Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

There's more than one reason I've been MIA on my blog lately.

The Pilot and I are expecting a baby!  

For a long time, I wasn't sure if I was going to write this post but ultimately, I felt like I couldn't leave it off of my blog. I've had this blog for 8 years and it's a huge part of my life. Sure, I haven't posted much in the last year or so but for those of you who still read, I want to share our news, and outside of that, this blog has been a chronicle of my life since graduating from college and it feels like a missed opportunity to not write about something as big as this!

The thing is, it took a long time for me to feel comfortable sharing this news. We didn't even tell our families until after my 16th week. 

Because this isn't my first pregnancy. The Pilot and I had the hardest year of our lives dealing with unexplained pregnancy loss and doctors who were so dismissive and flippant, it set my head into a spin. We also dealt with a lot of people who had no idea how to respond to something like pregnancy loss and said all the wrong things.

"Everything happens for a reason."

"It's all part of God's plan."

"At least you know you can get pregnant."

"This is probably for the best...there was probably something wrong with you baby."

"Now when you do have a baby, you know you'll be ready for it."

It was hard and I just couldn't take these comments in stride. My hormones were out of control and I was grieving and I really needed people to just tell me they were sorry and be there for me, not try to justify something that seemed so unjustifiable. Instead, with each passing comment, I crawled deeper and deeper into a hole until one day, I started to really worry about myself. 

But I got help. I found a therapist who finally made me feel like I had a right to feel the way I felt. I found friends who were open to listening to me and who made an effort to see how I was doing and I finally got to a place where I wasn't terrified to get pregnant again and, when I did get a positive pregnancy test, I didn't cry myself to sleep out of fear, I smiled a little bit and said, well, let's take this one day at a time. 

And here we are, 25 weeks later. I'm finally sharing the news and planning a nursery and thinking about buying cute hooded bathrobes and onesies and things for our little one and I'm finally, finally over the moon excited about having a baby.