Reminiscing

I was updating the boys' baby books a few days ago. I do my best to keep them up to date, and I think that I do a pretty decent job. When Jacob was born I was really good about noting every new thing that happened to him, no matter how small: his first tooth, his first trip to the grocery store, his first smile...well, maybe that was a burp...nah, I'm calling it a smile - everything.

When I got pregnant with Ryan, sooo many people told me, "Oh you won't be able to keep a baby book for the second baby. Sure, you try, but about two months in you will completely give up, it's just too much work!"

I took this as a challenge though. Being a second child myself, I felt that I owed it to this new baby - and second children everywhere - to show that they matter just as much as the first! I have done a good job too I think, of noting all of Ryan's milestones. Sure, sometimes I get behind and I fudge a few dates here and there, but he'll never know. (Well, unless he should read this. In that case, sorry Ry!).

Anyways, back to the point. So as I was going through their baby books, I started getting nostalgic, looking through old photographs, having memories come flooding through my mind. I have only been a mother for about 27 months, yet so much has happened in that time with these two little guys. A couple memories I had though, were of incidents that happened before they came into the world.

When I was younger, I used to imagine how I would tell my future husband when we were going to have a baby. I remember some years ago there was a commercial for some store, where the wife gives the husband a present, like a sweater. And he's all, "What's this for?" and she's like "Happy Father's Day!" and I don't think I am explaining the commercial very well, but basically, it was her way of telling him she was pregnant. I thought that was kind of clever, and I wanted to do something along those lines, something fun and creative like that. I really haven't gotten the chance, though.

When I found out I was pregnant with Jacob, I had to tell Richard over the phone. He was in San Diego, and was scheduled to be there for another month, so there really was no other option. It was also completely unexpected, and I think I was in a state of shock; I was definitely not in any condition to be coming up with creative ways of spreading the news.

About two months after Jacob was born we had a pregnancy scare. "Scare" is such a negative word, but at that time we weren't thinking about having another baby. I was feeling weird and took a pregnancy test. It was the digital kind, there are no pink lines, it's quite sophisticated. The test reads "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant". Well this one said "Pregnant". So I'm staring at it thinking, This can't be possible and ohmigod I don't want to have to give birth again! So I make up some lame excuse to Richard, race off to the store, buy two more pregnancy tests and a six pack of cranberry juice. I drank about four of the bottles on the drive home, ran into the house and peed on the new tests. They both came back negative.

So now I'm super confused.

Richard had been eying me, thinking I was acting pretty strange. So I finally decide to tell him what's going on. I sit down on the bed and just hand him the first test that was positive.

"You're lying," he says, "You faked that somehow."

"No, I'm not, look at me, I'm shaking!"

It starts to sink in. Richard's face goes pale, and all the sudden he starts talking a mile a minute, "First thing tomorrow I am going to talk to my Chief and see how I can get promoted and make more money and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."

I've zoned out at this point, all I can think is Ohmigod I'm going to have to give birth again!

Well, a couple days later we found out for certain that the test was indeed wrong, somehow. I once had a friend tell me that there is no such thing as a false positive pregnancy test, so I'm still not sure why we got a positive reading, we must have just been lucky enough to be the only people in history to get a pregnancy test that would give a false positive!

So fast forward a few months, when I actually AM pregnant now, with Ryan. I wanted to be able to tell Richard in a more personal way this time. He was in San Diego, (yet again!), but was going to be home in a few days. So one night, Jacob and I were out to dinner with my father-in-law, Jeff, and two of his co-workers. Richard called me while we were eating, and I casually mentioned how I couldn't wait to see him in a few days, and that I had a surprise for him.

BIG mistake.

He wouldn't let it go, he had to know what the surprise was. He kept asking me for hints, and I kept trying to change the subject, all while looking nonchalant sitting next to my father-in-law. I didn't want to give anything away, and I wanted Richard to be the first to know, obviously. Richard must have been suspicious though, because at one point he finally says, "Are you pregnant?"

"Uhm...er...uhhh..."

"ARE YOU PREGNANT?!"

"Uhm, yes?" I whispered into the phone, hoping that the rest of my dinner party hadn't heard his question.

Richard was so happy though, I think our "scare" from a few months earlier had gotten us used to the idea of having a second child, and I wasn't so freaked out about the idea of giving birth again.

Still, I have never gotten to do anything creative, or even just give my husband a hug after sharing the news with him. Perhaps one day, but with my luck, who knows!