The Rest of the Story ... part 1

 

Emmett and I figured that we would have three children.  We each come from a family of three kids – two boys, one girl – and we both liked growing up with more than one sibling.  I can’t really remember when we started trying for #3.  I think it was late 2009.  Technically, we weren’t trying.  We just weren’t preventing.  I wasn’t keeping a calendar or anything. 

We had also talked about adding children to our family via foster care or adoption, so we started the process of applying to be foster parents with a local agency.  Over the summer of 2010, Emmett began to feel a little reluctant about foster care – and I didn’t want to push our family into something that we didn’t all agree on.  So we paused on our foster care application and focused on other things.

I don’t think either of us thought that we would actually get pregnant.  It was taking a long time, and I turned 35 in August 2010.  We were going to stop “trying” soon, just hadn’t gotten around to making the decision. 

In early December, we had plans to go away for a weekend to celebrate our anniversary.  Two sets of family friends had agreed to keep the kids, and we were going to drive up to Dallas to see a good friend (Jeremy) from college, then head back to Austin to have a night out for just the two of us.  We were scheduled to leave on Friday and return late Sunday.

On a whim, I took a pregnancy test that Wednesday.  It was positive.  What?!?!!!  Big exciting surprise!

Since we were going away, I wrote Emmett a card to tell him the big news, and I waited – on pins and needles – for Friday to come.  Then Corrie got sick.  Strep.  We canceled the first part of the trip and stayed home an extra day to give her the needed antibiotics.  Friday night, while he and I sat up bemoaning that we wouldn’t get to see Jeremy, I finally couldn’t stand it anymore.  I handed him the card.

He was delighted!  Totally surprised, but so happy.  Once Corrie had been on the antibiotics for a while, we took the kids over to our friends’ house.  They stayed for two days and one night, while Emmett and I left town.  We celebrated our life together and the new life coming to join our family.