EXPIRING: Family of Two | How We Got Here |

Well, after our exciting news yesterday | link here | I figured the next thing to do is to share our story on how we grew from a family of two, to a soon-to-be family of three. :)  mostly for my memories

From the day we got married, Cody and I wanted a family.  But there were a few things that we knew we needed to get settled and straightened out before it became a serious thought. One thing on our "to-do before baby" list was buy our own home. We wanted a place to call ours before adding a new addition to the family. 
Knowing that we would be closing on our house in January, we decided to take the next step towards goal of baby by stopping my birth control in December. I needed to be off my birth control for a few months before we started trying anyway, so it gave us a few months to close on the house, move-in and get somewhat settled. We decided that March would be the "official" month of starting to try for baby, but not really expecting anything to come about it very quickly. From what most of our friends had experienced, it was going to take us a few months to get pregnant anyway, so why not start trying in the spring. I really thought I needed to be away from the stress of school and into my relaxing months of summer for us to get pregnant. But I was wrong. So wrong.
I had been having pretty regular periods since stopping birth control, so I had a pretty good idea on my ovulation cycle I thought. I really didn't want to start charting body temperatures and going too in depth with trying so soon in our process to try and keep it light and fun. If it happens GREAT! If not, we'll try again next month. March came around, and mother nature stung me in the butt, because I started my period a week or so early - completely messing up my ovulation calculation. Of course. Because at that point, I really had no clue what my cycle length was going to be, and I didn't want to be shooting in the dark when it came to ovulation, I decided to buy an ovulation kit just so I had an idea.
With ovulation kits, it detects when you have high fertility and when you're at peak fertility. You have a few days of high fertility, meaning your chances of getting pregnant have increased, but you probably haven't ovulated yet. And then for two days, you're at peak fertility, which means you're ovulating and you should well, do it. To put it bluntly. Towards the end of the month, I came down with a bad case of strep throat, and what do ya know - that morning I tested at peak fertility. Of course again. No way was I feeling up to any baby making, so I figured March was a throw away month with trying and we would wait until April to start the process again. No big deal!
April rolls around and I'm feeling pretty exhausted. I assumed I needed a break from school, and lucky for me, Spring Break was the second week in April. I was expecting to start my period that week based off of my previous month's cycle, but really wasn't expecting it to be regular. The entire week I complained of cramping, and even told my friend Ashley that I knew I wasn't pregnant because of my period-like symptoms. I had never taken so many naps in my life that week and the cramps continued. Every day I woke up thinking it was going to be the day, but still no period.
Thursday night, laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I kinda had a revelation.  Maybe, just maybe... I was pregnant. At that point, it seemed pretty obvious, but I did by my best to not get my hopes up. I decided that on my way to meet my sister and grandmother in the morning, I would stop at Target to grab a pregnancy test. You know, just to see. I picked the one that looked like it would be the most clear and obvious to avoid any confusion. I attempted to take the first test in Target, but apparently didn't drink enough water that morning to get a good reading. Of course.
I was meeting my sister and grandmother at my mom's house so we could have a day of lunch and shopping. I was the first one to arrive, so I quickly chugged a can of Diet Dr. Pepper to quicken the pregnancy test process. Once they arrived, I snuck upstairs with my test hidden in my pocket to try and get to the bottom of this crampy, but period-less week. In my heart, I was fine if I wasn't pregnant, but the thought was so exciting. I became so nervous taking the test, my heart was racing. I set the test down, set my timer on my phone, and before I could even set my phone down, I looked down to the words "pregnant" on the stick. 
My heart felt like it stopped. My eyes were huge, I'm sure of it. "You're pregnant." floated around in my mind. I felt completely and utterly shocked.
I could hardly breath at this point, but all of a sudden I grabbed the stick and ran back down the stairs, where my sister and grandmother waited. I walked around in a state of shock for a few seconds, and then I felt the strongest urge to go ahead and tell my sister. How was I going to keep this a secret ALL day and them not know that something was up. I didn't dream of telling my sister this way, but I was bursting at the seams! We were both shocked and ecstatic to say the least! Somehow, we managed to keep it from Nannie the whole day while we shopped for cute baby merchandise to surprise Cody.
I knew I always wanted to tell Cody in a special way, and to have his reaction on camera would be perfect. Since I was able to tell Whitney, she was able to help me put together something special for Cody that afternoon and catch it on camera - my heart nearly exploded at that moment. :)
How I told Cody... I'll save for tomorrow!