May I introduce to you: Baby Blakely!

12/22/11

On Tuesday, December 20^th, 2011, I woke up at 7am, thirty minutes before my alarm was set to wake me up to get ready for work.  Josh had woken up in the middle of the night with a horrible stomachache and decided to sleep on the couch in the living room so he wouldn’t wake me up throughout the night.  I quietly went into the bathroom hoping I wouldn’t wake him since I knew he hadn’t gotten much sleep.  I pulled out the pregnancy test and followed the directions.  In a matter of a couple minutes, a faint blue line appeared in the “pregnant” spot!  Was it really there?  Had my eyes just not fully adjusted yet?  A smile spread across my face.  I walked into the living room holding the test and sat down next to Josh on the couch.  I kissed his forehead as he slowly woke up and I said, “Mister, I think we might be pregnant.”  He instantly smiled and said “What? Really? Really?” and looked at the test.  It was hard to believe, and since it was just a faint line, we didn’t want to get our hopes up too much.  Since Josh didn’t have work, I asked him to pick up another test so we could confirm later.

            After thinking about it all day (and us both being concerned with the fact that my car is dying and trying to figure out our best options with that), I came home from work and decided to go ahead and take one of the two-pack of pregnancy tests Josh had picked up from the store.  This one said to wait about 5 minutes…within less than a minute, a “pregnant” reading flashed on the screen!  It is true!  We really are going to have a baby!  So exciting…and weird…and scary all at the same time. 

            We decided to celebrate together by going out to dinner at Merk’s, one of our favorite local restaurants.  We talked about our anxieties over the risks of miscarriage in the first trimester, and decided it best to wait for a while before telling our families.  With the possibility of Baby Blakely (BB) being the first grandchild for two of our three sets of parents, we don’t want the hope of a grandchild to be built up and lost if something should happen. 

            Before going out to eat, I called the doctor’s office and went ahead and made our first prenatal appointment knowing that their appointment times fill up very quickly.  Our first appointment will be on Thursday, January 5^th!  We think BB will be about 6 weeks along at the time of our visit to the doctor’s office.  Making the appointment made it very real!

            BB got a unique opportunity last night!  A former Longwood student and Resident Assistant now works at the White House.  He runs the teleprompter for President Obama, along with lots of other responsibilities!  We were hoping to take a tour earlier in the week, but the paperwork didn’t go through quickly enough.  Then on Monday night, Josh got word that Luke (the former LU student) had received information that we had been approved for the Wednesday night Christmas Open House at the White House!  We worked to move some things around, and Josh, Larry, Angela and I drove up to D.C. We got to go on a tour of the East Wing of the White House all decked out for Christmas!  Michelle Obama and the kids were already in Hawaii on vacation, but Luke told us that President Obama was currently in the Oval Office when we got there!  After going through two different checks by the Secret Service (after our names and social security numbers had already been run through the system prior to our guest list approval), we entered the White House!  It was beautiful.  We saw the Green Room, Red Room, Library, East Garden Room, China Room, East Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room, Cross Hall and Entrance Hall before exiting through the front main entrance of the White House.  There were probably around 25 full-sized decorated trees, beautiful garland, a talented piano player and gorgeous architecture and paintings throughout the house.  Every room smelled of fresh greenery and sparkled with white lights.  It was an amazing experience, and one we can tell BB about when he/she is older!  BB’s first big adventure was to a private open house at the White House!  How neat!! 

            Obviously this blog entry will not be posted until the news is public.  But, we wanted to start writing so that we wouldn’t forget anything about the adventures of Baby Blakely!  So, any of you who are super dedicated to this blog will probably have lots of reading to do once you find out about BB.  Happy reading!