Everyone who knows keeps asking, “Are you ready?”

And all I keep thinking, “Are WE ready? It’s more like is the WORLD ready for another human who is 1/2 me and 1/2 Nick?”

Yes, friends, family, and loved ones, the day has finally arrived, if you haven’t already guessed from small leaks (or as Nick would say, “…the weakest links in our circuit of family and friends,”) that we are expecting a little one to grace our lives and expand the family. I am pregnant!

Oh, the anticipation…oh the relief of FINALLY being able to blog and write about the past 9 weeks.

Let me tell you, keeping a secret is just not my thing, especially when it’s so joyous!

Roughly 7 weeks ago, I knew I was pregnant even before those stick tests told me so. Here were the big clues:

1) I’ve been a deep sleeper since I was born. I can sleep through a hurricane. Out of nowhere, I start waking up in the middle of the night, uncomfortable.

2) I start getting horrible abdominal gas pains and my body is bloated like a marshmallow.

3) Everything, even the taste of water, is bitter and tastes like liver in my mouth.

4) I feel, how shall you say, different.

I just freaking knew. I mean, I just knew. But 6 pregnancy tests later, it was confirmed and what a day it was….

It was a Sunday. I woke up at 6am because I couldn’t sleep (remember clue #1) and Nick woke up about an hour later to find me sitting up in bed, thinking. I took the test and left the stick in the bathroom, yelling at Nick to get out of the bathroom, “WE WON’T LOOK AT IT! WE WON’T LOOK AT IT! IT’LL BE TORTURE! LET’S GO TO ANOTHER ROOM FOR TWO MINUTES!”

So we go to the bedroom and pace the floor. Well, Nick paces the floor and starts blabbering about the 101 reasons why the test could be false negative and we should look at the chances of it being wrong and how we should definitely take another one tomorrow and how so many factors could disrupt the accuracy of the results…When Nick is reasoning aloud really fast, he makes me even more nervous because he’s never nervous.

When two minutes are up, I charge into the bathroom and see a very large PLUS sign and worldlessly go up to the Papa to be and present the test two feet above my head, aka, Nick’s eye level. Never, in all the years I’ve loved Nick, ever saw his face look so purely joyous and excited (not even when he married me, imagine that…). We didn’t say a word, just hugged for a long time while I started to cry of course.

Then we flopped ourselves on our bed and were quiet. Finally, I broke out and said, “So, there’s a baby inside me and we’re gonna be parents.”

Nick flops over to look at me, “I know, it’s crazy isn’t it?”

“Crazy? Try insane and unthinkable. WE. US. WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS. Like, a life is OUR responsibility.”

But nothing could taint our joy, disbelief, and excitement.

Nick left for El Salvador two days after our big news and it was torture not to tell anyone. So I burned the secret to my sister, Christina here in Cleveland, and my mom. I was DYING to tell someone and Nick was gone for 5 days. I just couldn’t wander the world without anyone to share it with.

We’ve had two doctors appointments and everything looks excellent. We already heard the baby’s heartbeat and are floored by each little miracle of our little pinto bean growing inside me. It’s so wonderful and simultaneously terrifying.

A lot of people wonder how we told people so early. Our doctors warned us that we shouldn’t spill the beans until the 11th week or so. Nick and I thought awhile about that and then finally came to our conclusion: understandably, you don’t want to get everyone excited when there’s such a chance of miscarriage. But, all the people in our lives who we trust and would want to know we had a miscarriage would also want to know if we were pregnant. The same people we’d turn to in times of sadness are the same people we’d turn to share our miracle. And so we decided to tell folks around 6 weeks and pray for a safe journey for our little one.

We tried to tell as many people face to face as we could, but alas, life is complicated and news travels fast.

Little Pinto is expected to come into the world January 1, 2010.

So, like I said…it’s not a matter if WE’RE ready, but is the world ready?