the post i've been dying to make

so yeah, i'm pregnant. i'm pregnant!!! it's true. hans is going to have a little brother or sister!

i hope my bloggy babies will understand that i could not risk the family lurkers reading it here before i called them. although, it would have been lovely punishment for them to have read it here and not been able to say anything until i told them, don't you think?

i am happy but i'm also so incredibly relieved. i thought my cycles were all out of wack because i was four days late, then had a weird, 24-hour period, then nothing all week. a week ago saturday, when i was three days late, i took a test, and got nothing. i was convinced that grief or anxiety or old age was messing with my ovaries.

when i got up saturday to give going to the bathroom another go, i was convinced i was just going to be proving that i could responsibly drink all day at the wedding. and then the second line started to show up. it was faint, to be sure, and it wasn't really the whole line; it was more like two-thirds of a line. but it was definitely there.

that faint two-thirds of a line did not give justin great confidence at first. he kept asking me about it, and he finally got the insert from the box and compared the test with the three different positive examples on it and was sort of convinced. i did the second test sunday morning(more strongly, boldly positive), and then i put it on his bedside table so when he's not quite sure it's real, he can look at it and know.

this wasn't supposed to happen in july. we didn't use the last condom until what should have been 8 days before my next cycle, and then it was a few days before we threw a mixer for my girls and his boys, and even then it was kind of a tease for his boys, because i thought my girls had already stopped in, said, "this place is dead!", and left. so either i suck at scheduling or my cycles really are out of wack, but it doesn't matter now, because i'm pregnant and the timing is fine and i'm in good health for it and we want this child.

i don't understand why it's happened like this, both times. how can i be so alarmingly fertile when so many other people try and try and try and keep banging their heads against the wall? (ooo. unfortunate and unintentional pun.) it seems like fertility should be spread around evenly, like the distribution was planned by socialists. i don't know why we have been so lucky, but i am ever so grateful for the fact that the pain of infertility has not been added to the pain of the loss of hans.

i have had a couple of rounds of weird cramping, but the cramps have been very high, much higher than where my uterus is at this point, and i haven't had any spotting since the cramping, so i'm feeling positive. at this point last time, i was already threatening miscarriage, which is a weird phrase, isn't it? maybe it should be "miscarriage was threatening me". i mean, it's not like i was walking around warning people that if they didn't do my bidding i was going to miscarry on them.

but i digress. the point is that i'm feeling pretty good. i haven't had any spotting in several days. i haven't had any morning sickness yet (i had it my ENTIRE pregnancy with hans). and it just feels different than it felt with hans. the odds are in my favor. the stars are aligned. or maybe it's the shuttle and the moon that are aligned (thanks, jill). whatever. you get the idea.

my dr would prefer that i had a little nausea, frankly, but is pleased the spotting has stopped and the cramping is waning. he did bloodwork today and will again on thursday to make sure my hcg levels are doubling, and then if all goes well, we'll do an ultrasound in two weeks when we get back from vacation and try to figure out exactly how old this embryo is.

i cannot stop smiling. :)