I Don’t Bake, but there’s a Bun in the Oven.

About six weeks ago, my husband and I were sitting on our couch eating our favorite fancy dinner: Singapore Rice Noodles from No. 1 Chinese. It was Aaron’s last night home of a quick four day visit, since his ship was down in Florida for Fleet Week. His two month patrol had already begun, but they let him fly home to help me move into our new house…which is unheard of. No complaints.

All week, we spent 8-10 hours/day lugging everything from our old one bedroom apartment into our beautiful new house in a true blue suburban neighborhood. [Shout out to myself for actually moving everything by myself the week before he came home, so all that was left was the furniture. And two boxes that I put 800 pots and pans in, so they were too heavy for me to carry. Classicccc.]

With the help of some incredible friends, we also cleared out his ENTIRE storage unit– which was the size of a single family home in and of itself– and moved everything into our garage. Just to give you an idea of the scope of that project, let me show you this picture from November…and please keep in mind that even more had been jammed inside since then. 10 bonus points if you can find our puppy:

So there we were after a long sweaty week, eating Chinese food and watching Designated Survivor. Earlier that day, I’d almost passed out from stomach cramp pain that felt something like having my ovaries carved out of my body, but it passed, and we moved on with our day. As I was enjoying the feeling of my body being intact while I inhaled skinny noodles covered in curry and shrimp and something they call “pork,” I all of a sudden felt like I just swallowed fire. Somewhere in my chest, a supernova erupted– and not in the cute way that Prota Zoa zings about.

After my cramping episode earlier in the day, my husband was slightly concerned that this new supernova issue meant I would not survive the next 6 weeks without him.

Apparently it’s actually called “heartburn,” which is something I thought only happened to 80 year olds and people who eat McDonalds for every meal. Therefore I Googled, “Why would I get heartburn?”

Google: Are you pregnant?

Me: Uh. Probably not. Idk. Why would you ask that?

Aaron: What did Google say?

Me: It was rude and asked if I’m pregnant.

Aaron: Are you?

Me: Rude.

Aaron: When was your last monthly spell of wanting to murder me/crying during commercials/eating strictly brie cheese and anything with marinara sauce?

Me: Like 7 1/2 weeks ago. But that’s happened to me before because my body likes to keep me on my toes.

Aaron: Well alright.

Me: Let’s watch the end of this episode.

[We watch the end of the episode.]

Aaron: Should we go get a pregnancy test?

Me: Honestly, I’m more concerned with finding out what the FBI agents will discover in the bunker in North Dakota.

Aaron: Okay, let’s watch another episode.

[We watch another episode. It’s now 10:45 p.m.]

Me: I guess it’d be good to at least take the test before you leave again tomorrow for six weeks. Let’s go to Walgreens.

Let me pause the story right here and say that Aaron and I have been excited about the prospect of having a baby for about six months now, so it’s not like it would be crazy for us to be pregnant. In fact, that’s what we’d been hoping for. Nonetheless, I’ve always thought the whole birds and the bees process seems a bit too arbitrary, so maybe people with kids were doing something I didn’t know about. Slash I always assume things won’t happen to me…except terrible things like a tree falling on top of me or an airplane crashing into my house. Those things, I fully expect. But making a baby felt a bit like entering in a drawing for a gift basket or something, and I’m just not the kind of person who benefits from raffles.

Anyway, we went to Walgreens, and I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out which tests I should rely on to tell me that my entire life is about to change. I settled on the one that gives you a little blue plus sign if you’re pregnant, because that felt happy and sweet and…positive? (L-O-L) Okay, so then I needed a backup, and decided to go with the one that makes two little lines next to each other, because I feel like that’s the one I see on TV the most.

Meanwhile, Aaron was picking out new nail clippers.The lady at the counter FOR SURE checked my left hand, which I used to complete all transactions even though I’m right handed and this is the 21st century. For the record, I saw Aaron scratch his left ear, so I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one with the unnecessary need to feel validated.

I’ll spare you the details of peeing on the stick, but just so anyone knows, peeing for an exact amount of seconds as instructed on the box is much harder than it seems. It’s like when you’re putting gas in your car and you try to stop on a specific dollar amount.

The test says that it takes about 3 minutes for the pregnant line to show up. So on the plus sign test, you get the horizontal line immediately, but supposedly it takes a little while for the vertical line to either appear or not appear…which is why women who take these tests with hopes for a negative result stare at the horizontal line for about 25 minutes JUST TO MAKE SURE the vertical one doesn’t show up. With three minutes to spare, I went about my business, washed my hands, wiped off some melted eyeliner, and just happened to glance down….GAH!

Within two seconds, a solid vertical line had appeared, making a very clear plus sign.

I don’t know how I thought I’d react, but it certainly wasn’t by silently mouthing “holy cow,” then drying my hands calmly. I honestly didn’t know what to think. I was excited, but possibly too overwhelmed to feel much. Is that what they call shock?

I walked into the living room with the stick, where my husband was still greeting our puppy, who was convinced our 25 minute trip to Walgreens had actually taken three years. While he was still bent over, I shoved the pee stick in his face. He stood up, looked at it, and said “What does this mean? Are you pregnant?” I nodded and whimpered in a happy/nervous way. I did get a little teary eyed as we hugged and both just kept saying “Ohhh my gosh. Ohhhh my gosh.”

I wish I had a better way to explain that moment. It wasn’t as dramatic as I’d expected, or even as emotional. It was just simple and lovely and smelled of Chinese food.

Naturally I chugged a ton of water so that I could take the second test. It made two little pink lines in about .01 seconds, which was almost anticlimactic. Like these tests were saying, “Whoa girl, you’z REAL pregnant. I don’t even need to think about it.” It’d be like the sorting hat immediately putting me in Hufflepuff, which yeah, is my obvious house, but at the same time I would’ve appreciated a little anticipation.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve enjoyed telling our close friends and family so that they can pray for our health and share in our initial excitement.

I’ve had so so so so many friends struggle with infertility, miscarriages, and difficult pregnancies, which has made me acutely aware that I’m not immune to those possibilities. And I knew that if something were to happen, I’d need the support of my circle, which is one of the main reasons I filled people in.

That point also leads me to a more serious part of this post, which is to say that I cannot imagine what so many of you have gone through when it comes to the desire to have a child. I still have 6 months to go, but so far, I’ve not yet experienced the pain that many of you have– those of you who know you can’t bear children, or who have not yet been able to conceive, or who have lost an unborn child. Amidst my joy and humor in writing this post, I want you to know that I have spent the last six weeks thinking about all of you, praying for you, and immensely grateful to those of you who I know personally, who have selflessly celebrated with me in such a generous, loving manner. I have no idea what to do or say, except to acknowledge that you all possess a strength I hope to never know, yet respect more than words.

The newest Leyko is set to enter the world on New Year’s Day. Talk about ringing in 2018 with a bang! Aaron and I are just now fully getting used to the idea that our world is about to be rocked by a tiny alien who loves guacamole and watermelon. We have yet to come up with names, research baby stuff, or even crack open pregnancy books, but we’ve had a lot of fun randomly stopping throughout our day to say, “AHMAHGAHHH there’s a human in there!”

I’m thrilled to finally share this news publicly, primarily because now I won’t look inexplicably chubby when you run into me at the grocery store or I get tagged in a photo on Facebook. I’m definitely not going to be one of those girls who you can’t even tell is pregnant from behind. But if eating carbs stops me from throwing up in the front yard like I did as a welcome home present to Aaron last week, SO BE IT.

There you have it. The Leykos are officially a family of four. <3 (YES MY DOG COUNTS AS A CHILD OK?)

PS– I plan on collecting all the money from those of you who placed bets that we’d be pregnant within the first year of marriage. For once we did something on a relatively normal timeline. Take that, suckasssss!

PSS– I’m sharing this journey with FOUR of my very closest friends, which is insane. They’re all due within weeks or days of me…nutso, right? Yay for baby friends!