First Comes Love…Then Comes Marriage…

When Abbie and I got married back in 2010, we made a promise to each other, God, and the Church community there that we would love and honor each other.  We also promised that we would lovingly accept children from God.  It was more than a promise, it was part of a covenant.  One we intended to keep.

Because Abbie was born with some colon issues, yes I know she has spelling and grammar issues, but not that kind of colon.  I’ll spare the details, but let it suffice that she was born with an oversized colon.  It was something she had to deal with her entire life with diet and medication, but we finally got a surgical fix.  Problem was that we had to make sure we didn’t get pregnant before and soon after the surgery.

We are both against any kind of artificial birth control for many reasons, so we knew that was out of the question.  We had both heard of Natural Family Planning (NFP) but didn’t know much about it.  We learned a little more while on our Engaged Encounter weekend in Cullman as we prepared for marriage.  After that we decided to give it a shot, because it used the natural fertility cycle God created.  We also knew that once we were able to start trying to get pregnant, it would let us know the easiest times for that.

Fast forward a year to the middle of August in 2011 and we decided to go to dinner with Jeff and Kristen Belcher at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Sol Azteca.  For some reason, all Abbie could taste was salt.  We had gotten a few “Not Pregnants” already, so we didn’t really think this was a sign of pregnancy.  We were even out of pregnancy tests and were waiting on new ones to come in the mail.  Shout out to Amazon Prime.

Here comes Monday, August 15th, and Abbie really just wasn’t feeling all that great.  We didn’t really think we were pregnant because of all of the tests that came back negative a day or two before.  But wouldn’t you know it, UPS delivered a brand new box of Clear Blue Easy, a day before it was scheduled!  We took that as a sign from God and decided to give it another try. 

Let it be known that it has been my self-imposed job to read these tests, because I wanted to be the one to let Abbie know, not some little battery-powered wand.  I had gotten quite good at looking at it, and then saying “Not Pregnant.”  Well, this time around there was only one word in that little window.

What were my words to Abbie?  Nothing.  I said nothing.  I had gotten so used to looking at it and then saying to her, “Not Pregnant.”  This time I couldn’t say that…so I just went silent.  I showed it to her and we flipped out with excitement.  We had to make sure though…

So, we tried another one.

There was a third one in the box…so we decided we’d go for the hat trick.

So…there was a good chance we were pregnant!  We couldn’t control our happiness.  We hadn’t really thought of a plan on how to tell our parents, so Abbie just called her mom.  She was so excited to hear the great news.  Next, I called my mom, and she was at work.  So, we had to wait on her to get home so she could be with my dad when we shared the news.  They were both extremely excited and were so happy for us.  We also called Abbie’s dad and we called Sandy, who was asleep in Kuwait.  I think he was excited, but it was hard to tell given the fact we woke him up in the middle of the night.

Because Abbie was craving Papa John’s pizza, and those are only $8.99 on Mondays, we went and got pizza for dinner.  It was delicious. 

We called the doctor the next day and scheduled an appointment.  We had to wait over two weeks before our first appointment, which was agony, but probably a good thing in terms of getting a good ultrasound. 

We’ll pick up with that on our next post…

Happy Valentine’s Day

The best way to spend your Valentine’s Day is with the one you love. Fortunately, Abbie and I have been able to spend this Valentine’s Day with each other. It’s our last one before having kids, so we wanted to really enjoy it. The downside is that the reason we’re able to spend it with each other all day is because we’re both sick…and at home. In sickness and in health…right?

We started our day off with breakfast (cereal) in bed and I did some work from bed. Then we got dressed and headed to the doctor. At least we are both sick with the same thing, so the diagnosis and prescriptions were easy. After the doctor visit, we decided to go out on a date, to Wendy’s.

Abbie got the cheeseburger and I went with ‘ol faithful…the Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Thank you again to the late, great David Kimani for telling me about this fantastic sandwich 10 years ago. Leave it to a Kenyan to get me to try a spicy fried chicken sandwich.

After eating lunch, we drove over to Costco to pick up our prescriptions. Of course while we were there we picked up a few more things…because that’s how it works at Costco. You can’t just go buy what you are planning on without buying a few other things.

The sad part about us feeling sick is that it means we can’t go out to a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day. So, I had to call Leonardo’s and cancel our reservation. Sad, I know. We are still going to have Italian food tonight though since Abbie will be cooking some pasta.

For our gifts, we went small this year because we were planning on doing a nice dinner. Plus, with all of the fixing up and renovating we have done at home, we had already spent a good bit of money on each other that way. I got Abbie some nice tulips with irises. I did tulips because those are the flowers I got Abbie on our first Valentine’s Day together…and irises because they are blue and we’re expecting a little boy in just over 9 weeks. (We’ll blog on that soon…promise.) Anyway…here is a picture of what they will look like once they open all the way.

I also got Abbie some Jalapeno flavored chips that she really likes…that are impossible to find. The only place we know of that has them is the Winn-Dixie in Cahaba Heights. Abbie got me a nice card and some really good looking sweets. She got me chocolate-dipped strawberries (which I’m sure I’ll share), chocolate-covered Oreo’s, and caramel cake petit fours. They were all amazing!

So, even though we’re both sick, we’re able to spend the day with each other and I think we’ll have a nice, restful night, which is something I’m sure we’ll be begging for once our little boy gets here.