Chapter 3: Heartbeats and Hope

Pregnancy is never easy on anyone. You hear the stories and read the books, but no matter how much you prepare, nothing can truly get you ready for it until you're living it yourself.

The next few chapters are all about my pregnancy experience. Just remember that every pregnancy is different, and this was simply mine.

Almost exactly one month after finding out I was pregnant, we had our very first doctor's appointment.

It was the longest month of my life.

I was absolutely terrified I was going to lose the baby. My anxiety was through the roof. I prayed, I cried, and I kept taking those dang pregnancy tests. Seeing those positive lines over and over helped calm my nerves a little, but there was always that fear sitting quietly in the back of my mind.

Honestly, who could blame me?

I had spent my entire adult life being told I couldn't have a baby.

Then came the ultrasound.

Seeing that heartbeat for the first time and seeing our little peanut on that screen was the biggest joy I could imagine.

It was real.

It was there.

It was safe.

In that moment, all of the fear, anxiety, and pain it took to get there just faded into the background. All I cared about was that little miracle and keeping it safe and healthy.

The fear didn't disappear completely, but for the first time since finding out I was pregnant, I had hope that maybe we really were going to be okay.

We found out I was 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant.

Honestly, I was a little disappointed because I thought I was further along than that. Based on my last true period, I should have been closer to 13 weeks.

The joys of PCOS and endometriosis.

Ever since finding out I was pregnant, I had been telling everyone I was having a February baby.

The doctor informed me otherwise.

March.

Ugh.

Even then, I felt it in my soul that this baby wasn't waiting until March.

A few weeks later, we went back for NIPT testing. If you aren't familiar with it, NIPT is genetic testing that screens for certain chromosomal disorders and can also determine the baby's gender.

Hubs didn't come to this appointment.

We had been told it would just be lab work, so together we decided he should save as much time off work as possible for when the baby arrived.

What we didn't know was that I would also get to hear the heartbeat on a Doppler.

Of course I recorded it.

He was so mad.

Not at me.

At himself.

He wished he had taken the day off just to be there for that moment.

Honestly, I was crushed for him.

Before I even left the doctor's office, I had a Doppler ordered so he could listen to our baby's heartbeat whenever he wanted.

And before anyone comes after me for that decision, I asked my doctor first and she gave me the okay.

We had already planned a gender reveal party because we wanted to be surprised along with everyone else.

That didn't mean I didn't want my test results.

So my doctor called and went over everything with me but carefully left out the gender. We gave a friend permission to call and get only that information.

That friend avoided us for almost two weeks.

He was terrified he would accidentally slip up and ruin the surprise.

Then came the guessing game.

I tried every old wives' tale imaginable.

The Chinese calendar said girl.

The ring test said boy.

The heartbeat leaned girl.

My morning sickness wasn't terrible, which supposedly meant boy.

My cravings were mostly salty and savory, which also supposedly meant boy.

The reviews were mixed.

But my motherly instinct knew exactly what we were having.

There wasn't anything particularly fancy about our gender reveal party.

It was a cookout with close friends and family, and we livestreamed it for those who

couldn't make it.

Since Hubs is a hunter, he wanted Tannerite involved in the reveal.

I'm always down for a boom, so I agreed.

This man was so nervous he missed the target.

Multiple times.

He was shaking from excitement, nerves, fear, and probably every emotion possible.

Meanwhile, I was standing there shaking too, trying to hold back both tears and nausea.

Between pregnancy hormones and reveal nerves, I still don't know how I managed not to get sick.

But deep down, I already knew.

I knew exactly what we were having.

I felt it in my heart.

Then it happened.

The boom echoed, the sky filled with beautiful blue smoke, and for a moment the entire world stood still.

Everything was perfect.

I just stood there frozen while tears streamed down my face.

Every milestone somehow made it all feel a little more real.

Eventually I snapped back to reality and started looking for Hubs.

He was still standing exactly where he'd been shooting from, going through the same emotions I was.

When we finally reached each other, he wrapped me up in the biggest hug and we both just sank to the ground.

It was one of those moments you wish you could freeze forever.

As much as I loved our reveal, if we ever do this again, I think I'd want it to be just us.

We can celebrate later.

Because while the reveal itself was perfect, the cleanup wasn't nearly as magical.

There was food to buy, food to cook, decorations to set up, and everything to clean afterward.

The homemade ice cream, though? Absolutely worth it.

Now that we knew our little miracle was a boy, pregnancy shifted from fear of losing him to learning how to survive growing him.