I have to admit, I thought I would be better at taking baby bump photos but I’ve been failing in this department. I blame the fact that I work from home and that the best photos I can get are taking selfies in the upstairs bathroom. 🙂

In any case, below are baby bump photos from the first half of my pregnancy.

Keith and I got married last Summer – September 14th, 2013 to be exact. We always knew that we wanted to start a family shortly after the wedding. Our hope was to have a baby before the end of 2014 and as luck would have it, our wish came true.

It was mid-March when we found out I was pregnant. The week prior, I had taken a pregnancy test before heading to Los Angeles for work. I wanted to be sure that if I was pregnant, I was careful about what I ate and drank. The pregnancy test came out negative so I thought I was good to go. The week after I still hadn’t gotten my monthly friend yet but assumed it was nothing given the fact that my cycles were majorly off (ranged from 24 – 38 days). I remember like it was yesterday. I was on the phone with Kerry that morning (our daily routine) and told her I hadn’t gotten my period yet. She suggested that I might as well take a pregnancy test since I still had one left over from the previous week. Sure, I thought, what the heck so I took the test – within a few minutes I saw a the solid test line appear and then the second, very faint / barely there line. I took a picture of the pregnancy test on my phone and texted it to Keith to see if he could see a line. He said he thought there was something there. As a third opinion, I texted the picture to Kerry who told me that “a line is a line”. When Keith got home from work, we decided to head to bartell drugs to pick up a backup pregnancy test. This time we opted for the digital kind that tells you “pregnant” or “not pregnant” which was simple enough. The next morning I had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (I think it was around 4 am). Half asleep I decided to go ahead and take the pregnancy test since I had to pee anyway. As I sat there for a couple minutes waiting for the results, I wondered how i would feel / react if it showed up positive. Within a few minutes, the verdict appeared…”pregnant.” I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t really react right away and this was most likely because I was half asleep. I went back into the bedroom and contemplated whether to wake up Keith with the news. I didn’t contemplate very long before I was poking him and whispering “Keith…Keith…”. He awoke and asked if everything was okay. With confidence, I responded with “the test was positive.” Keith’s reaction was much more lively at 4 am than mine – he was so excited and gave me a huge hug and repeated how happy he was. You would think it took us a while to go back to bed but nope, we were both back in a deep sleep within a few minutes.

When we finally got up for work, I showed Keith the test results and he was beyond excited. I think I was more happy to see him happy, then to know I was pregnant.

We had our first appointment with our doctor mid-april. The ultra sound confirmed that there was definitely something in there, though it looked more like a peanut (honestly, it kind of looked like a penis) than anything else. The doctor estimated the baby’s arrival to be November 26th, 2014, which means it could very well be a Thanksgiving baby.

As I look back on that mid-March day, I think about how I really felt deep down inside. I may not have showed it initially but I fell in love for a third time (Keith first, Pearl second) as I knew I would meet the other love of my life in 9 months.

baby carpenter

first appointment with the doctor