This crazy beautiful thing that happened

Flashback: the week of Christmas, 2014. Work drama per usual, running around like mad, getting ready for work while mentally compiling the list of gifts to finish wrapping and the final things to do before driving to NC for the holiday. A pregnancy test, just taken, was tallying its result. Not that the chances were great it'd be positive - after three years and seemingly endless interventions to get pregnant with Hazel, this was the very first month we were officially trying to have #2. So there I was again, temping and charting, even though we both admitted to each other that the sound of my basal body thermometer's beeps in the morning gave us PTSD reactions. I figured I'd rather know the result alone in our house than during the rest of the week's craziness, when we'd be spending two days in NC followed by two days in CT. By the time I started showering I'd actually sort of forgotten about the test, my mind was so full of things to do that day. I reached for the body wash and happened to look over. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Was that...? Surely that isn't...? 

But it was. Holy crap, it was positive.

Talk about surreal. So much effort the first time that we didn't dare wait a second longer than necessary to try for #2, in case we were in for another three-year journey of outrageously costly medical hell. So no, we didn't dare wait... but that didn't mean we really had hope, either.

We told our families right away, later that week, toasting to our Christmas miracle. We were cautiously optimistic that everything would be okay at that first ultrasound. Having had sad news at a previous ultrasound, we steeled ourselves for the worst. We told ourselves that even if this pregnancy wasn't viable, at least we knew we could get pregnant on our own - that simple knowledge felt absolutely revolutionary to us, after all we'd been through. Everything looked great, though. A tiny little bean with a great heartbeat. Each time we checked in, that bean grew bigger and was doing more tricks. Sucking a thumb, spinning around, kicking. A happy camper with a due date of August 28.

We knew from the start that we'd find out the sex. I'm too much of a planner to wait to know - I need the information yesterday. I didn't have an instinct one way or another this time, but found myself thinking more about a boy than a girl as time went on. At the end of February those boy thoughts panned out - our bean (whom we'd taken to calling "Dos") was a he! A little brother for Hazel - too, too good.

Two kids has been our number for a long time, and knowing that #2 is a boy helps cement that thought for us. We'll be a family of four, with a boy and a girl 21.5 months apart. Life is going to be crazy and wonderful and beautiful, and when I stop to catch my breath and consider that, I can't stop smiling.