Birth Story Part #1

I woke up that morning with no excitement or anticipation. It just was an ordinary day, or so I thought. Eric and I had decided the month prior to get off birth control, but it wasn't like we had tried super hard to get pregnant and I wasn't counting every day to see when I was suppose to start my period. So I wasn't looking for anything. I wasn't expecting really anything to change.

We had our normal morning routine of coffee, prayer, showers and the like. It wasn't until after he left for work that it dawned on me that I probably should have started my period. I remembered at one point someone telling me that I had 20 days from the day of ovulation to get my period - after those 20 days, you can basically consider yourself pregnant. So, I counted. I didn't know exactly when I had ovulated, so I counted from the last possible day I thought it might be, which was March 13th. I counted and then counted again.

Holy crap, this is the 20th day, I thought. Well, to take a test or not, that was the question. I immediately thought of the test that was under my bathroom sink. I had one on hand from a pack of two that I had bought back in January. I had taken one kinda thinking I was pregnant, but pretty sure I wasn't. It was more of "I kinda want to be pregnant, and I've never taken a test before, so lets go buy one and try" test. I was right - I wasn't. So this one was left over from that time.

"Just do it." I thought. "I'm sure I'm not."

…

"but what if I am?"

I bent down and rummaged under the sink in the basket that held odds and ends in our bathroom until I pulled it out. I stared long and hard at it and thought, "Come on Miller, just do it. It won't be positive." So then I took the few short steps to the toilet, sat down, peed on it and immediately pulled it out to watch the moisture run from the end of the stick into the little circle in the middle of the plastic. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I could hear it.

It was instantaneous. As the moisture ran over that circle, two lines appeared instantly.

"Oh. My. Goodness." I choked out loud as the two lines stared back at me, telling me what I felt was impossible but yet wasn't. Don't ask me why I thought it was impossible. I guess its cause every women has that small fear that maybe, just maybe, she can't get pregnant. And there's no way to prove that you can, until you do. And so here was the impossible, becoming the possible. I could get pregnant. I WAS pregnant.

I somehow managed to pull my pants up and stand up. Only to burst into tears and fall to my knees. Words of praise and astonishment filled my mind and mouth and I really have no recollection of what I actually said to Jesus in that moment, I just remember being so overwhelmed by His goodness and in disbelief that this was actually happening.

I slowly stood up facing the mirror and said out loud. "I'm pregnant. I am having a baby!" multiple times to my shocked face.

Then I thought, "What now?? What do I do now??" My first thought was Eric, but I didn't want to just CALL him and tell him. We hadn't talked about when my period was suppose to come or anything so it wasn't like he was looking for this. And I couldn't call my mom before telling Eric. But I had to tell SOMEONE!

The only person that I could think of telling, that I WANTED to tell, although at this point, I wanted to tell everyone, and was a safe person, was my mentor Ann. She had been discipling me for 2 years and I knew I could trust her to keep a secret.

It was about 7:50am at this point, but she picked up right away.

"Do you have a second to talk?" I asked after she greeted me and asking me if everything was alright, considering I had never called her this early before.

"Of course, I can talk. Whats going on?" she asked.

"I'm pregnant!" I blurted out.

"Oh Anna. Oh my goodness!!! How my!" she exclaimed, followed with laughter and questions. I was a blubbering mess. My brain felt like it was exploding as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I had LIFE inside of me. I was no longer one person but was carrying another. I didn't know how I was suppose to feel, because I knew that my life had changed in the moment, but my body didn't feel any different.

It felt good to share this amazing news with someone, but getting off the phone with her still left me completely flabbergasted that this was happening and DYING to tell Eric. So I called Sam and Lindsay, my two best friends, neither of which picked up. Super lame.

I got ready for work, my head spinning. Even though I was super close with my boss, Rick, I wasn't sure if I was going to tell him when I got to work. But who was I kidding. I lasted a whole 20 minutes before I told him. Yeah, couldn't keep this kind of news in.

It was at work that I realized it was April 1st. April Fools Day. Oh my oh my was I wanting to capitalize on this.

Thats when I decided I HAD to talk to Sam and Linds. I needed their advice and I was dying to hear them scream in excitement. I needed to scream for excitement! I called Sam, who is in LA first. Once she picked up, I pretended that I had another phone call coming in and asked her if I could put her on hold. And then I called Lindsay, who is in VA. I did the same thing to her and as they were both on hold, I merged our calls together, making it a three way conversation without them knowing. All I asked was, "Hey are you there?" as if I was coming back to my call to them. The second after they both answered yes, I blurted out, "I'M PREGNANT!!!" and like clockwork, we all screamed in unison.:) We then brainstormed how I should tell Eric, going from putting a bun in the oven at home and doing a scavenger hunt to find it in the end, to going out to eat and having the waiter bring his drink in a bottle, to just out right telling him. Eric and I have done April Fools jokes in the past, and it was too ideal to FIND OUT I was pregnant on this day - I just didn't know how to incorporate it!

I agonized over it all day. I even had lunch with one of my good girl friends, and sat there at Qdoba with her and her little girl, knowing the whole time I was keeping this big secret! I couldn't wait to get home. Finally at some point during the afternoon I decided what I was going to do. I was going to wrap the pregnancy test in a little gift box, with a card, inside explaining that because I'm lame and couldn't think of any type of joke to play on him, that I just got him a small April Fools day gift to replace it. I KNEW he wouldn't believe me when he opened it and would think it was some joke.

When I got home, I quickly wrapped it up, wrote the card and put it in my closet to hide it. My heart was pounding when I heard the garage go up. "How in the world do I act normal????" I thought.

Eric walked in and I was somehow able to greet him and make small talk for 10 or so minutes without acting weird. And then I said…

"OK, so you know how today is April Fools?"

"Yeah, I totally forgot that it was till earlier this afternoon."

"Yeah me too! I was at work when I realized! So, since I couldn't come up with anything good to do to you, I bought you a little April Fools Day gift."

"Okaayyy." He looked at me doubtly, with a small grin on his face.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. That this was another joke. Perfect. I had him right where I wanted him.

I ran into our bedroom, grabbed the gift and brought it back out to the kitchen and handed it to him. He slowly opened the card, read it and then reached for the gift. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure he'd hear it. As he opened the lid to the box, he kept giving me these little glances with the look like, "Whatever, you're totally trying to pull a prank on me."

He pulled out the tissue paper and at this point apparently thought the joke was that there was no gift, because the test was so light and little that he didn't see it at first. But when he realized there was something among the paper, he said, "What is it?" I just sat there and smiled so big I thought my face would break.

"What is it?" He asked again once he had pulled it out of the box and tissue paper. "Oh! Hahahaha, who's is this? Where did you get this?"

"Its mine babe."

"No, really… Like who did you have pee on this?? Did Gabby do it?" Gabby is a friend of ours who had just told us a couple weeks prior that she was pregnant.

"Hahaha no babe. Thats my pee. I peed on it…. I'm pregnant!!!!"

He had been smiling before, but this smile was different. It was the, I'm-not-sure-youre-telling-the-truth-but-I-want-to-believe-you smile.

"Naw, you're kidding. No way!" He said.

"Really. I'm serious! Thats my pee! We are having a BABY!!!"

He stood there, leaning up against the counter, holding the pregnancy test, looking at me, looking at it, looking back at me. "Really??? Seriously???"

I got up from the table and went to him, wrapped my arms around him, smiled and said, "Yeah. Really."

Well here it in its entirety. We redid our floors last weekend and are loving it. The carpet we had wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. The seams were coming apart and it was filthy, regardless of the vacuuming and steam treatments we gave it. I mean, with a dog that has BLACK hair, its just hard to even keep looking clean, regardless of it actually being clean.

Eric had a week long TDY and was going to be arriving home late on a Friday night. Well, we were having a bunch of our friends over to do the floors early Saturday morning, so he and I ripped up the carpet the day before he left. Therefore I lived carpetless for a week - not a big deal, just wasn't very homey.

Ripping up carpet is no small feat. See the small strip of board around the outline? THats what the carpet is nailed into, and that is actually nailed into the concrete base floor. Ripping the actual carpet wasn't hard, it was getting the wood strip off the concrete and the padding peeled off as well.

Some success...
Our little "helper" was great at entertaining herself while we worked. I think she was in that thing for over an hr, just bouncing and talking to us.:) she's the best.
The padding didn't just come up - its actually glued to the concrete. So all those little pieces you see had to be scraped on with a hand scrapper. Yeah, no fun.
Getting somewhere!!!
Finally the floor was clear and all the furniture moved off the area. I have always wanted a couch in my kitchen, its a shame that this was clearly is too large because I loved having it there.:)
Ready to put the padding down.
Padding down, wood going down and taking a break for lunch. We had a great group of people who helped soooo much. We couldn't have done it without them.
Watching Tim Riley work his magic. He did the hallway, which was super tricky, and it looks UH-mazing.

Getting there!!!

Starting to really look finished. We put tape the floor because it was a floating floor, aka, not glued to the mat, it had a tendency to rise up, or pop up.
And here is the finished product!!!! I need to buy a rug, (I'm pretty sure I have one picked out from West Elm) and lower the curtains, (I just made new ones out of tablecloths from Goodwill) and we are set!

Naked baby photos! Britt was in a super smiley mood the other day and I had stripped her down to play on the bed with us. It was sunny in the bedroom and so we whipped out the camera to get some fun shots. These were some of my favorite.:)

Britt got her pictures taken yesterday by our favorite Oklahoma photographer, Brandi Welch. She was also our maternity photographer and I have LOVED working with her. This photo is just a sneak peek of what we did yesterday and I'm DYING to see the rest.:)

My mom leaves tomorrow morning after being here for 2 1/2 weeks. I've been so spoiled having her help me with Britt and am already dreading her leaving. She is SO much fun - Eric and I have had such a fun time hanging out with her, playing games, hanging around the house and eating a TON of english muffins.:) She will be very very missed. The upside is that she comes back in ONE WEEK with the rest of my family for Christmas.:) SO - I can't be too sad.

Will post more later!

Britt is here.:)

SHE'S HERE!!!! I can't believe its actually happened. That I have a daughter and I'm no longer pregnant.Britt Louise arrived on Monday morning, at 10:58am via c-section. She weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces, and is 19 inches long. She was breech, the reason for the c-section and when they put her on the warming table, her feet flew up to her face.:) The nurse had difficultly wrapping her up cause she just wanted her legs straight up next to her head.:) Breech babies apparently make great gymnasts - total perk in my mind.:)
We just got home from the hospital today - so I'll post more later. I'm going to work on our birth story - because I believe every women has one, regardless of how they give birth.:) Plus, it'll be good to document to remember.

She is absolutely perfect and I fall in love with every passing moment. I am blessed beyond understanding.

Nursery Update! And its just the beginning. It is seriously my new happy place in the house. I just love the freshness of the white and in the morning when the sun is filtering through the blinds, it feels like heaven. I cannot wait until she is there to complete it.

Sorry these aren't the best pictures, but this was at 12am after a long day of driving to Dallas to go to Ikea to pick up the chair and ottoman and then putting it together when we got back. It is so fun having all of her furniture in place, although I decided I'm going to place a bookshelf we currently have in the guest bedroom and put it on the left side of the crib for her books and some of her toys. But other than that, its just curtains, pictures, a mirror and the accessories that need to be added. Oh, and Britt!!:) The best part!
The crib was a find off of Craiglist for $100 and needed no clean up or painting job so that was a blessing.

I bought her blocks from Anthropologie and I LOVE THEM. I'm really into classic wooden toys, which Ikea has a lot of, for great prices, but these blocks were too cute to pass up.

I found the dresser at an antique shop for $70 and repainted it and put new hardware on it. I"m not sold on the knobs yet, but I'm letting it sink in to see if I want to change them. And clearly I have to drill new holes for the one drawer.

You'll get a full run through when its complete.:) Hopefully when we get back from VA, I'll get to crackin'. Only 8 more weeks till the due date!:)

My friend Gabby, is an ultrasound tech. She was so sweet to offer to scan me for free in 3D! I could barely wait for the to day arrive, knowing we were going to get our first glimpse of our sweet baby girls face.

And low and behold, she has Eric's lips, exactly like I wanted.:) I love how big them seem, although I'm sure they aren't as huge as I think they are. And I'll take that cute button nose and those wide set eyes any day. I wonder how much she'll look like this when she actually arrives. Sometimes babies come out looking just like their ultrasound pictures, others, not so much.

I've grown impatient in waiting for her to come, not because I'm uncomfortable, tired of being pregnant or want an end to all the back pain, continuous hunger and need for sleep. Those I don't mind because I know it means I am growing our baby.:) No, I'm impatient because I JUST WANT TO HOLD HER! I am DYING to hold her in my arms and cuddle her, and finally be able to kiss her soft forehead, rather that just feel it as she presses her head up against my ribs haha.:)
Cute little feet.:) I got two sets of boots for her from a surprise baby shower that my Biblestudy girls threw me. They are SO cute and I can't wait to dress her up in them.