Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Telling the Fam


Keeping you a secret was hard. Your Aunt Bobi called me one morning while I was still in bed, and she said enthusiastically "I had a dream you announced you were pregnant, anyway, it was funny, we were all really excited!". All I could respond was, "Huh, how weird". I was in shock. We hadn't told a soul. I was still processing the information myself, and here she was already anticipating your arrival.

After our first 'ultrasound' of you - which was more like us looking at a screen of a kidney bean with a beating heart, we felt a lot more comfortable with the situation and decided to make plans with your grandparents to tell them the news. Grandma and Grandpa Stilwell were so excited they could hardly believe it. We spent a fun weekend with them planning and getting advice. Grandma and Grandpa Mickelson were equally excited, and glad that they were finally going to have a grandchild close by to them!

Knowing that you'll be born with 15 cousins guarantees that your life will be filled with entertainment. They are all of course eagerly awaiting your arrival.

Shortly after I found out about you, I decided to make this video.

Baby Video

I thought it would be a cute way to tell the family we were 'expecting'. Your dad talked me out of it, he was excited and wanted to tell everyone in person/on the phone. You'll notice soon that your dad likes to shoot down all of my best ideas..

Sunday, February 17, 2008

We're Pregnant!

We spent the weekend celebrating the upcoming birth of your future friend Baby Wolpert. The shower/party was a hit, and everyone had lots of fun buying pink frilly things for Baby Grace.

Auntie Meg told me a couple times that weekend that she 'had a feeling' I was pregnant. I told her about our negative test the weekend before and (always the optimist) she told me to try again. I resisted because I didn't want to be disappointed. Finally, after all the dust had settled and your Dad and I were relaxing on the couch after the fun weekend, I got up and went to the restroom. I opened the drawer and the extra test from Santa Barbara was staring at me. I figured I might as well take it, it's sitting there.. but had no expectations.


I took the test and two lines appeared!! It was telling me that I was pregnant! I can't really remember what happened next - all I know was I was screaming your Dad's name over and over from the bathroom. He was on the phone with your uncle Brian. After hearing me scream, he quickly told Brian that he had to go - NOW. Your dad knew before I even told him. He came into the bathroom, closed the door, looked at the test, and we both cried.

I can't tell you how incredibly excited we were (and scared!). After our moment of disbelief and joy, we quickly put ourselves together, threw on sweatshirts and raced two blocks away to our local Walgreens and bought more tests-just to make sure. All different brands, with all different ways of telling us the good news 'pink circle' on one, the word 'pregnant' on another, etc.. After that, we were sure. We were going to be parents. A little mini-me would be running around in 9 months, and we loved you already.

Love,
Mom

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Our Poppy Seed

To our little poppy seed before we even knew you were there! I'm obviously writing this in retrospect, but I want to tell you a little story, before we even knew about you. Your Dad had just finished a great year at Salesforce (the year ends 1/31), and we went down to Santa Barbara in early Feb to get a little rest and relaxation before the next year started..

We were having a great time at the Biltmore, but I started to get a little suspicious that I might be pregnant when the Billecart Salmon champagne (my fave) that we brought to celebrate our weekend tasted a little funny. When your Dad didn't agree with me, we decided maybe I should take a pregnancy test - he has a nose for bad champagne, I'm sure he'll be teaching you all about it some day. We drove down to the little town of Montecito the next day, and we inspected every pregnancy test at both Safeway and nearby Walgreens for the best one (another Dad trait you'll learn about...)

We were both bursting with enthusiasm as we drove back to the hotel. I wanted to wait a day just to make sure it was more accurate, but we couldn't wait. I took it and it was negative. We were both really sad, and thought 'It's not time yet'.. but we were wrong, we found out the next week that you were only the size of a poppy seed in Santa Barbara - too small to show up on the test, but still very cute I'm sure :)

Love,
Mom