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You see, I just don't have good luck. It could be the 2 mirrors I broke while moving into Manhattan 7.5 years ago; it may very well be something else. But whatever the reason, luck is generally not on my side. If 25% of women don't get morning sickness, that means 75% do, and those kinds of odds are rarely in my favor. Nevertheless, I don't consider myself overly superstitious, so I tried not to focus on that fact too much and instead hoped for once I was on the right side of the odds. But, there were several other reasons I feared this pregnancy seemed too good, or at minimum, too easy, to be true:
- We got pregnant on our second try. I know some women struggle for months and some for many years to conceive. For as long as I can remember, even back to my teenage years, I've always had a deep-seated fear that I'd be unable to get pregnant. To learn we got pregnant so quickly was very surprising to me after so many years of worrying.
- Our baby's estimated due date was the 25th. Not only is my birthday the 25th, but so is my mom's. I know babies are rarely born on their due date, but the potential for this happening was pretty neat.
- And not just any 25th... our baby was due on December 25th. Christmas Day. I can't think of a more beautiful way to celebrate Christmas than to welcome a new baby of our own into our lives. I've always loved Christmas {and not just because of the presents!} and it's always been a very big tradition in my family for many extended relatives to gather from near and far. The news that our baby was expected at Christmastime made the experience all the more magical for both my husband and I. We were absolutely delighted to learn we were pregnant, and over the moon with excitement when we calculated our due date. I went to numerous different web sites, repeatedly filling in dates, to be sure it was true!
- We pulled off two YouTube-worthy surprise family reveals. Our moms both live about 1.5 hours away {in different directions} and we successfully orchestrated the biggest Mother's Day surprise by inviting them both over for brunch, and then presenting them with matching "grandma to-be" t-shirts while recording their priceless reactions. And, they didn't suspect a thing. It was such a fun and memorable surprise, and the timing was perfect because we'd just had our first ultrasound 4 days earlier, so even had photos on hand to insert into their cards. We even got a baby bottle of bourbon for my brother, so the new uncle-to-be wouldn't feel left out. Then, a few weeks later, we surprised my aunt, uncle, cousin and 91 year old grandmother who live 7 hours away during what they thought was an experimental laptop video-conferencing for my job. I prepared and sent via FedEx to my aunt four sealed envelopes, each containing a piece of paper with one of the letters B, A, B, Y. They opened the envelopes simultaneously and put the clue together while we silently watched from our laptop. We captured their wonderful reactions on video through the wonders of modern technology, and were so excited to be able to tell them our wonderful news "face to face", even though we couldn't do so in person. This may not sound like a big deal, but it meant everything to me. As I mentioned, my grandma is 91 years old. She is the brightest light in my life and I felt so honored to tell her that she was going to become a great-grandma. Her reaction was absolutely priceless.
I know these things all probably seem pretty petty, especially as compared to
the incredibly serious and solemn occurrence of a miscarriage. But at
the time, these small details magnified the excitement of experiencing
our first pregnancy beyond anything we could have imagined. Everything
just came together o perfectly. Unfortunately, it turned out to be too perfect. It was too good to be true.
