The Pregnancy Deets

Did you know that savvy peeps say “deets” instead of details?  It’s all the rage, and something I’d be 100% against (read: annoyed by) if it didn’t happen to be my last name. But it is my last name; therefore, I use it at every opportunity. Because I can. I wanted to fill in some details about the pregnancy MOSTLY for the unborn in my belly but also because a few of you have asked some questions. Here’s the story of how this pregnancy came about.
Wait, that sounded like I was about to give a sex ed lesson.
Let me rephrase: Here’s how we came to find out we were pregnant!
(NOTE: I JUST FINISHED WRITING THIS POST and I scrolled up here to tell you that I have a really annoying ability to retain in my memory tedious details, and I promise that if I don’t GET THEM OUT of my head, I’ll explode. If you’re not interested in tedious details or if looking at a series of used pregnancy tests makes you squeamish… speed scroll through this post. Thank you.)

About 7 months ago, we decided to start trying to have another baby. We were excited to plan a pregnancy because we never had before. Our elder two had just unexpectedly plopped into our lives, and we loved it. I always sort of dreamed of coming up with a creative way to tell my unsuspecting husband that I was pregnant. My ways of telling him had always been, well… not very fun at all.
With our first pregnancy he was there when I took the test.
With our second, I called him at work and through nervous tears said, “I’m pregnant” as I stared at the fancy digital test beaming the word “Pregnant” back up at me.
With our third pregnancy, I tried to get creative. I’ll admit at the risk of making you hate me that I did not want to be pregnant. I was terr.ih.fied. After getting the positive test, I made breakfast and set out two of everything for my husband. Two plates, two knives, two cups… Between the two cups I set a envelope up that had the words “Double Stroller Fund” written on it. He woke up, rubbed his eyes, did a double take at the table and then took me in his arms excitedly. It would have been a tender moment had I not been bawling my eyes out… they weren’t exactly happy tears.
With our fourth pregnancy, he was in the shower when I took the test and I yelled, “It’s POSITIVE!”over the sound of the running water. THAT will wake a guy up.
With our fifth pregnancy, I came out of the bathroom and thrust the test in his face. More on that later…

Our second, third, and fifth pregnancies have stuck… the others didn’t care to stick around. I don’t know that I blame them. Their mother is crazy.

Remember General Conference weekend? The Friday before, I’d gone to the city with my children. The next morning, I woke up JUST in time for the first session. As I stood warily over the sink, my husband watched me with hawk eyes.
“How ya feelin’?” he asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
“Fine, why?”
“It’s 9.” He replied.
“So? It’s Saturday.”
“But you usually get up anyway…” he raised an eyebrow.
“I spent yesterday in the city with both of your children. I’m tired, okay?”
“You’re pregnant,” he said, accusingly.
I didn’t believe him… but the Monday after Conference, I started to see where he was coming from.

This had happened before. MANY times before. I’ve tried talking to my OB about it, and it always goes like this.
“My stomach gets really big before I PMS,” I say, “Like, pregnant big.”
“Yeah, bloating can be awful.”
“But it’s more than bloating,” I insist, “I look pregnant.”
“Yeah, diet and exercise can help that…”
And then I want to shoot myself in the face. At any rate, this had been happening to me basically monthly. I would take test after test and always get a negative result.
This time it seemed bigger and tighter. I mean, I was actually getting exhausted from just being bigger. And my skin hurt from stretching.
The days went on and I slept. I slept through two conference sessions. I took frequent naps. I went to bed early. I got up late. I took TWO naps on Easter, and through it all: I had the WILDEST dreams. The dreams have continued, very vivid and very strange.
My favorites include:
Making fun of someone in a cooking class, so the teacher made me stand in front of the entire class for the entire class period and then he decided he hated me SO much that he’d excuse everyone and the burn the classroom down with me in it. I HAD to escape, so I turned into a mouse. The next thing I knew, I was on the back of a wooden cart that was headed straight for a homestead and being driven by a rugged cowboy. I figured I was safe, so I transformed back into a woman. But I’d JUST been a mouse, so when I transformed back into a lady… I was stark naked. The cowboy noticed and started chasing me. I ran into the homestead, locked myself in a bedroom that turned out to be occupied by a grandmother. It gets weirder, but I’ll just stop there.
I also dreamed that I had a boyfriend. My husband almost caught me making out with him, and as I sat in the back of a car full of college students, I thought about confessing the whole of it to him. My thoughts were interrupted when I saw my schoolgirl friend, Lindsay, chasing me down the road. She was dressed in a hot dog costume and toting a propane tank.
I won’t even TELL you about the one where I was swimming in a tepid lake full of dead animals (including but not limited to: zebras).
Anyway:
My husband kept insisting I was pregnant. I kept rolling my eyes and reminding him that I DID have two very active children that wear me out.
But my stomach refused to deflate.
As we packed up to visit family on Easter Weekend and the week thereafter, we stopped along the way to buy an Easter dress and a 3-pack of pregnancy tests.
I could take a test exactly one week from the day I bought them. For those of you interested in math: I have a 25 day cycle. I always buy the fun pregnancy tests that tell you a few days before your expected day o’ fun if you’re pregnant or not. They never work for me until two days before (instead of 6 like the box promises), so I knew I couldn’t effectively test until Wednesday, but I promised myself I’d hold off until Friday so the results would be sure.
Naturally, I took a test on Monday.
I fully expected it to be negative. I mean, I was taking it 5 days early. FIVE. But I also knew the minute I saw the negative results, I would relax and stop obsessing over whether I WAS or WASN’T for at least a day.
And guess what?

Now.
I’ve had a faintly positive test before. It was pregnancy number 4, and it didn’t stick (see: crazy mother, above). But pregnant was pregnant and my husband would want to know. So I met him in the kitchen and thrust the stick in his face.
“It’s faint,” he said.
“We’re PREGNANT!” I said.
“We’re PREGNANT?!” He asked.
“We’re PREGNANT!” I said, and we hugged and he CRIED and it made me cry… and then we took our childrens aside and told them the good news.
The boy insists it’s a boy.
The girl insists it’s a girl, and has promised that IF IT IS a boy, she will not love it.
We swore them to secrecy and they were surprisingly angelic about the whole thing, never leaking a word.
I spent Monday perusing Pinterest for Maternity anything and elusively NOT pinning anything at all.

Because I was afraid of Vanishing HCG Line Syndrome (yeah, I just made that up) I took another test on Wednesday: two days early. It was definitely positive. No faintness there.
I took another test Friday: the initial day I planned on testing. (Ha.) The HCG line showed up INSTANTLY and DARKLY.

My stomach was still present as ever:

Sucking it in hurt, so I didn’t. I just let that baby hang. Literally.
When I got home, I had a spare test waiting for me, so two days after my missed day o’ fun, I took another test. Hey, don’t call me crazy until you’ve suffered from the Vanishing HCG Line Syndrome.
The HCG line again showed up instantly… this time much earlier than the other line, and this time much darker than the other line.

Fear not, I quit taking tests after that one.
I also just ran out of tests. If I had more, I’d probably be taking them. It just feels good to pass a test when you’ve been out of school for so long.

As it stands: I am only 4 weeks along.
I am due smack DAB on Christmas Eve.
I am not sick yet, but I fully plan on being so and am already planning on hiring cleaning help once a week. If you need a little extra cash, please contact me.

I have no hunch as to the gender, but I’ve had a VERY strong hunch that something is different about this pregnancy. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is definitely different. Maybe it’s a tubal pregnancy or something… which brings me to my next point: we didn’t wait to announce our pregnancy despite the fact that we have miscarried before.
The thing is: we end up having to tell people we miscarried whether they knew we were pregnant or not. And honestly: there’s nothing worse than suffering in silence. If something is amiss, I’d sure like some support along the ride. I also realize it will make the pregnancy seem to last longer. I’m 100% okay with that on account of us needing QUITE a bit of time to square things away.
New car, anyone?
Which brings me to my next point: I think we should start having Third Baby showers simple because all my baby gear lasted through exactly two children.
Along with a new car, I’m going to be buying a new stroller, a new carseat, a pack n’ play (of which I’ve actually never, ever owned) and a crib (ours is broken on one side and a broken crib is terrifying unto me). Where will the money come from? I mean, I’m saving up to simply PAY to BIRTH the baby… I won’t even bring up how we’re going to put three kids in a room big enough to barely fit two.
We just won’t talk about that.  Because then we’d have to discuss house buying and that frightens me almost as much as a broken crib.
Also: the money I’m shelling out for housekeeping is non-optional. It will not be put on the chopping block. My marriage hinges on it. If the house is a mess AND mom is sick: well, even Hulk Hogan couldn’t survive that. It’s just how we roll in the Deets home.
I realize this post is extremely FULL of tedious details, but I write them for the sake of The Baby who will eventually appreciate my crazed dreams.
In other news: I bought two artichokes to last me two weeks. Oh wha ta goo Siam.
I need approximately 8 more. 10 would be better, but I have to be realistic here.