The Day We Prayed For

Those of us who struggled to get pregnant, know the overwhelming disappointment of a negative test. You over evaluate every little potential “symptom” and think: this is it. This will be the month I get pregnant.
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Then it doesn’t happen. Your monthly cycle shows up, or even worse you test and you know the answer before it comes and the three minutes are up. (This happened twice to me, not kidding) Seeing only one line on a test seems like the silliest thing to cry over, but in that moment it feels like you lost something. Like this was supposed to be the month, and that chance is gone now. 

After trying for about 10 months, I decided I was no longer going to test, track my days, or put any excess energy into it. I was trying to feel content with life being just me and my husband and focusing on buying a home. We had also finally planned our belated honeymoon for our 2 year anniversary, and were getting so excited for it! It was the week before Christmas and I started getting my usual period symptoms, so I prepared for it to come in the next few days as usual. When it never came, and I had a week of those symptoms, I tried to push any glimmer of hope out of my mind. I didn’t want to have that feeling again, especially with Christmas coming up so soon.

We enjoyed our Christmas weekend and that following Monday my family came up to celebrate with us. That Monday morning, something in me just had the urge to take the dang test. I slipped out of the bed quietly, unwrapped a test as quietly as I could as to not wake up J, and took it.
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I set it down on the counter and before it even left my hand, I saw a line immediately as the dye ran across. My first thought was it was the test line, but the test key shows the test line as the second. I just stood there in utter shock as tears filled my eyes. 

J and I had always planned to test together, I wasn’t in to the whole idea of doing it alone and surprising him after, but honestly I was just expecting the usual negative result. I finished up in the bathroom and walked to the bed and said his name and woke him up. I was standing there shaking, test in one hand, and he probably thought I was a crazy woman! I showed him and started tearing up even more and you know what his response was? “About time”.
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That’s exactly how I felt too, but of course decorated with more gushy, emotional words per usual. I got back in bed and cuddled up with him, just beaming that it had finally happened: our prayers had been answered, this was the day we prayed for. I am still in shock that we are having a baby, and I don’t think it really sunk in until I saw our baby on the ultrasound screen. The nurse put the wand on my belly and immediately on the screen, we saw our baby for the first time. She played its little heartbeat (a fast 175), and I could not believe my ears. I am finally carrying another life, something that seemed like such a distant hopeful dream at one point, was now a reality. I was pretty composed seeing the baby, just in utter awe that we made that. Then, the baby started moving around and moving all of its limbs and that’s when I snapped back to reality and teared up.

​For those still waiting for that day, my heart goes out to you. While we tried for a year, J pointed out that we shouldn’t look at it that way. It happened exactly when it was supposed to. The day we prayed for couldn’t have been as perfect if it happened any other day. I feel like I have appreciated this pregnancy so much more than I would if we got pregnant as soon as we started trying. It made me appreciate my time with J, focus on improving myself, and getting the most out of life.
 
I hope to change the direction of our blog a little bit, because as you know, this is The Strattons. I created this blog to document our lives together, and now our family is growing by one more! I will actively be sharing this pregnancy journey, doing week updates when major things are changing, and I just sharing the overall joy of motherhood that I so heavily prayed for.