Baby Lawrence :)

Well as most of my readers know by now Eric and I are expecting our first child. We are so blessed to have this miracle of life. I am almost 13 weeks along (Wednesday), Baby "L" is due November 4th (tentatively).


The story of how we found out and how we told the family :)


My sister and her friend Elizabeth came to visit me in Virginia the last weekend of February, because Eric was working that weekend. Once they left on Sunday afternoon, I took a pregnancy test and it read positive :) I was SO excited and nervous all at the same time. Eric and I had actually been trying to get pregnant since the beginning of January (so not long at all!). So when I read the pregnancy stick it took me a few seconds for it to actually register. I got a shower and got dressed and ready and headed over to the Coast Guard station to tell Eric the WONDERFUL news. But of course I didn't want to tell him in front of anyone so once I got there we just hung out watching tv with a couple of the guys in the room. They eventually left and I looked over to Eric and told him he was going to be a dad and that I was pregnant! His eyes lit up and he said "are you serious?!" I said yes I took a test and it said positive! Once I left the station it was all I could not to call family and friends and tell them the wonderful news! But I told Eric I didn't want to tell them until we have confirmation from the doctor. So on Monday (during my lunch break) I called the OBGYN's office and set an appointment. They set it for 9 days after I spoke to them. I didn't think that day would EVER get there! Well it finally arrived--March 10th-- and we were at the doctor's office (I had told my office that I had a regular yearly check-up...ya know the "woman's doctor" haha). When the Nurse Practitioner did the sonogram and we got to see a little LINE of a baby on the screen it was exciting. We were 6 weeks pregnant! She gave us pictures of our "Line" haha. So then after the doctor gave us the confirmation and pictures and our tenative due date of November 4th we were ready to go :) Then we had to figure out how and when we were going to tell our parents that they were going to be GRANDPARENTS! Those of you who know me, know I love to be creative! We weren't planning on going home until March 19th weekend and even that weekend wasn't planned because we were going home the following weekend for Amber and Patrick's wedding, so that made us traveling to Beaufort 2 weekends in a row...obviously we didn't mind because they were both joyous occassions of why we were going home :) I had 9 days to come up with an idea of how to tell our family! Eric and I drove up to Salisbury, MD to meet up with another couple at the movies (The Alice in Wonderland movie) so we decided to go up a little earlier and go to Michael's so I can wonder around there. I had the idea of making picture frames for everyone with possible grandparent names to call them :) Of course the picture would be our "first picture" :) So I got the unfinished frames at Michael's along with scrapbook supplies to decorate the frames and I (with the help from my wonderful hubby) stained the frames. We stained the frames that Sunday and I let them dry for so long, because I was still undecided on what to put for the names on each of the frames. This is when I decided to call my sister and tell her the wonderful news! Actually I believe I called her prior to buying the frames! So yes my sister Carly kept the secret for such a long time and that in itself was a miracle :) She would text me or call me and tell me times where she came close to slipping up and telling either daddy or mama! But I am thankful she didn't! Also I should mention that my step-sister Allison is expecting her first child in July! So that made things a bit easier for my sister to be able to cover up some of the things we were needing to find out haha :) Such as figuring out a name to call my father and Kimberly. My sister would just bring up to them "oh so have you guys figured out what you wanted to be called for Allison's baby?" So we were sneaky finding out names for daddy and Kimberly :) As for my mom we came up with something that we thought was cute. Then for Dwayne and Marianne....well they have been wanting us to have a baby since the wedding so they have told us names they wanted to be called LONG before we were even trying haha!

The names:

Daddy and Kimberly--"Papa" and "Nana"
Dwayne and Marianne--"Papa" and "Mema" yes both grandfathers will be called "Papa" which we thought was cute and if the kid gets confused we can always add "Papa B" and "Papa D" :)
My mom--"Juju" but of course on the frame I put "Grandma JuJu" so she would know what the name was haha :)

See the pictures below

Daddy and Kimberly

Dwayne and Marianne

My mama

Once the frames were made I was SO ready to get home and give them to everyone! We got home that Friday night (March 19th) around 10. We walked in the door to my mom's house and we unpacked, brought the stuff up to the room and then just sat on the couch talking for a bit...it was all I could do not to bust out with the news at first, but I had to contain myself since I worked so hard on the frames :) SO then I said "so mama I got you something" and then I pulled out the frame and gave it to her. She was looking at it and looking at it and it finally registered what she was looking at then she goes and puts the picture under the light so she can better see what she was looking at :) Then her reaction hit and was like "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS" So after a few minutes of repeating those words she asked me if Carly knew and I told her yes and that she'd known for a couple of weeks now and she was like "She didn't tell me!" haha. So that was fun.

Saturday morning we were meeting my dad and Kimberly for breakfast, which this story is funny all on its own because we (me and my sister) totally manipulated daddy through this entire process haha! It began like a week prior to seeing Daddy and Kimberly. My sister knew I wanted to tell Daddy in person (because of the frame) but I just couldn't figure out when I would see daddy again (since he lives 2 1/2 hours away from Beaufort). So my sister had text me saying that daddy was talking about going and visiting grandma (aka his mother) sometime during that week before he and Kimberly were heading off to CA for his cousin's wedding. So my sister said maybe I can call him and convince him to wait a few extra days and go down to Beaufort that weekend :) SO sure enough I called daddy instantly and said "so Eric and I are coming to Beaufort this weekend and I haven't seen you since Christmas maybe you want to meet us down there?" his first reaction was "that is so weird we were JUST talking about going and visiting grandma this week" I was trying not to laugh :) So he said "yeah I can push the trip a few days so we can come down there this weekend!" So yay our plan was working this way all the grandparents would know the same weekend instead of saying "don't say anything yet because we haven't told so and so" :) Anyway back to the Saturday morning breakfast. We met them around 10sh for breakfast at the best breakfast place "Beaufort Cafe" I was shaking because I was nervous trying to pick the best time to tell daddy he's going to be a grandpa AND trying to figure out if I should wait until after we ate breakfast or before we ate breakfast. Well we all talked for a little bit put our orders in and were just hanging out. So then I finally said "oh I got you guys something for the remodeling" they have been remodeling their house for sometime so I figured that was the best line to use :) So then I handed him the picture frame. They are both looking at it and daddy so obvlious thought I had handed him a frame I made regarding Allison's baby :) Then Kimberly realized what it was and daddy looked further at it and started reading out loud "Baby Lawrence--November 4th" then he finally got clued in and his reaction hit "WAIT WHAT, WHAT WAIT A MINUTE WHAT" haha then he of course was happy and kept looking at the photo :)

Saturday evening we finally went over to Dwayne and Marianne's house (Dwayne had been working all day and I knew good and well if I went over there any sooner I would of busted and told Marianne right away haha) so when we walked in they were sitting on the couch and me and Eric sat in the big chair. I said "well I have something for you guys" and I took the frame out of my purse and handed it to Dwayne.....well Dwayne just basically saw a frame and instantly just said "Thanks guys" and we all just kind of hesitated and Marianne being a mama knew exactly what that was haha and she said "baby do you realize what your looking at" as he was about to set it on the coffee table :) He finally looked at it further and was like "baby Lawrence" and then had a big ol' grin on his face and looked to Eric and said "you owe me a $100" HAHAHAHA! I busted out laughing! Because it was either the day or day after Eric and I got Engaged Dwayne made a bet with Eric that we would announce we were pregnant within the first year! I of course was not around during this so-called bet so I can not verify exactly what was said and WHY my then fiance would make a bet about our future children haha! But of course guys will be guys! So we thought that was HILARIOUS for his reaction :)

Everybody was so thrilled for our news but I told them all not to post ANYTHING on facebook until I posted something because I didn't want EVERYBODY to find out when I was still so early in the pregnancy. Although lets face it Carteret County LOVES to gossip so even though by the time I finally did post something on facebook the majority of the people already knew, I was just thankful nobody posted anything :) So at 12 weeks I finally let facebook know :)

I have been to the doctor now 3 times; once for the initial confirmation of the pregnancy, second time to meet with one of the doctors who will be possibly delivering the baby and then the third visit I had to go alone because Eric was working and I SO wish he could of gone because it was the 11th week and so the baby finally looked like a baby and I got to see it moving and saw its heartbeat oh it was SO exciting and seemed so real to me then, because the other 2 visits the doctors "claimed" there was a baby but I had no idea what I was looking at and didn't notice the little peanut until the 3rd visit :) So the picture below is our baby at 11 weeks ain't he/she so cute :)

My next appointment is set for May 21st at the OBGYN and then the next appointment is June 14th which is at the hospital where we get to find out the sex of the baby! So cast your vote now on what you think it will be :) My husband and his father are DETERMINED its a boy! We did the Chinese Gender Chart on thebump.com and it claims to be a boy too. So I'm trying to get in the mind-set that its a boy! Now I need to come up with boys names....any suggestions?

Baby Lawrence at 11 weeks :)

I promise I will try to keep this update more frequently regarding the baby and any other activities :)

Sorry for the long and rambling post, my sister says I write exactly how I talk...apparently that's not always a good thing especially with a sister who is an English major :)