What a Difference a Year Makes

A year ago tomorrow we found out we were expecting. It's one of my favorite days in my life and I love reliving it in my head when I'm bored! In honor of the occasion, here's the first blog I ever wrote :)



I've always been so thankful for the year I was born. Seems like a weird thing to be grateful for, but I've always been so blessed in friendships, work, and life in general and a lot of it seems to be a result of great timing. In addition to the wonderful people I've met in my life because I was in the right place at the right time, I've also had some other benefits from being born in 1982. For example, my career in particular seemed to be greatly helped by the timing of my graduation from college. I graduated at the time before it became challenging for teachers to get jobs. If I'd been born any later, a finding a job would've been a little more challenging and certainly I wouldn't have gotten my dream job at VHEW. Basically, I've always just marveled that, in my life, things just happen at the right time. It all seems so miraculous looking out on how the last (almost) 30 years of my life have played out. I might not have agreed with this whole "perfect timing notion" as much in those few years between when I'd decided that I wanted to marry Brandon and when he actually proposed, but in hindsight even that timing makes sense to me now.

For those of you who know me, I'm a planner. I've done everything in a "typical" order. I went to high school/college, got a job, got my masters, found the love of my life, bought a house, worked on my National Boards, got engaged, went back to school again, planned a wedding, got married and went on my honeymoon. Since I got my first job, there hasn't been a semester or summer when I wasn't doing something whether it be going to school at night/online or planning a wedding. I've always longed for a semester when I had nothing to do when I got home from work. However, after the "honeymoon was over" this summer I had a few days when I was left with nothing to do and I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with it, like I had nothing left to contribute, at least not until it was time to have kids. But you know the saying, "You only want what you can't have?" Once we got home and settled in after the wedding and honeymoon suddenly the urgent need to start a family didn't seem so urgent. I declared to  everyone that I was now wanting to wait to try until June next year. In fact, last Sunday we went to see The Dark Knight Rises and our friends unexpectedly walked into the theater. She is expecting a baby boy in November so it's visible that she has a "bun in the oven." They ended up sitting next to us in the movies and she made the comment, "You need to get pregnant soon so we can plan some play dates." That sounded great, but, like I said, I'd very recently come to terms with the idea that waiting until next summer would be more responsible, so I responded with, "Maybe next summer, but we're just not ready right now." However, just like the timing of my engagement wasn't as timely as I had once wished for, the timing of children wasn't for me to decide either. Apparently, while my brain was worried that I was running out of things to do, my body was hard at work creating something to keep me busy...

During the movie, I noticed that she was rubbing her baby bump and, as I'm sure it would for all girls, it got me thinking about when I would have a baby bump of my own. Even though I knew we had decided to wait, my heart overrode my brain and during the movie I succumbed to fantasies about being pregnant myself. I've always wanted to get pregnant in the summer so that the baby would be due during spring and I would take off the last bit of school and still have summer off to spend with a newborn before going back in August. During the movie, I calculated when we'd be due if we started trying now and I was pleased to realize that the timing still worked out with my spring/summer plan. Still, I knew Brandon would never consent to that..."not right now," he'd say. I reflected over some symptoms I'd been having lately: tired feeling (I just thought I was being lazy after spending so much time on vacation), relentless hunger (possible a stomach ulcer?), and some other symptoms I had just assumed were signs that I'd get that "sign" we were not pregnant very soon (somehow it hadn't occurred to me that I was already very late on getting that "sign"). When Brandon & I got in the car, I decided to tell him about these weird feelings I was all of a sudden having. I turned to him and said, "I think I caught pregnancy from our friend." He chuckled, but soon asked for more specifics and became  frustrated that I could all of a sudden just think I'm pregnant out of the blue. His frustration was understandable...why hadn't I said anything til now? Well, I really didn't stop to put all the pieces together, but sitting next to her made me think about some things going on with my body since we'd returned from the honeymoon.


By the time we'd gotten home from the movies, I was convinced that I was being a bit dramatic (after all, you can't just "catch" pregnancy from your neighbor in the movie theater, right?). However, I had still decided that a test was in order. The goal? To prove I was not pregnant so we could move on with the evening. Was I successful at saving the evening? Not exactly. Immediately a vertical line appeared on the test...a line that should not be there. I rushed out to show Brandon so he could convince me I must be reading the test wrong. I kept looking at the key and then back at the results...PREGNANT. Brandon (being a typical man), did not understand that there are rarely false positives so he rushed out to CVS and proceeded to buy a variety of tests ("Be sure to get the ones with the words on it!" I called out). Sure enough, two more tests produced the same results (even the fancy, expensive one with words - "Pregnant").


Time since then has slowed down considerably. We feel unbelievably blessed since we thought conceiving would be challenging due to my one ovary and PCOS. I keep telling Brandon that I've always heard "If you wait til you're ready to have kids, then you'll never have kids." While at first this little blessing seemed like it didn't go along with our perfectly timed life plan, what we've realized in the past few days is that no matter how much we like to plan things we have a destiny that plays out in ways we can't always predict. Everything is unfolding as it should.

Apta 32: The Next Generation

I'm sure this happens with everyone, but there seems to be moment after moment that makes me feel "old" in some way. Maybe "old" isn't the right word, but I just keep realizing how long I've been on this planet and how each new phase seems to come faster and faster. Last night was another one of those moments. Ten years ago, I couldn't imagine throwing a wedding shower for any of my friends, much less a baby shower, but here we are!

Circa 2004, we had a large group of friends that we hung out with that were not in our sorority, so we decided to make an unofficial fraternity called APTA (code for apartment, so clever, haha) and 32 because that was our apartment number. I really loved living with the core of the Apta 32 group (Ami, Tami, Kellie, and Steph). The best part about living with a big group is all the downtime you have just to chit chat. If we were really bored we would talk about what each other's "Barbies" would be like. For instance, if Tami were a Barbie, she'd come with glittery shoes and a Build-a-Bear shirt (the accessory kit came with a Metallica hoodie and a blood drive t-shirt). Steph would come with a bunch of purses and accessories. Kellie would come with a glass of wine and her purse on her shoulder (the Christmas Kellie came wrapped in Christmas tree lights). Ami would come with a bunch of homemade confetti. I'd come with a large McDonald's cup and a cardigan. Oh yeah, and most of us would come with a Motorola Razor phone as well. Those are the tame versions, but you get the idea. 

Another thing we would do to pass the time would be to make jokes about what our kids would be like. Just like the Barbies, they were over-exaggerated, stereotypical versions of ourselves. We would just crack ourselves up thinking about it. For example, everyone said that they wouldn't want their kid hanging out with Tami's kid because they'd probably be a bad influence getting the others into trouble. My kid would probably tattle on the rest of the children and Ami's kid would be the messiest, but craftiest. Kellie met Eric way before the rest of us had met our soul mates, but if you had told us that in ten years we would be where we are, we probably wouldn't have believed it. I don't remember thinking much past my nose back in those days and even though I hoped I'd get married and have a baby, I couldn't really picture it. Turns out, it's better and more perfect than I could've ever imagined. 

So here we are pretty close to our ten year friend-aversary, and the jokes about what our children will be like are about to get very real. John Mark was born February, 2013. Baby Nathan is due August 2013, and now Baby Mapp is scheduled to arrive February, 2014. I'm sure the group of children will just get bigger and bigger and it will be so interesting to find out if our predictions are true. I love this group of girls so much and I can't wait to get to know the second generation of "Aptas."

Baby on Board

Pre-baby, I used to laugh at those "Baby on Board" stickers that people had on their cars. I had two thoughts: 1. That's tacky and 2. What is the point? Do those people actually think people will avoid accidents with them because they have a baby in the car? That doesn't really sound effective. However, now I know why: it's because people with babies in the car want a slight "pass." For example, if I ever run a yellow light it might be because if I stop at it, John Mark will wake up from his nap or perhaps because he's hungry and he's crying and I really need to get where I'm going in a hurry! I just kind of want people to know I have a baby in the car so that if I do something like sit at a green light too long (maybe I'm searching for the paci to put back in his mouth) or forget my blinker (well I did that before I had a baby, haha), that people will be like, "Oh, it's because she is a mom." I probably shouldn't be running yellow lights or putting pacis back at red lights, but avoiding those things is easier said than done...you never know what you're gonna do until you're in the situation.

Whether it's fair or not, I'd like a "pass" in life, not just the car. I used to never be the kind of person to run late or forget things, but life with a baby is just unpredictable. Also, now that we are finally getting on a schedule, I am very protective of nap time. I used to think that parents who organized their life around their baby were lame, but now I know that the more you are a slave to a baby's schedule, actually the more free life is (i.e. you won't have to run out of a restaurant to feed your screaming baby). I guess what I am getting at is please don't judge parents and please, please don't say "When I have a baby, I will do it different." Yes, you might do things different than other parents, but every parent has to make decisions based on what works for their baby and you cannot possibly predict how you will react to the life changing event of adding a baby into the mix.

I cannot believe John Mark is approaching the 5 month mark. That means it's been almost 5 months since we left for the hospital to meet him. It's been almost 5 months since my belly was big and round and I could feel him kicking in their. Five months before I knew what he would look like. It's just hard to comprehend sometimes. In fact, during his nap time or when I'm watching T.V. after he's gone to bed, I think about how we got here and it's all so surreal. John Mark is such a blessing.

The newborn stage has it's perks (lots of sleeping for baby), but I feel like just now the fun is starting. We are finally parents of a BABY not a newborn. We know more about his personality and he smiles at us when we come into a room (the beginning just isn't near as tangibly rewarding). Now, he likes to play with his exersaucer and he can sometimes hit the button to make it play noise. Just a few nights ago he started splashing in the bath. It's so incredible to look at the world through a child's eyes...the things we take for granted, they look at with wide-eyed wonder that reminds you how remarkable life is. I can't wait to get to know him even better!