A year ago today...

I've never been so excited to pass a test in my entire life! A year ago today, I woke up at 4am with an overwhelming desire to take a pregnancy test. This was our third month of trying so it's not like it was my first test that I took and I was overly excited about it for that reason. I don't know how to describe why I woke up. After about an hour of trying to get back to sleep, I decided to just go ahead and take the test even though it was 2 days early according to the instructions. I figured it would be negative and then at least I would be able to go back to sleep. To my surprise, it wasn't negative and needless to say, I never got back to sleep that night/morning. I woke Jared up and his initial, still half asleep response was "you weren't supposed to take the test this early in the morning." After he had a minute to wake up, he was then as equally excited.

I was on cloud nine that morning when I went into work and even had comments that day about how I was absolutely glowing with happiness. It was still way too early for me to tell work my news so I just had to "play it cool." But the being way too early did not stop me from telling my close friends and family that day. The second I logged into my computer at work; I IMed Heather and told her the news. We decided to celebrate with a lunch at Texas Roadhouse, where for the first time; I had to be conscious about what I ate. I had a medium-well steak, instead of my usual rare and did not order the caesar salad as I would normally because of the raw egg in the dressing. After lunch, I decided that I really needed to take another test because I had to make sure it was all real and that I hadn't misread the last test or gotten a false positive since I only had 1 test to take at home. So we went to CVS where I took the test in the bathroom. There was a lot yelling and screaming going on in the bathroom after my test read pregnant and on the way out, one of the workers asked if Heather and I were alright.

That night, Jared and I went to Arizona's to celebrate with just the two of us. Afterwards, we went by my parent's house to "bring them back something." I was overly excited to tell my parent's because we had managed to keep it a secret from them that we were trying. Not because I didn't want them to know, but I thought their reaction would be much better surprising them with something like this out of the blue because I knew how ready they were for Grandkids. My parent's reacted ecstatic as I thought they would and I actually became quite choked up as I was telling them.

And here the journey begins...

7 weeks - not a bump in site, but I sure would do whatever I could to try to make it look like there was one.

Week 12 - Starting to get a bump, although at this stage it was still questionable as to whether I looked pregnant or was just gaining weight.

Week 21 -This is when the cute pregnancy belly began and I was also excited to learn that I was carrying a girl in there!

Week 30 - Getting bigger every day.

Week 36 - Terrified to get on the scale at my doctor's appointments, but so excited that is was almost time to meet my little girl.

Week 39 - The day before Olivia was born. My entire body was so swollen by this point that the doctor had me out of work.

My first time holding Olivia. It wasn't even that long ago and I can barley even remember her being that small. They grow so fast.

Just so you can see the crazy amount of hair she was born with and how beautiful and perfectly blonde it is.

I thought I knew what I had in store for me and how my life would change, but I really had no idea. I had no idea just how fulfilling and fantastic this little girl would be and how much joy she would bring to my life. Every day I am astounded by how much I love her. It's a feeling that you just can't describe. People told me all the time while I was pregnant how much love she would bring to my life but you can't even begin to imagine or describe this type of love until you hold your little baby in your arms for your first time and then you become amazed that you can love something this much. And taking care of her has been a lot easier than I ever could have imagined...but then again, I do have a perfect baby :)