Out of all of things that have happened since I last wrote here, the most exciting has been getting pregnant and preparing for our little baby! I wanted to do weekly or monthly updates, but I completely failed and didn't. So this will be a long, long post about how we found out we were pregnant and how we announced it to our friends and family.
Deciding
Christmas time in 2014, I felt this big urge to talk to Sam about babies. I felt like we had a lot of our life planned out for the next year as far as schooling and working, but we had yet to really and seriously talk about when we would start our family. Mind you, we were only married for about 8 months at that point. I went into the conversation, not really knowing when I wanted to start, but I definitely knew I wanted to know what Sam was thinking about it all. We talked and decided that after we hit our one - year mark, we would get off of birth control and just "see what happens". So, we weren't set out to necessarily
try, we just knew we would stop preventing.
Fast forward 2 months and Sam's oldest sister Laura had her first baby, Maddie and we went to the hospital and met her and she was honestly the cutest newborn ever. We got home and Sam just said, "Let's have a baby." I laughed at him and then he gave me a big hug and kiss and said, "No, seriously let's have a baby. We can do it, it'll be fine." Hahaha! I was so surprised and also so excited and I went to my purse, took my BC pills out and threw them away right then!
Finding Out
The next few months, we had the attitude of "whatever happens, happens" and so we weren't trying, just not preventing. I will admit I was so naive as to how it all work with your cycle and ovulating and all of that. So when 2 or 3 months went by and nothing happened I was a little sad and a little worried. But, then I realized we just weren't paying close enough attention to the calendar, I was fine. The first month we actually "tried" was the month I got pregnant!
From February to June, I tricked myself EVERY MONTH into thinking I was pregnant. It's so funny to think about now! I would wake up nauseous (probs just hungry) and would just be like "Omg, this is it. I'm pregnant for sure." And then I'd go eat breakfast or drink some water and I'd feel 100% okay. Then, June came (when I actually WAS pregnant) and I felt no symptoms and was so annoyed at feeling excited, just to be let down; I decided I just wouldn't think about it at all until at least a week after a missed period. Well, that Monday morning came and it was exactly a week late and I dropped Sam off at school and then shakily went to the store and bought 2 tests. I wanted to video my reaction to show Sam later on, and didn't want to look ugly so I got ready first and then I took the test and I automatically saw the little line appear without even starting the timer on my phone for the 2 minutes you are supposed to wait. Well, I got so excited but then made myself not look at the stick again until the timer went off. When it did, the line was definitely there and I just cried and cried and cried. It was the best moment and also the scariest moment.
I had class right after and I was just shaking the entire time looking around and just thinking "My entire life just changed. Why am I here?" Hahaha but it was a good distraction. After my class I went home and I tried to figure out how to tell Sam.
Announcing to Sam
When Sam proposed to me, he made this adorable video of all of the things we had done together and had dates and locations for everything in the video. The video ended with a picture of the San Diego Temple and the date we had sort of talked about and then it said, "Engaged on December 18th" which was that day. Anyways, it was the cutest thing and I loved it. So, it was 2 years since we met a few days before this and so I decided to find the video he used to propose to me, and then add on to it. So, I got the file and then added on photos from getting engaged all the way to the point we were at now. Before each year or time frame, I had "2014" or "Fall" or whatever to announce the new section. The video was over (or so he thought) after the "2015" photos. I made the video have a black screen for about 10 seconds or so and while it was blank he kissed me and said thank you and I said, "Happy Anniversary" and he thought that was that. He was eating a snack and went to take a drink of water and all of a sudden a slide that said "2016" popped up. He looked sort of confused for just a second until a photo of me with the pregnancy test from that morning popped up and said "We're Pregnant!" and then another photo of the test more close up that said, "Baby C, Coming in March 2016"
His eyes bugged out and he sort of choked on his water and just said "No way.." and then when he saw the pregnancy test photo he said "That means you're pregnant?" Hahahha I loved it, he then said "That's crazy" over and over and then gave me a kiss. It was such a fun moment. But, I definitely should have made the video shorter because my heart was beating so fast and it was so hard to act normal.
Announcing to family + friends
We were heading to California for our summer break and for my best friend's wedding. We were going on a beach camping trip with my entire family (except for my brother Tyler) and decided we would tell everyone during that trip. I knew even before we got pregnant, that I wanted to video tape everyone's reactions. So during the camping trip at dinner one night, I just said "Let's all take a picture!" My family is used to me taking lots of videos and photos so no one was suspicious (I think). I set the camera up on a table and put it on video mode and pressed record. Then I said "Ok everyone smile! One.. Two... Three..... I'M PREGNANT!" I think everyone was really confused at first, except for my mom and my sister Whitney who screamed and jumped up right away. Someone asked "Wait, seriously?" and then everyone got up and gave us hugs and kisses. It was so fun to announce it with everyone altogether.
A few minutes later, Tyler started to Facetime us and so I grabbed the phone and the first thing Tyler said to me was "Are you pregnant yet?!" and I just said "Yeah I am!" and he started laughing and said "No you're not." and I said "Yes I actually am, I just told everyone 2 minutes ago." He laughed and said congratulations and was really surprised!
My sister Haley came to join us camping a few days into the trip. She brought her best friend with her and so I needed to get her alone to tell her. I couldn't find any other solution then to ask her the night she came if she wanted to walk to the bathroom with me and Sam. She thankfully said yes and we headed over. Well it was pitch black and the only light was coming from the bathrooms themselves. I stupidly said "Wait, I want a picture! Let's take a picture Haley!" She sort of just looked at me and was like, "Ok, sure.." So Sam had his phone and we posed for the photo and then I turned towards her and told her I was pregnant and she just screamed and hugged us and cried a little.
A few weeks later, we had a family trip to Montana planned with Sam's family and so we waited to tell them until that trip. I was getting really nauseous at certain times and so we decided to tell his Mom, youngest sister, and grandparents before everyone else because they were staying with us in Rexburg about a week before we met up with everyone else and I knew that it would be hard to hide my symptoms without them being suspicious. So, one night we were playing Bananagrams with my mother-in-law Alison and sister-in-law Jess. Sam used his tiles to spell out "We are pregnant" and then I said "Woah, Sam those are big words" or something stupid like that, just to get Jessica and Alison to look at his tiles. Come to find out I jumped the gun because "pregnant" was totally misspelled and so Jess and Alison were a little confused. But, then finally they both sort of gasped and screamed and then gave us some hugs and laughed! It was so fun.
We told Sam's grandparents who were visiting from England the next morning by showing them a scrapbook of ours and putting an ultrasound picture in the last page. It took them just a minute to realize what it was and what was happening but then his Gran asked. "Oh, is that a baby!?" and Sam said "Yes, we are pregnant!" It was so funny and so cute.
So, we finally made it to Montana and needed to tell the rest of Sam's family, which was his dad, two other sisters, our brother-in-laws, and our nieces and nephew. We played a game of charades and Sam went up first and acted out a few of the pieces of paper and then he started to act out pregnancy symptoms, pretending to throw up, showing a big belly, rocking a baby, etc. But, no one was guessing it right and so finally he pointed at me and then showed a big belly with his hands and his sister Laura yelled "Hanna's pregnant!" and then we just nodded our heads and said "Surprise!" I think my father-in-law was a little confused because half of the room already knew so there wasn't really any excitement at first except for Laura and Emily hahaha but it was great.
We also told my best friends Emily, Ryli, and Johnna and their spouses before we announced it publicly. I just pretended to take a selfie or a photo with each of them but really was taking a video and told them I was pregnant. It was so, so fun to see their reactions! Emily mostly cried like the sweetheart she is, Ryli teared up and kept hugging me, and Johnna hugged me and then just said "I knew it! You liar!" Because she had asked us a month before if I was pregnant when she was staying at my house for Emily's wedding and I was so taken off guard that I sort of hesitated and looked at Sam and then looked back at her and was like "Wait, no, what?" and she totally called my bluff and kept saying she knew I was pregnant! But, I couldn't tell her yet because Sam's whole family still didn't know!
Announcing it publicly
Before we actually announced it publicly, we told our grandparents and some of our aunts, uncles, cousins and a few more close friends. There were a few times when I sort of had to tell people we were pregnant because of poor timing or because I was so obviously sick. There were some funny moments where people who knew me well just knew I was pregnant and another time where I told someone at the worst possible moment! But, all in all it was my favorite to tell people the news!
We made a little video of us putting up photos from when we were dating, engaged, and married on a cork board and then ended the video with putting up our ultrasound photo! I also put together a video of all of the reactions we filmed into a video. I wish, wish, wish I could have filmed everyone's reactions but I am so happy we got the ones we did. (I had to delete the video from YouTube because of copyrights of the song I used, so I'll have to add it to here someway more legal!)
If you made it through this, I am sorry for the long long post. I want to remember all of these stories and memories forever and feels so good to finally have them written down! We are two days past our due date and reminiscing on when we first found out and told our family and friends has been such an eye-opener as to how FAST it all goes by. I can't believe that in a few short days, or maybe even hours, we will have a baby here with us!
