Hello everyone. It’s Shannon. I am the proud 19-weeks pregnant mother of our “Peanut”. Now, Peanut has yet to arrive, of course. But I wanted to take a minute to tell everyone who is interested about how we got “into this predicament” – don’t worry, no REAL details. You’ll have to figure that out on your own! But, Matt and I were married this past June (for those of you who didn’t know). That was my first wonderful gift of 2009. PLUS, I got to be “Bonus Mom” to Matt’s son, who is now 8 years old.

In September, we decide to take our official honeymoon, which was a cruise to the Carribean (Hi Bryan and Becca and Dave and Kim!). We figured that would be a good time to start exploring the possibility of expanding our family (as well as my belly!). We didn’t expect to have success immediately, since our doctor thought it might take at least 6-9 months minimum with some of my medical history. But, hey, practice makes perfect, right? So, pills were tossed in the trash right before the honeymoon.

We didn’t do anything specific to track timing or anything. But, around mid-December, I began to wonder. After being about a week “late” (extremely unusual for me), we decided to take “the test”! —insert dramatic music— So, on December 21st, while visiting Matt’s parents house, we peeled back the foil wrapper to reveal the Pee-Stick of Knowledge – EPT!

I’ll skip the intervening details and say that we had prepared to wait the indicated 3-5 minutes. However, within about one minute, the answer was clear. Well, not actually clear. It was a digital readout that said “Pregnant”! Matt and I had a mini-celebration in the bathroom and then decided to go let his parents in on the secret. They were thrilled. Now we had to wait until the next morning to share the news with MY parents. Can you say SLEEPLESS NIGHT?

I set an alarm for 4am-ish in California (7am for the parents n Ohio), figuring that I’d catch my Mom before she left the house and could tell both my parents at the same time. Well, Dad was snoozing, as is customary for that hour, I suppose. So, when my Mom answered, she was reluctant to wake him. I figured I’d have to let her in on the news. I did and she said “Oh, now I HAVE to wake your father, of course!” So she let him know and they were both completely overjoyed.

Those were the first four people we told. And, until the end of January, the only other people who knew were our wonderful friends Andy and Angie, who agreed to be our “Preggo Support Team” until we were letting the news out. It was really nice to have someone that didn’t know EVERYONE we knew who we could go to with questions. It was such a comfort.

So, that was the very beginning. As I post over the next few weeks, I’ll share more of the details of the early months – How I felt, when we told Matt’s son, what Matt’s experience was, etc. We will also be posting some of the ultrasounds and the pictures documenting my ever-expending belly (which I am LOVING!). So keep checking back to hear about this wacky and wonderous, miraculous and bizarre, fun and unpredictable journey through the land of pregnancy.

See you back here soon!