The Story of Us, Part 2

If you missed it, here is Part One.

I left off the story right after I told everyone. Now it was real.

At my 11 week appointment, Amy and I got to hear the heartbeat and see my cute little peanut on the screen.

I also had a bunch of blood drawn to check for everything under the sun. A few days later I got a message from the nurse asking me to call the office. I'm not going to lie, this scared me to death. What was so bad that they couldn't leave a message? So I call the nurse back.

"You're a carrier of cystic fibrosis. Don't freak out though. We need the father to come in so we can take blood and see if he's a carrier too."

I found out after googling the minute I hung up with the nurse that the chances of having a child with cystic fibrosis are greatly increased if both parents are carriers. So obviously I call Mike crying and leave a message for him to call me back. He finally calls back and I tell him that he'll either need to go by the office or he can come to my next appointment with me.

The appointment he ended up coming to was the one where we got to find out the gender. So there we were, Amy, Mike, me, and the ultrasound tech. I'm really not sure what happened to Mike in that room, but that was the moment he went from being a father to being a dad. Before that appointment I honestly didn't think Mike would be involved at all, but when I saw his face when she told us it was a boy, I knew he was going to be a dad to this baby.

Over the next months, Mike became more interested in what was going on with my pregnancy and we started making plans for Clay (insurance, etc.) and he even went on the hospital tour with me.

At this point you might ask, why didn't you and Mike consider getting together?

Because we don't love each other. Well, let me rephrase that. I love Mike. I will always love him because he is Clay's father. I'm not in love with Mike. Both of us are mature enough to realize it would never work and just cause more heartache in the end. I'm not putting Clay through a divorce when he has two loving parents who get along very well as friends.

In June Amy and Liz threw a baby shower for me. It was a coed barbecue and exactly what I wanted. Anyway, Mike was coming so I slowly broached the subject of inviting his mom. I had made it clear that I wanted his family to be as involved as they wanted to be but didn't know if she would be up for the baby shower (we had never met each other at this point). Well, it turns out Mike hadn't told his mom yet. Because how do you break that news to your mom? Uhh, write a letter like me. Duh. Anyway, he ended up telling her the week before my shower and she actually came.

Awkward city.

I'm gonna stop right here and mention that Mike's mom is absolutely wonderful with Clay and we get along very well. She's actually going to start keeping Clay part time in January.

Anyway, awkwardness. So much awkwardness. But we got that hurdle out of the way.

Mike met my mom, aunt, and sister the next month. No awkward city there because my family is full of nuts and they never shut up. Love you guys!

Then I had maternity photos taken and Mike joined for a few.

Anyway, I'm not going to lie, it was hard being single and pregnant. I always joke that Mike lucked out because he got the baby but didn't have to go through the pregnancy. No late night runs to pick up my latest craving, no having me snap his head off because he accidentally left the toilet seat up (just kidding, I wasn't that bad), no being kicked out of bed because I needed to sleep with at least six pillows.

We made it though! We were in the home stretch.

Then my due date, August 26th, came and went. I spent the day in bed, working on my maternity scrapbook I was making for Clay and watching movies.

And that is where I'll leave you til next time. Thank you so much for your kind comments on part one!