my body positive mission, I worried that I would slip into that self hatred that goes along with diet culture. I worried that you had noticed and didn’t think I was staying true to me. I worried, and as those 25lbs came off I started to see a new side to me. A powerful and confident side of me that I hadn’t met before. Instead of the dieting and weight loss making me feel self hatred, the dieting was a confirmation of what I had learned about myself in my plus size journey. It was affirming to me that I loved my curvy body, and I had no intentions of losing that person.
Along with deciding to lose some weight I also started taking some vitamins that were supposed to help with you conceive. I was taking a women’s multivitamin, COQ10, and a prenatal vitamin. I wanted to give my body everything it needed to ovulate and conceive. And the months went by.
In October I was 15 days late for my EXTREMELY REGULAR cycle. I took test after test and every one of them came up negative. When my cycle finally came I cried, and cried. I felt like my body had finally ovulated after years of nothing and I had missed my chance at my baby. I started to make plans, and talk to Keith about what a life without a child would look like for us(we had lived for so long without one) and we started to make decisions about what our next steps would be.
After all of that Keith and I both let go of “trying”. We stopped worrying, and focusing on “trying” to get pregnant and we worked to get our marriage back and focused on us. I feel like its not ok to talk about what can happen to a marriage when you are trying to get pregnant. Its really stressful and is really hard on both parties in different ways.
After returning home from a family vacation in November, I realized I was 10 days late. Not thinking anything of it because I had been so late the month before I decided to take the one last test I had around. And. It came up pregnant. PREGNANT. Keith and I freaked out and celebrated and weren’t really sure what to do next, lol. So we went and got more tests. FOUR MORE tests. They all turned up positive and we just couldn’t believe it. I still cant believe it.
For some reason, and I am not really sure why. I never thought I would get to be a momma. And through our journey to get this baby, I didn’t have any confidence that this would work. Each step I took, and each change I made to myself, our lifestyle, our marriage. My confidence that it was going to happen for us wasn’t there.
In my years before blogging full time and running Boutique Consultants with Liz, I worked in childcare. I helped mothers raise their children and I watched their lives, helped where they needed me and waited. I waited because I couldn’t be invested in their children and their lives and also be invested in my child. And when I was able to break free from a normal 9-5 and run my own business I didn’t think I could be a mother and give everything to my business. When my need to have my own child outweighed everything else, thats when I knew I could do both. I could run my business, and have a family. I could be passionate about both.
I say all of this and share all of this because I want you to know. I take none of this for granted, and I am hyper aware of the heartbreak and pain that goes along with hearing from someone that they are having a baby. I walked this walk towards this pregnancy and everyday I wake up with this little heartbeat inside me I am thankful. Keith and I want this baby more than the world itself and we take this responsibility with the knowledge that so many others want a child and don’t yet have one.
We truly can not wait to meet our child in July. We are so thankful for your support.
My need to constantly overshare has made this blog post over 1,000 words. Thank you again for reading alllll of this.
– Anne and Keith.
Sara says
Loved reading your story, Anne! I’m so so happy for you guys!
Liz says
Love this post so much!! So open and honest. Congratulations again!!!
Louise says
Thanx for sharing. Take care!
Louise 🙂
Darlene says
Thanks for sharing your story! Wishing you all the best as you begin the next chapter of your lives!
Katha says
Thank you so much for sharing this and congratulations!
We‘re also expecting a baby this year and tried for a long time, so it makes me even more happy for you.
Can‘t wait to follow along 🙂