Natalie & Ryan: Baby 2 is Due

I'm sure any of you that have me as a friend on Facebook have already heard the big news. I was avoiding blogging about it until after the trip to Seattle, when we could tell my dad. But, now that the everyone (else) knows, I can officially announce that I'm pregnant!! We've been trying for baby #2 since the beginning of the year. This time around, it was much harder to conceive, and I'll be the first to admit that every month, when the test came out negative, I was probably not a very pleasant person to be around. So, just like with Lilly, when I went to take the test this month, positive that I wasn't pregnant and not even knowing why I was bothering with the test, I was shocked when that second pink line showed up.

I started with the dollar store pregnancy test, since I thought I wasn't pregnant, I didn't want to waste one of the expensive ones. Usually, I'll do the test, hide it, wash my hands, and then look after the two minutes is up. This time, being a bit bitter at the impending negative, I stared at it the entire time. As the VERY faint second pink line, indicating a positive test, started to appear, I was so sure that my brain was just playing tricks on me. Surely I had been staring at it for too long and had been imagining things. I texted Karlee, Easton's mom and the first person I always go to with baby news, to see if she was seeing the same thing as me. When she said that she could see the line, I decided to take one of the expensive tests. It was one of the tests that reads either "pregnant" or "not pregnant," and almost immediately popped up with "PREGNANT". Again, just like with Lilly, I was shocked. I stared at myself in the mirror, as I took it all in. I started to cry. What a relief! The first person I told was Lilly. She keeps saying "baby in mommy's tummy....baby in Yay-yay's tummy". I'll correct her and tell her it's in MY tummy, but she'll fight back and insist the baby is in HER tummy.

This time around, since Ryan was at work, instead of just flat-out telling him, I wanted to do something fun to break the news. I've had lots of time to think about how I would tell him, but never actually decided on or liked anything that I saw online. First I took some pictures of Lilly. I had prematurely bought her an "I'm the best big sister" shirt a few weeks ago, hoping that she'd get to wear it soon. I put her in that shirt, made up a quick chalkboard, and took her outside for some pictures. Going back, I found out I was pregnant on May 13th, and May 14th was mine and Ryan's 4th anniversary of our 1st date. PERFECT TIMING! I decided to wrap up the pregnancy test, take him out to dinner for our anniversary, and have him open it on camera. Well, it would seem as if pregnancy brain is already in full swing, because that's not how Ryan found out.

Ryan was out on a bro-date with Christian that night until about 10, so I had all day to plan my surprise. Right before Lilly went to bed, I decided to do one more round of pictures with the chalkboard. As you'll see in the pictures, she was quite cranky, so I rushed her inside for bed. Not thinking, I just set the chalkboard that said "Only child, expiring January 2015" by the patio door. I completely forgot about it! Since Ryan came home late that night, he didn't see it until the next morning. He came into the bedroom shortly before leaving for work, and woke me up, saying "are you pregnant?!" I thought to myself "how the heck does he know?!" Surely someone spilled the beans. My plans were ruined, so I just said "yes". I'm pretty sure, and he's since admitted, that he was crying. I was still so out of it, I just fell back asleep. I could kick myself for how stupid I am sometimes.

I wanted a fun way to tell Ryan's parents. I was hoping this pregnancy news could have happened the month before, so I could announce it at Lilly's birthday party. I wanted to gather everyone who came to the party for a picture, and then say "on the count of 3, everyone say 'Natalie's pregnant!'". Since I found out 3 days AFTER the party, I had to go to plan B. All of Ryan's family was getting together that weekend to help Erin paint her house. I decided that was a good time to tell, since we don't get together all that often. Right before painting started, I asked everyone to get together for a picture. I'm sure they all thought I was being stupid when I said it was for the blog. Who needs a picture of everyone painting for the blog? As dumb as I felt, I stuck with the plan. When I said "Natalie's pregnant!," Christian was the first to react. He immediately said "whaaaaaa??" Then Kevin and Jan just kind of looked around and said "really?" I'll be honest, the whole thing was kind of awkward and probably very confusing for everyone. But hey, I got the pictures I wanted. Suffice it to say, I didn't stay for the painting.

Telling my dad was also very fun. Since he lives in Seattle, he always has to find out big news over the phone, so I was excited to tell him something face-to-face. Keeping it a secret for over a month was a bit hard. We put Lilly in her "Best Big Sister" shirt, and waited to see how long it would take him to notice. Ryan and I both agreed that he wouldn't notice on his own, and if that was the case, we were just going to tell him that night at dinner. Well, while at Pike's Market on our first day in Seattle, noon came rolling around, and no amount of Jack's blatant hinting was cluing him in. It became a game of "how obvious can we be?" At one point, Jack literally said "Dad, read Lilly's shirt." He read it and STILL didn't get it. I gave up. I just flat-out asked Lilly to tell grandpa where the baby was, and she said "baby in mommy's tummy." He FINALLY got it. So, technically Lilly was the one to tell grandpa that she was going to be a big sister. We also waited to tell Grandma Griffin until we were at her house.

The first symptom that I really noticed was the fatigue. At first I brushed it off as me crashing from all of Lilly's birthday party prep. Oh man did it hit me like a ton of bricks. I almost couldn't function. I pushed through it though, and continued going to the gym every day. Another symptom that I noticed, which sort of tipped me off, was a strange sensitivity to spicy foods. Foods that have always been bland to me were now spicy. I'm hoping this pregnancy will have mercy on me. Having lost 100 pounds and being more active, I sure hope the pains and sickness won't be as bad. So far, my morning sickness is making itself known, but not as badly as I was expecting. Mostly I just get super sick when my tummy is empty. So I'm eating literally ALL the time. No aversions yet, just a general turned off feeling about food. Nothing really sounds good, most everything just doesn't appeal to me, and almost every night, I get a random, one-time craving. Ryan's been really good at running out to get me chicken nuggets and ice cream if I ask.

Anyway, I'm super excited for this baby! I keep having dreams that it's a girl, I SWEAR I've already felt some fluttering, and part of me is praying we're having twins. We get to meet Baby Goodrich on Friday. This next year is going to be crazy busy for us, with buying a house, having a baby, and continuing to endure the toddler stages. Wish us luck!