bump watch: finding out

the day we found out about skippy.

When you go through fertility treatments (that's another topic for another day), the whole process of finding out you are pregnant (or not) is completely different. There are no home pregnancy tests. It's always a blood draw in the morning followed by a phone call in the afternoon. I've received this call numerous times. All of them negative, but for some reason I had a feeling that there was going to be something different about this one on April 6, 2015...

1. I knew if it was positive, it would mean a Christmas baby. I love Christmas, but I absolutely never, ever wanted to have a baby around the holidays. In fact, in our complete naivety, Jon and I had a big, fat "don't get pregnant" clause around the weeks that would yield an extra gift from Santa. The saying goes that beggars can't be choosers, and I had a funny feeling that God's sense of humor would see fit for a Christmas baby. I love to make plans. God loves to change them. Luckily, He's always right.

2. After some hemming and hawing, I scheduled my appointment for first thing Monday morning on opening day. Baseball's opening day, that is. Part of me thought baseball would be a nice distraction either way. Boy (or girl!), was I right.

3. This was the first time I spent any amount of time thinking about how I would tell Jon. Again, this wasn't my first rodeo, but for some reason, I was inspired this time to put a little effort and planning into it. Since we would be going to the baseball game, it was an easy decision. I secretly bought a little league baseball while I was out running errands that weekend. I hadn't exactly planned how I was going to use the baseball, but I thought it could play a role in the big reveal.

4. My phone rang before 2:00 p.m. Fertility treatments come with a ridiculous amount of monitoring appointments. I think I've spent half of my life in the waiting room at Shady Grove Fertility. It's always the same. Early morning appointment, mid-to-late afternoon phone call. You get pretty good at predicting what time they will call so when my phone rang well before their average call time, my heart skipped a beat. What does an earlier phone call mean??? The conversation with my nurse Rachael went something like this.

Rachael: I have some good news. You're pregnant!
Katie: Stop it. Are you serious? Stop it.
Rachael: {Laughing} Yes.
Katie: No way. I mean, I guess this would be a really mean joke. But seriously? You're not joking?
Rachael: No, you are pregnant.
Katie: {Terrified}. Oh my gosh, this is terrifying.
Rachael: {Laughing}. Everyone says that.

When you spend so much time and energy trying to get pregnant, you reserve zero focus for what happens when you actually do get pregnant. It's also a defense mechanism. Assume the worst, hope for the best. Needless to say, I was completely unprepared.

trying to decide what to wear to the game....

I hung up the phone and immediately panicked. I knew I needed to get dressed and get to the baseball game. Jon was already there. I had all my Nats gear laid out on the bed, but I was too excited to even think about what to wear. I pulled on the two nearest tops. I grabbed my empty cup of coffee to take downstairs on my way out. Except it wasn't really empty, and in my excitement, I spilled coffee all over the stairs and wall. Oops.

I had stuffed the baseball in a drawer downstairs. I figured I would write something about a baby on it. Like I said, I was pretty unprepared. My hands were shaking so I scribbled on a piece of paper to try to get it right. But I'm too impatient so I just went for it. Thus, the ball was engraved with a very sloppy "Baby Hardin coming December 2015." I stuck it in my purse and headed for the car. Luckily, before I pulled away, I realized that I didn't have my ticket. All the way back upstairs I went.

I drove to the metro. I waited for the metro. This all felt like an eternity. I arrived at the ballpark (finally!) and then remembered they had mandated metal detectors at the entrance now. I saw the looooong line and immediately made a bee line for a smaller, less frequented gate around the corner. One perk of being a regular attender is knowing little tricks like that. The line was much shorter at that gate, but I made the mistake of getting in line behind two goths who were covered in chains. I kid you not. The dude kept setting off the detector, pulling more chains out of his pockets and setting it off all over again. This went on for a few minutes or a few hours. I had lost all concept of time.

Finally, I was in. I tracked down Jon who was grabbing a drink with our friend Betsy. I played it cool for a solid 10-15 minutes until we parted ways. I nonchalantly told Jon I wanted to take his picture before we headed to our seats. Despite the fact that Jon knew I went in for a blood test that morning, he appeared to have no idea what was about to happen.

While I'm casually pretending to take his picture, I switch to video mode, grab the ball out of my bag, and hand it to him. This is his reaction:

It is such a Jon reaction. He reacts, then remembers that I'm supposedly taking a picture so he pauses to smile for the camera and then he continues his natural reaction. Hilarious. Jon can be a little slow on the uptake.

We then made our way to our seats, sat down next to our friends who were attending the game with us, and proceeded to pretend we didn't just find out we were having a baby for the next 3+ hours. The Nationals lost the game, but it was still a pretty great day.

The End.

I lied. Not the End.

Now would be a good time to note this baby's nickname. Since this baby has a baseball history already - and will hopefully love baseball like mom and dad - we've decided he/she will be called Skipper, which some of you may know is a nickname for the manager of a baseball team. Henceforth, Skipper, Skippy and Skip will all be used as an in utero name for this little one. I promise there will be a "real" name eventually, but you probably won't get to know that until after he/she has made his/her appearance into this world.