Curveball.

      I know that when I first saw his picture on his dating profile, something stuck out about him, but at the time, I had no idea what.  We exchanged plenty of messages, and we certainly had good conversation, but beyond that, there was just something about him I couldn't put my finger on.  It's been well over a year since I first laid eyes on his picture, and still, I haven't figured out what it is about Spencer that keeps me guessing, keeps me on my toes, what it is that stops me dead in my tracks.  I've imagined time and again what it would be like to take his last name and become his wife, and I know that it would be the thrill of a lifetime.  I would never want to think about this life with anyone but him.  I don't know how I was so lucky to have our paths cross, but it is clearly the meeting that would determine how the rest of my life would turn out.
      I've thought beyond marriage too.  We both have -- to home buying together or one day having a baby together.  Those things excite me, but the most exciting part?  That we are actually facing both of those things right now.
      After waking up feeling hungover for the 4th day in a row, with no alcohol consumption to blame, Spencer joked that I must be pregnant.  I laughed it off, feeling extra confident in the birth control pills that I had been consistent with for over a year.  But something about his joke stuck in my head, and I started analyzing all of the weird ways I'd been feeling lately, the sickness, the being overly tired, the weird sensitivities.  It burrowed into my brain, until I finally decided I just needed to take a test to eliminate the thought from my head.  I dug through my bathroom drawers until I found one lonely pregnancy test, obviously a leftover from when I'd been trying to conceive my youngest son, three and a half year old Avery.  I flipped the package over to see the expiration date, three months past due, glaring at me.  I figured expiration dates meant nothing, and proceeded to use it right away anyway.  Within seconds, a huge, dark + sign appeared on the test.  Maybe it was shock or maybe something else, but I cast off the result as an expired mistake, and planned to immediately hit the drug store for a test that was not past its date.  After two clearly-not-expired tests and a total of three glaringly positive pregnancy tests later, I realized something.  I'm pregnant.
      This was on November 4, a Tuesday.  I had no desire to share the news with Spencer via text message or phone call, so I sat on the news all day long at work, through picking up the kids, and fixing dinner.  I sat on it quietly still longer through story time and tucking the kids into bed, until finally we had our only moment of alone time for the day.  His lack of being shocked, shocked me further, and his ability to stay calm, then helped to ease my own feelings.  We are having a baby.  This was not the timeline we had envisioned for ourselves.  We had talked engagement, marriage, and buying a home together in the near future.  We had talked about having a baby in three or four years.
      Our timeline is irrelevant now, but we have swallowed the news and started to process.  We are excited now, talking baby names and thinking of the gear we'll need to purchase over the next eight or nine months.  We don't know exactly when the baby will be here, a result of my being on birth control and having no idea when I would have ovulated.  My pregnancy has been doctor confirmed, and we have our first prenatal appointment on Monday, the 17th, followed by a dating ultrasound on Wednesday, the 19th.  Our best guess puts me between five and eight weeks, which would give us an expected due date somewhere from late June to mid July.  My morning (all day....) sickness is rampant.  I feel queasy all the time, and the only thing that helps is laying down, which makes working, driving, housework, and parenting difficult.  I can only hope that it will pass within a few weeks, though who really knows.  The pregnancy so far reminds me much of my pregnancy with Cori.
      We have a lot to figure out, like getting into a bigger home.  We hope to purchase a home before the baby comes, but it will depend on if we happen to find a home that works for us by then or if we have to rent a little longer before making that leap.  I'm not sure how my job will work after the baby comes, or how I will spread myself amongst three, sometimes four, little ones.  I don't worry too much though because with a partner like Spencer, I know that we will figure out every little thing that life throws our way.