hormonal absurdities

You guys.

YOU GUYS.

Pregnancy does some strange things to your emotions.

You mommas out there know.  And some of you women know at certain times of the month.  And most of you men will never know.  [And I think we all prefer it that way.]

To be honest, most of the time I feel completely normal.  But sometimes, the waterworks turn on at the most random times and I have no idea - no idea - why I'm crying.

The first time I noticed this hormonal phenomenon, I was at the Devey family reunion.  We were in the middle of a talent show, and one of Tim's nephews got up to demonstrate his karate skills, complete with loud "Heeyah!"s and "Yah!"s.  Suddenly I found my eyes filling with tears as I took in this...tender...moment.  My logical side did its absolute best to convince my brain that my hormones were being absurd, and yet somehow, the knowledge alone didn't take away the tears.

The next absurd story took place in Primary [which is a church class for kids if you're unfamiliar].  A little girl was giving her talk and named off the various sports she liked to play.  For each sport she mentioned, her mom got out a visual aid.

"I like to run," she said, as her mom pulled out her sneakers.

"And I like to play soccer," she said, as her mom pulled out a soccer ball.

"And I like to play baseball," she said, as her mom got out her glove.

Somewhere down the list of favorite sports, my eyes began to fill with tears as if this was the most touching moment I'd ever encountered in my entire life.  I glanced over at Tim to see him looking at me, trying unsuccessfully to mask a smile as he noticed my unshed tears.

My favorite - and probably most absurd - hormonal moment came last night as I watched this video:

For some reason last night this video made me feel all teary-eyed and tenderhearted as I listened to the ridiculous lyrics and watched the hilarious dance moves.  Tonight I watched it again and laughed hysterically - mostly from the knowledge that it had somehow made me cry the night before.

In semi-related news, yesterday I threw up at work more times than I'd like to think about, but somehow, I felt all cheery and lighthearted as I gave students the bad news that it was now too late to sign up for classes.

You never know.  You just never know.

before the baby

When Tim and I got engaged, we discussed, among many other things, when we wanted to start having children.  Let's wait at least two to three years, we said.  It'll give us a chance to really get to know each other.

But sometime at the beginning of 2012, I began to have small inklings that Heavenly Father might have other plans.  Since we had only been married a few months and since I was still in grad school at the time, I shrugged it off the first few times.  Then something totally unexpected happened.

I had a miscarriage.  And I hadn't even known I was pregnant.  Didn't even think it was really a possibility.  But the grief that followed was instantaneous and acute.  Needless to say, I immediately began reevaluating my thoughts on the matter.  But ultimately, it all came down to one plaguing question: Did I really want to prevent the coming of a child that was meant to be in our home?

Don't worry, I didn't quit grad school because of all of this soul-searching.  I quit for a thousand other reasons.  But it would be a lie to say it wasn't a factor at all.

Tim and I continued to pray about the matter, but I said very little of my growing convictions.  I wanted him to  independently get the same confirmation that I'd had.

It didn't take very long.

Tim's grandma died in February, and we drove up to Utah for her funeral.  Throughout her service, I felt my convictions growing stronger, but again, I didn't say much about my feelings because I didn't want to influence Tim.  Sometime during the long car ride home, however, Tim got his own sacred answer.  Maybe he'll write about the experience someday, but suffice it to say that by the time we got home, he was even more convinced than I was that it was time to stop preventing pregnancy.

It was honestly the scariest decision we've ever made as a couple - not because we didn't want a baby, but because we knew how drastically our lives would be changed in a very short amount of months.  But we knew that as we moved forward with faith, Heavenly Father would allow everything to happen when the time was right - for Him, for us, and for a child we hadn't even met.

almost-anniversary

I realize that it's now August 18th and that our anniversary was August 5th, but let's just take a second to pretend  that today is August 5th and that I am not a procrastinator.

Because one year ago today [cough, cough], I married my best friend.

And you know what?  I knew our marriage would be amazing.  I knew what kind of a man he was, and I knew how beautiful our relationship already was.

But looking back on that day, I see a naive young woman who didn't really understand what it would all be about or how amazing a marriage could really be.  Because you know what?

It's been better.  This past year has been far better than I could have ever imagined on August 5th, 2011.  Far better than I could have ever dreamed as a young girl imagining that prince I would someday marry in a fairytale far, far away.

Somehow, in some unfathomable way and for some unknown reason, I got the pick of the litter.  The cream of the crop.  I don't know how I got so lucky - or so blessed.  But I am so grateful.

That man I call my husband is truly the most selfless man I've ever met.  He's kind and strong and devoted.  He smiles - and somehow truly means it - even in the most difficult of situations.  He finds a way to laugh, and make me laugh, when life gets stressful or hard.  He is generous almost to a fault - but in the truest sense there is absolutely nothing faulty about it.  His faith in the Lord is unshakable and his quiet goodness is a constant reminder that I want to be better.  That I can be better.

During my freshman year of high school, my seminary teacher asked us what we were all looking for in a future spouse.  Everyone listed off the same superficial answers you always hear after such questions, but after some thoughtfulness, a senior boy that I really looked up to replied, "I want to marry someone who makes me want to be better."

And in so many ways, that has become the embodiment of my relationship with my husband and even of my view of love in general.  Not that I want to feel inferior to him, but that together, we can be better.  That we are better and stronger together than we ever could be apart.

My heart is filled with inexpressible joy that the baby I am carrying is going to have such an incredible father - a father who already loves him/her more than they may ever comprehend fully.  A father who will be a true dad in every sense of the word.

On August 5th, 2012, our real anniversary, I woke up at 2:00 in the morning with the stomach flu, which continued to get worse over the next ten or so hours, until I was completely and totally dehydrated.  I was miserable.  Eventually we decided it was time for the ER, and after the agonizing time spent in the waiting room, we finally made it back into a room where an IV placed in my arm seemed to make everything better.

Sounds like a totally miserable way to spend your anniversary right?  As Tim's brother, Billy, put it, "At least it won't be hard to make next year better."  But even though it was hard and miserable and made me just want to cry, looking back on the whole experience gives me fresh appreciation for my husband and for my marriage.  He took care of me the entire night, was endlessly concerned for my well-being, filled out all the paperwork I was then-incapable of even noticing, and smiled with a new light in his eyes the second I started feeling even minutely better.

And that, my friends, is what true love is really all about.

And I am truly grateful that I get to call Tim mine...forever.

grandma and grandpa?

Did I tell you that I'm going to have a baby?

Oh, yes.  Yes I did.

You can't blame me for asking.  We're pretty excited 'round these parts.

And you know, our parents are pretty excited, too.  Let me give you some examples.

As soon as we got married, my mom started buying all kinds of baby things, including a Pack N Play and a double running stroller.  Uh-huh.  You heard me right.  A double running stroller.  In fact, I have a very distinct memory of her telling me that she'd bought the contraption because it brought a smile during my face during a moment when I had felt like doing anything but smiling.

Not enough evidence?  Don't worry.  I have more.

We had only told our immediate families about our pregnancy for the first few weeks, just to be safe.  But remember, in Tim's family, immediate family involves like 40 people.  Big families, you know.  We asked them all to keep it a secret for awhile, knowing full well that it would be a difficult secret to keep for so many people.  Well, when we went down to Yuma a couple of weekends ago for Melissa's wedding reception, it seemed like all kinds of Yumans already knew about our little bundle.  Tim decided to ask his dad about it.

Tim:  So, dad...it seems like everyone already knows about the pregnancy.

F.I.L.:  Well, we only told our close friends.

Tim:  How come so many people know then?

F.I.L.:  We have a lot of close friends.

That conversation still brings a huge smile to my face.  I mean, I can't really blame them.  It was a really hard secret to keep.

Don't worry, I still want to tell you about how we found out.  And about how we told our families.  And about how I've thought about and loved this baby for years before I found out I was going to be a mom.  And about  all of my silly, hormonal crying stories.

And I will.

But if I told you all of that right now, this blog post would turn into a novel, and goodness knows nobody wants to read my novel, and I certainly don't have time to write one.  But I have quite a few weeks to catch you up on.

Like I said, it was a difficult secret to keep.

p.s.  I still want to tell you about our anniversary, too.  It was a bit overshadowed by our baby news and a brief hospital stay, but one year ago, my life changed drastically...for the better.  And that's something worth mentioning.

baby devey

I've been a terrible blogger lately.
 
I'm not even going to try to deny it.
 
But would it help if I told you that I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY?!?!
 
That's right.  I'm pregnant.  With child.  Have a bun in the oven.  Am going to be a MOMMY.  And I can barely contain my excitement.

 It's such a surreal feeling.  We had our first ultrasound yesterday and even watching the baby up on the screen, it was hard to believe that the picture was actually coming from a baby in my tummy.  That the heartbeat I was hearing was coming from my body but that it wasn't my own.
 
Surreal, but beautiful.
 
I'm twelve weeks along, and I am so ecstatic to report that the nausea has lessened considerably in the last couple of weeks.  [You know, except for last weekend when I caught the stomach flu.  Then I had considerable nausea and even ended up completely dehydrated in the hospital.  And I'm sure it was just made 5,000 times worse by the fact that I'm pregnant.]
 
I would show you a "bump" picture, but let's be completely honest here: I don't look any different right now.  And any chance I did have of gaining some sort of tiny bump was probably gone with the pounds I lost during the Stomach Flu Incident of 2012.
 
Tim is absolutely convinced we are going to have a boy.  I honestly have no feeling one way or the other.  I keep thinking that whole maternal instinct thing will kick in and somehow I'll magically know the gender of my unborn child.  But I'm not holding my breath.  [Bad for the baby, duh.]
 
Either way, we are so excited.  There have been happy tears shed over this baby on more than one occasion.  And not just by me.

 Baby, you are worth every second of this.  Every.Single.One.