B.Z. (Before Zeke)

Our pregnancy was so smooth, I often found myself wondering, "what's so difficult about being pregnant?" I never got sick, never experienced extreme exhaustion, and worked right up to the day before going into labor. Lucky me, I guess, although I'd like to attribute it to being one of those who rarely get sick in the first place and am generally healthy to start.

We first found out that we were pregnant about a week after my brother and his wife had their first child, who, as I am finally writing this, is about to turn one. We had been trying for only the past month, the first month the test only revealed one line. The second month however, about two days before it was time to take the test, I had a feeling that this was it. I bought a new test, went to a children's store and bought a bib with the words, "I love my Daddy" as to surprise Ian when he returned home. I took the test as soon as I got home, and sure enough, two pink lines were present! All I can remember now, is going out onto the back porch and standing in the sunshine watching our dogs play and feeling excitement and still a little disbelief that I was going to be a mom.

The months went by and around my 16th week, I started to show and thought I could feel the first flutters of life. At this point, it seemed like it was going to be forever until our baby was born. Finally, our 20th week arrived and it was time to do the ultrasound to see exactly who was in there. It still didn't seem quite real yet. Sure enough, the technician didn't even need to say anything, almost immediately the evidence of a boy was right in front of us! I had apologized to Ian ahead of time, sure that I was going to get all emotional. However, when the time came, I just was staring at the screen thinking, "Wow, there really is something in there!" and Ian was the one with tears in his eyes. We left with our pictures of our little guy, our Ezekiel. Being able to call him a name, instead of just "the baby" and seeing evidence of his existence helped in making it much more of a reality. We were going to be parents. Holy crap! We were going to be parents!

Now the weeks and months seemed to fly by. I kept getting bigger and bigger and Ian took pictures of my belly's progress. December had already arrived and it seemed to be a scramble now to get things ready. I was going to be going on leave from work soon, Christmas was right around the corner, and two days before that, on the 23rd, our Ezekiel was due to arrive.