Our Big News– WE’RE PREGNANT!!!!

Well, this past December Jordan and I experienced the biggest surprise of our lives. WE’RE PREGNANT!!! I still can’t really get over the fact that this is all happening because it truly feels like the best dream ever. Throughout the years of our relationship, especially as we approached our wedding day, Jordan and I would talk about our hopes for “one day” having children. We always said how we kind of wanted to just “let it happen” when the Lord wanted it to. We didn’t want to put pressure on our journey toward parenthood or stress ourselves out over trying. Of course we also fully accepted and understood that one day we might need to actually start planning and trying. But the thought of finding the “perfect” time to start trying seemed unrealistic because let’s be honest, will we ever feel 1000% “ready”? Probably not!  Ultimately we always prayed that it would happen exactly the way it did! However– we never quite thought we would get pregnant by surprise less than 3 MONTHS after getting married, haha! But that didn’t scare us one bit. We’ve been together for almost five years now and have been living together for over three years. So the thought of bringing a child into our marriage simply excited us more than anything. God’s timing is the perfect timing and we cannot wait to welcome a little one into this world. We feel so blessed beyond measure.

A HUGE thank you to my dear friend, Anna Taylor for taking these photos of us. We will cherish these forever and ever!

So, let’s get to the story of how we found out in the first place! The whole thing is SO SO wild to me…and I still can’t even believe it. But here’s how it went.

Not to get into TMI, but as I mentioned we were not trying to get pregnant. However, there were a few times that it certainly could have been a possibility because I wasn’t 100% disciplined when it came to tracking my cycles. The weekend after Thanksgiving, I had looked at the app I was using to track my monthly and noticed that I had recently been ovulating (or so I thought). I looked at Jordan and said “ummmm…just a heads up. It’s a POSSIBILITY I could have gotten pregnant recently. I’m probably not, but there’s a chance.” We both kind of laughed, joking about how Wrigley (our dog) wasn’t ready to be a big sister yet. But on a serious note, we well were aware that time would tell whether or not this possibility was a reality or not in a few more weeks.

Within a few days, it was like something within me just changed. A few weeks before, I was nowhere near feeling like I was ready to start trying to have a baby. I always knew I wanted children, but I definitely wasn’t thinking about it at all up until this point. All of a sudden, it was ALL I could think about. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I wanted this “possibility” to be real more than anything. I would scroll Instagram and look at other moms and long for the chance to be one. “Where is this coming from?!?” I thought. Why did I suddenly feel this huge shift in my heart just a couple months into marriage? Am I being totally crazy for thinking this way simply because there’s a slight chance I could be pregnant right now? I felt so consumed that week, and I found myself praying in the shower one day…”Lord, why am I feeling this way? Am I supposed to talk to my husband about trying to start a family soon? Are you preparing me for something big? Please just give me peace here.”

I didn’t want to make Jordan feel unnecessarily overwhelmed, so I kept my thoughts quiet for the next few days so I could continue processing them myself. But I think something in my heart just KNEW that I was actually pregnant. On Thursday of the following week, I had a coffee date with my dear friend Kathryn to do some planning for the podcast we host together. I told her, “I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like I might be pregnant and I am not sure if I should have this second espresso.” We both laughed it off but she said, “Hey, you MIGHT be! We’ll see, right?”

The next day, Jordan and I headed to Charlotte for the wedding weekend of our good friends. Jordan was a groomsman, so we attended the rehearsal dinner that evening. I remember feeling SO exhausted on the car ride there and even fell asleep in the passenger seat for a bit. If you know me, I am NOT a napper, nor can I normally fall asleep in the car. I thought it was weird how tired I was but again, I didn’t think anything of it. We headed to the beautiful rehearsal dinner once we got into town, and I started to feel awful. Even though I was drinking water all day, I felt extremely bloated and uncomfortable. Something just felt really off and I didn’t know why. Later that night, I also had a weird sensation. It felt sort of like when you have a fever and you can feel your body heat rising in your mouth. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but I definitely felt funky.

The next morning I woke up and took a shower. And again, something felt strange. My chest was so sore that the water pressure of the shower felt almost unbearable. When I got out, I finally said something to Jordan. “Babe, this just happened to me and I just feel really off.” He said, “what does that mean?” I replied, “This is a sign of pregnancy, so this could actually be happening right now.” Jordan just started smiling and looked up at me. Then he said, “I actually had a dream last night that you handed me a present, and inside the box was a positive pregnancy test.” I’M SORRY, WHATTTTT!?!?!

Again, we both sort of laughed it off. We started rationalizing that maybe all of this is happening because we have been thinking about this possibility and now it’s in our heads. I thought I was due for my next period within the next week or so (even though I wasn’t, long story but I was a little off on my tracking and I had actually already missed one), so we figured we would find out soon enough.

Later that afternoon I had to drop Jordan off at the country club to get ready with the groom and all the other groomsmen. I had some time to kill before meeting him at the wedding, so I decided to go relax and get my nails done. I found a salon nearby that happened to be right beside a Harris Teeter. Something just told me to run in there and grab a pregnancy test. I thought, “okay, it will probably be negative. But then at least I will know if this is in my head and if I can drink or not at this wedding tonight.” So before I went into the nail salon, I headed into the grocery store. I grabbed a Pineapple Peach Kombucha (my fave) and a 3-pack of First Response pregnancy tests. On my way out, I stopped into the Harris Teeter bathroom to take the test. I stood in the stall and watched a second line IMMEDIATELY show up on this stick. I wished I had recorded my face because I am sure it was hilarious. My heart was beating out of my chest, I laughed, I cried. I could not believe it…I WAS RIGHT. I’m actually pregnant!!! Holy crap!

I had literally JUST dropped Jordan off, so I called him. He didn’t pick up. I called him again, and again, and again. But still no response. He didn’t have any cell service in the country club locker room he was hanging out in. I tried calling his friends and even driving back to the country club to see if I could get a hold of him. But nothing. I couldn’t just barge in on the guys without any excuse for being there. I just wanted to tell my husband but of course, didn’t want to take away from his friend’s wedding day! OMG, what was I supposed to do with this information TO MYSELF for this many hours before I see him later??!? I can’t tell anyone until I tell Jordan! I ended up leaving him a voicemail. I don’t even remember what I said, but I think I mentioned how I had called him 20 times and I needed him to call me back. Finally, I decided to just head into the salon to get my nails done. I needed to do something to keep me busy with this news that was about to explode out of me.

I was in the middle of my manicure when Jordan finally called me back. At that point, I didn’t know what to do. I really wanted to tell him in person, but I also COULDN’T WAIT THAT LONG. He was worried about me because I left him that panicked voicemail, so I had to tell him something. He asked if everything was okay, and I told him that I didn’t really want to tell him this on the phone. Immediately he knew and asked, “are you pregnant?” I responded with “it looks like it, yes.” and he just started crying and said, “that’s awesome babe, oh my gosh.” And there we were just crying on the phone together. Me in a nail salon chair and him hid away from all the other groomsmen at the country club. I wanted to hold him right then and there and couldn’t wait to see him at the wedding later.

Five o’clock finally rolled around and I got to see Jordan before the ceremony. But obviously no one else knew this news yet, so we had to play it cool. We gave each other a hug and kiss for what seemed like a normal greeting, meanwhile, our heads were completely spinning. At the reception later, I had to have him go to the bar for me to order seltzer waters with lime to make it look like I was drinking. Because yes, people were starting to notice that I wasn’t going to the bar at all. We had a lovely time with Jordan’s friends, but man was it hard to focus that night! It was fun keeping our little secret just the two of us for a few hours. 🙂

Later that night we decided to tell Jordan’s parents since we were staying with them for the weekend. The next morning, we drove to Raleigh just so we could tell my parents in person. We recorded their priceless reactions for the video we put together about sharing the news with our family. I am so glad we have those moments captured so we can look back on them and this most surreal feeling forever.

It has been SO hard keeping this secret from most of the world, but we did share with our family and close friends right after we found out. I know many people go about announcing their pregnancies in different ways and there are lots of different thoughts and opinions on when to do it. But for me, I knew that I would want the support right away. And if anything were to go wrong, I would want those people to walk alongside us through it. Right after the positive test we told our parents and close friends. We waited until seeing our siblings in person so we could surprise them at Christmas! That felt like the LONGEST two-week wait ever but it was SO worth it to see their reactions in person and get to hug them.

The weeks following our big surprise, I was feeling rather rough. I feel SO lucky that I never got to the point of vomiting, but I was pretty nauseous all the time. I’m normally a very motivated person. I loved getting up semi-early, starting my day with a workout and a healthy breakfast, and spending the day diving into the work I love so much. It is VERY unusual for me to ever slow down, nevermind take naps. So to go from a very busy schedule to absolutely nothing, on top of feeling COMPLETELY unlike myself, it was a struggle. All I wanted to do was lay on the couch, eat whatever didn’t sound totally disgusting, and nap at LEAST once a day. While this was completely out of character for me, I knew it was what my body needed at the time. I 100% embraced the fact that my body was doing a ton of work, ya know growing an actual human, so I allowed myself to hibernate those weeks. Gosh, it was hard though! I wanted to WANT to work, but even answering a simple e-mail felt like the most daunting task in the world to me. Not only that, but I am a very transparent person–an open book as one would say. So having to keep this HUGE secret from people I was around in my town, AND from the community that I regularly speak to on social media, was so very hard. As a wedding photographer during the engagement season, I knew it was important I kept up my presence on Instagram + Facebook. But I hardly even knew what to talk about on there because both my mind and physical body was all-consumed with the fact that I was pregnant. I was able to muster up the energy to get some work done and share a few posts here and there, but I couldn’t help but look forward to when I would feel myself again.

What did motivate me were our doctor appointments! I could not WAIT to go and make sure everything was looking okay. Waiting a whole month to go to the doctor after peeing on a stick felt like the longest month of my life!!! Luckily we had the holidays to enjoy with family and it kept me somewhat distracted. But I had no clue how crazy I would feel during those weeks. I had all sorts of fears and worries after reading books and hearing too much, so the second we got to see our little one on an ultrasound I felt the biggest rush of relief. At our first appointment, baby measured 7 weeks and 4 days, and had a super strong heartbeat of 161! Seeing that little flicker on the ultrasound screen was one of the craziest things Jordan and I have ever gotten to experience together. I may have also fainted during the bloodwork portion from the amount that they had to take to test, but we were happy to hear that everything was looking fantastic at our follow up appointment after that. After seeing our babe a second time, I finally started to feel less worried and more excited than anything. Is this real life that we’re having a baby!?!

The time has finally come and I feel like I turned a corner as I approached week 10. Even though I am definitely still allowing myself to sleep in, I feel so much more energy throughout the day. I’m talking enough to workout, see friends, get some work done, go to Target, etc.! And that feels SO GOOD! I may still need some naps here and there but I am so happy to be feeling myself again. And of course, to be able to share this news with the rest of the world!! This has been the HARDEST secret I have ever had to keep, especially because it’s one that has brought us so much JOY! We are so grateful the Lord has blessed us with this sweet gift and we cannot wait to welcome our child into the world in August.

If you’re still here, thank you for taking the time to read this and for your support! I am so excited to continue sharing more of this beautiful journey with y’all in the days and months to come!

xoxo Chelsea