Up eating cereal at 4:45am? That'd be me.

That's right. I woke up around 4am with that awful empty stomach rumble. I've never been able to fall asleep on an empty stomach, so I knew I wouldn't be able to fall back into a much wanted deep snooze this morning. So here I am, on the 'puter, a good hour or so before the sun will join me.

So first of all, WOW... thank you SO much for all the awesome comments on my last post. You ladies are amazing and so very uplifting! I can't even begin to tell you how much your prayers have meant to me. I've been thanking God daily for all my fabulous prayer warriors out there!

Today we're 4 weeks, 2 days... so yes, VERY early on - which means I'm just praying like crazy! We took a pregnancy test on Thursday morning, which was the first "safe" day to take one after having the HCG trigger shot. Anytime before that, we were in danger of a getting a false positive. As soon as my alarm went off that morning, I took my temperature. Flo was due to arrive any day, so I knew that morning's temp would be rather telling. And sure enough, it had dropped significantly (which is a sign that Flo just pulled into the neighborhood and is rounding the corner). So after seeing that, I was fully prepared to get a negative pregnancy test. But at 5am on Thursday, May 28, 2009, we saw this...

So that's what two lines look like... wow. Sure haven't seen that before. Actually I couldn't even tell you the last time we took a pregnancy test. Way early on when we started trying, I'd take them before ever missing a period, but after a while I just stopped testing altogether unless I had a reason (like being several days late - which is odd for me). Seeing negative after negative after negative REALLY took a toll on me. I was even dreading testing this month, but knew we had to this time. I had to face reality. And seeing two lines is NOT the reality we're used to!

The hub called my RE a little later with the news and he was told that if I could get in there by 11:45am for a blood test, they could get me same day results. Two seconds after he calls to tell me this, I'm in my car (safely) racing to Sandy Springs. I got there at about 10:30am. The hub called back at 2pm (I tried too but he has this way of getting through and getting answers whereas I just get voicemail). And sure enough, it was positive!

It's weird... going from *wondering* (and wishing, hoping, thinking, praying) to *KNOWING* in like a matter of hours is pretty surreal. I still don't think it's hit us yet. I've made several people cry, but I've yet to cry. We've definitely laughed a lot. But I think we're just in shock right now.

When I was checking out at the doctor's office, they were like, "OK well this isn't infertility anymore, it's pregnancy, so it should be covered." After being in and out of that office for the past 2 1/2 years, I gotta tell ya... that sounded good. And weird!!!

Thursday night we told my parents. I've had to kind of let go of having that "moment" of true surprise when breaking the news to my mom and dad. That was hard for me... for a long time, every month I thought there was a chance, I'd look at the calendar and figure out when and how we'd tell my parents. I'd come up with some fabulously creative way to do it. There are so few real surprises in life and I really wanted to make a BIG deal of it. But obviously, since they know every detail of what we're doing at the doctor's office, they knew an answer was coming at he end of this particular month either way. But, my mom didn't realize it's be quite so soon. Needless to say, she was blown away. She completely lost her appetite at dinner and kept saying, "are they SURE?!"

That night we started giving the good word to others... we called the hub's parents and his sister. And we've also told our friends that knew what we were doing. We're pretty open about it (our infertility that is), so anyone close to us knows what we're up to. Every young married couple gets nagged about starting a family, but once you tell people your girly parts are messed up, they shut up. So yeah, a lot of the people around us know. And I realize it's WAY early and anything can happen - trust me. If we were a "normal" pregnant couple, we'd probably stay mum till a good 10 weeks or so. Well, I say that, but the hub can't keep a freaking secret so that's probably not true. It's actually quite endearing... he just gets so excited about stuff and can't contain himself. So a lot of close friends know, but we're not "out" in general yet. I'm definitely keeping it on the DL at work till I'm forced to out myself. And I'm not posting ultrasound photos and all that shit on facebook, etc. So it's not a secret, but it's also not "public" knowledge, per se.

So next steps? I've got a 7am (yep, 7am) appointment Monday morning for some more bloodwork to check my hormone levels. I'll be in and out of the doctor's office a good bit the next couple of weeks doing just that. And then at 6 weeks (a couple of weeks from now) we'll have our first ultrasound. I think I will feel a lot more at ease after that because we should be able to see the heartbeat at that point... so it's gonna be a long two weeks waiting for that appointment! The good thing about being prego-challenged is that I get LOTS of attention up front. Because I'm at a higher risk for miscarriage than most, my doctor will be watching me like a hawk for the first trimester before handing me over to my OB/GYN.

So right now I'm just praying like crazy that this little tot will stick like glue. It's hard though... one minute I'm like oh yeah, I have absolute faith in this baby. And the next I'm googling miscarriage rates. But I'm not going to live in fear. Fear accomplishes nothing... neither does worrying. I can only control what I can control... making sure I take all my meds, eating right, not eating things I shouldn't... the rest is not up to me. I really do have tremendous faith in this kid and I'm praying not just for this baby, but for my faith to be renewed everyday. My friend Jill told me it's really about "celebrating each step." And wow, have we made a HUGE step. A freaking high jump hurdle, rather. So no matter what happens, we're so grateful to be where we are right now.

Again, thanks so much to all of you bloggy pals who have been in the passenger seat along with me on this journey. It has been quite a ride so far and your support means more to me than I can ever express in words. Prayer is so incredibly powerful... I can't even tell you how many friends told me, when I shared our news, that they had just prayed for us the previous night and that we were on their hearts. It's truly amazing. And I'm telling everyone to switch gears and ramp up the prayers now for Buford Baby to stick, stick, stick! So that's my big top-of-the-list prayer request, but really, I'm just incredibly thankful. We obviously didn't think we'd be here this soon. We're just trying to take it all in... one day at a time!

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.

-I Samuel 1:27