Pregnancy Journal: Part I

Wow, the last time I blogged about being pregnant, I was just barely announcing it at 10 1/2 weeks! Pregnancy is all I constantly think about, and with my excitement to meet our little one, sometimes I feel like it is going by so slowly. But right now, it feels like it is flying! Before this pregnancy experience passes me by, I want to make sure I document all the wonderful memories we have made so far.  I don't know if this will be my one and only pregnancy, or even when my next one could be. It's all up to my body (and the Lord)! This might be a long one, because I'm a very detail-oriented person (I get that from my dad!!)...so bear with me...

PART I: Finding Out - Saturday, January 16, 2016 (6 weeks, 3 days pregnant)
My period was over 2 weeks late by this point, and this was the first month in a long time I didn't suspect anything. I was trying to not think about trying to get pregnant for once! I was just late, as usual! My body likes to do things randomly, on its own schedule. I waited, and waited, and kept telling myself it's coming, and I absolutely refused to take a test. However, I started feeling slight waves of nausea whenever I went too long without eating, and I thought that was super weird. So on Friday night, I put a pregnancy test on the bathroom counter and thought, what the heck, I'll just take this in the morning. 4 am rolls around and I wake up because I HAVE TO PEE SO FREAKING BADLY. This never happens to me. I blindly stumble to the bathroom and literally took the test with my eyes closed, hahaha. Honestly, it's amazing I didn't miss. Welp, I opened my eyes, and I didn't even need to wait for a result because the line was SO FREAKING DARK! I took this photo at exactly 4:05 am:

My tired eyes suddenly got HUGE, I couldn't believe it! I started feeling breathless and my heart started racing and I just stared at that test for a good five minutes in disbelief as tears welled up in my eyes. For a split second, in my drowsy 4 am stupor I wondered if I was dreaming. Nope, this was real. Next thought: WAKE UP JOSH! Don't worry guys, I washed my hands and everything first. I ran out, no glasses on or contacts in, so I was still pretty blind... I yelled, "Josh!" He jumped up and said, "What-what-what?!!" So I just said, "I'm pregnant!!!" Take a guess at this guy's response. You would think he would hug me or at least say something other than, "I don't believe you." Yup, that's what he said!! Thinking back, I can see why he said that... we've both been through 4 years of disappointment, it's just a defense mechanism to protect himself from getting hurt. So I showed him the test and I kept crying and shaking. He stared for a good long while...still in disbelief. It was too early to tell anyone from home, so I sent this picture to 2 of my close friends who lived in the mainland and thank goodness they were awake to freak out with me! I didn't go back to sleep obviously... At around 6 we got ready for the day and decided to eat breakfast at Anna Miller's. We then went surfing and I had to resist the urge to tell every single surfer I paddled by that I was pregnant. Before getting lunch, we bought another box of pregnancy tests because Josh was still acting like I wasn't pregnant...which kind of annoyed me, but again, defense mechanism! I took this test in the bathroom at Pono Plates in Pearl City...small kine shame haha.

Seeing this result made me scared that maybe I had a false positive earlier that morning, the test I took was kind of old... Until I realized that the line on the right is the CONTROL, and the line on the left is the TEST line. My HCG levels were so high by this point that it took all the dye inside the test and didn't leave any for the control line! After showing Josh this test, and explaining to him why one line is so light, his eyes got huge and he started laughing and saying, "Oh my gosh!!! What the heck??? How??!! This doesn't even make sense!!!" Finally, I got the reaction I was hoping for. After lunch, we went to Babies R Us because it's right by Pono Plates and I bought a couple of things to announce it to my parents at their house.  There was a pair of tiny baby booties, and a bib that said What Happens at Grandma's House, Stays at Grandma's House.  I told my mom it was a belated birthday gift for her. As soon as she opened the present, she jumped up and screamed because she got it right away. My DAD on the other hand.... oh my goodness haha. It took him several minutes to get why I got her baby stuff. Once he finally understood, he hugged me and just said, "This is so wonderful Ari, we've been praying for you and Josh!" Even as I write that right now it's making me tear up a little, because I knew how many people have been praying for us for so long, and I am immensely grateful!

The next day (Sunday) we had family dinner at my parents house, so I announced it to my siblings by volunteering to say the prayer to bless the food. At the end I tried to subtly add in the line, "And please bless that everything goes well with my pregnancy, inthenameofjesuschristamen." I literally said the closing so fast because I didn't know how they would all react! It was fun, I got lots of hugs. The following week, my brother in law Nick took a work trip to New Orleans and got me this onesie (my first official baby gift!):

It made me feel so loved to know that our family was excited for us. On Monday, we announced it to Josh's side of the family as it was a holiday and we were having a BBQ to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I then got to have fun calling the cousins on the Ho and Graham side. 

Each time I told another person I was expecting, I loved experiencing all the same feelings of excitement. So I spread out who I told over the following weeks. And there you have it! That's how we found out about our little miracle, Baby Graham. :)

Stay tuned for Part II next time, I'm going to write about the first ultrasound!