The beginning of my pregnancy.

As my pregnancy progressed, I wrote less frequently to my precious baby and began talking more. I told my immediate family of my pregnancy before Thanksgiving. I always start with my mom. We were making chex mix one evening and we were having a blast spelling things out with the pretzel sticks for my son. I decided to join the fun and spelled. #2 IN JULY. It took her a while but after I dropped a few hints she exploded with excitement. I swore her to secrecy but promised to let my dad and sister know before Thanksgiving. A couple days passed and I continued to bask in my pregnancy secret. It donned on me that Thanksgiving was coming up later in the week but I could not for the life of me figure out how to tell my dad. I remember once hearing some cute riddle so I went with it!! I text my dad and my sister, "I have an amazing present for you but you can't hold it until August." My sister responded with really? OMG!! Yay! She was just as excited as my mom. My dad, being a man of few words text back, Awesome .Questioning whether or not he really understood what I had just told him I started texting my mom and getting her to follow up with him. Yes, he knew and he was, genuinely happy.

A couple days later I was at my parents house and my dad walked over to me and said, "it's a girl." I looked at him like he was crazy!! A girl?!? That's what you think? Hahahahaha!! Okay. I couldn't believe he just said that. I don't make girls. What a nut! He explained. When I told him I was first pregnant with Noah he said he had this overwhelming feeling it was a boy and he swore to it my entire pregnancy. He glowed like a school girl when we did the gender reveal that we were expecting a boy. He said that this time as soon as I text him he has this overwhelming feeling that it was a girl. He was so sure and so excited. He was going to have a boy and a girl. His family would be complete!

Thanksgiving day came and my dad made the announcement just before we all sat down to dinner. He came in the living room, looked at me, and in his loud voice said, "hey! You ready to go feed my granddaughter?!?" My mouth dropped as my grandparents were there and they had yet to be informed of my pregnancy. Well, now the secret was out. My sweet precious secret. Soon everyone would be looking at my belly, asking all the questions and wondering how I was doing. I always hate it a little bit when everyone knows about a pregnancy. Then there are just more people to "keep informed". Shoot! I didn't even tell my best friend until just before Christmas.

Oh, goodness. I think it was the Friday before Christmas or maybe the week before. Jen and I decided that we would take our hubbys and our kids to dinner for a good time and then head to downtown St. Augustine to check out the Nights of Lights. I had never really been out there before and we thought that our kids would have a good time. Well, we got to dinner and had to wait...and wait... and wait. I had planned all day to tell Jen about the baby at dinner this evening and the waiting was killing me!! I get so nervous when making announcements. I couldn't take the waiting any more and I ended up texting her a picture of my positive pregnancy test with the text holy sh!t!! No way! I'll be darned if she didn't check her phone for another 15 minutes, after we were seated and while our hubbys were away on a potty break with our kids. She was ove the moon! We had talked about this for so long! She was excited and I could see the anticipation for planning the perfect baby shower, finding the cutest clothes and spoiling this sweet baby.

I told Jen that I didn't plan to tell anyone at our office and to please keep it a secret. Though many of the people around me knew I still wanted this to be my little secret. After the beginning of the year, I began to tell the people in my office, one at a time. I started with the people who I didn't think would say anything and moved up to the people who I knew wouldn't care about keeping my treasure to themselves. Thinking back on it now, maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was God preparing me. Maybe he was preparing me to take on this journey and teaching me that I didn't need anyone else, that I needed to learn to rely on Him and not the people around me...