finding out

We found out on April 26th, 2012.

I was all excited to take my first pregnancy test, which I did on the earliest possible day that the package told me I'd get an accurate reading. It turns out that all the romantic notions I'd had about taking a pregnancy test and waiting on the results with my husband kind of poofed into thin air. You have to pee on a stick, which is kind of medical and gross, then wipe the pee splatters off the stick before your husband sees it, and do you peek at the results before you leave the bathroom? Is that allowed if you want to 'find out together'?

We sat on the bed together and waited for three minutes, and then looked. And it was negative.

And that was ok. I had worked hard to not build up hopeful expectations while I built up hopeful expectations anyway. It was only the first month. I really couldn't expect to get pregnant that fast and there was probably nothing wrong with either one of us. Except that I was well studied on the subject of fertility and my own body and I knew for sure that Mars and Venus had crossed paths at the right time...so...still, it was fine. Maybe next month.

I had been feeling a little weird and thought that meant I was pregnant. I had cried easily a couple of times over sentimental things and thought it was a sign. I had a few mood swings and thought that was a sign too. I tried to put all of that out of my mind and Tim and I went to run errands.

We walked into Whole Foods and the smell of the produce section hit me wrong. I had this clear moment of knowing that is hard to describe and I assertively walked over to the vitamin aisle and selected some prenatal vitamins and tossed them in the basket. I told Tim I should have started taking them a while ago. A week or so went by and I stayed in this limbo of thinking my body was telling me I was pregnant, but remembering the test results. 

We had a photographer's social planned at our house for a Thursday night, and that afternoon I got testy. I had a list of things to do to get the house ready for our guests and I was feeling overwhelmed. Tim was helping but at one point when he wasn't doing some household thing my way, I snapped at him and he retreated to the kitchen to wash dishes. 

I felt mean, and I hated that. I didn't feel like myself at all and I was tired of being denied that something real was happening to me and throwing me off kilter. I grabbed my last pregnancy test and snuck off to the bathroom to get my final answer, which I expected to be another negative result.

It wasn't. The horizontal line popped up immediately, no three-minute wait required. 

And then I realized that I was all alone in the bathroom with the weight of this realization, which was heavy, and my thoughts surprisingly weren't fairy-dusted or sunshiny. This is happening? And it's permanent? And I was just mean to my husband and now I have to go tell him I'm pregnant?

I made haste to the kitchen. Tim had his back turned to me as he was washing dishes and I reached for a hug first, which he immediately returned, and then I said; 
"I just took this pregnancy test..."
"WHOAH! I knew you weren't acting like yourself!"

He was so excited, which reminded me that I could be excited too. And then it all turned sweet. We forgot about the chores and the people who were coming soon and the food we needed to make and everything else, and we just held each other and rejoiced and lived in the moment for a while. In my heart, I fell to my knees and thanked God for giving us undeserved grace to be able to get pregnant so easily. It wasn't lost on me then, and still isn't, that I was spared the pain of what I could have gone without. 

deciding to try

Next time, I want to get pregnant by accident. Because getting pregnant on purpose is stressful.

The process is full of endless second guessing. Are we ready? No, but are we really ready? What's a justifiable reason to get pregnant? If I'm sad every day that I'm not, is that good enough reason to go for it? I'm 25. Is that too young? We've been married less than a year. What will people think? 

Well, that was my process. Tim's process was endearingly more simple. His had two levels: "I'm not ready yet", and "now I am". I will always envy his ability to make assertive decisions while I hem and haw and worry for weeks over what to do.

Back in February, we were having these talks a lot. We were almost ready, but not quite set yet. Then, I found out that I was a potential candidate to be a bone marrow donor, and I couldn't donate if I was pregnant. What a sweet relief it was to have an important reason to wait! And it was my only reason for the 8 weeks it took to determine that I was not the right candidate to donate my marrow. This coincided with the birth of our niece, and I then felt helpless against the overwhelming desire to start this process in my own family.

In the first days after Zaylee's birth, a few well-meaning people said out loud what my brain and heart were mercilessly screaming at me: "you're next!", "don't you want this too?", and the classic "whenever you're ready...".  Oh, what this did to me. 

It's not that I felt like I needed to meet anyone's approval. When people suggest ideas that are wrong for me, they're easy to brush off. I couldn't shake this because it was a deep, private desire of my own heart laid bare and spoken out loud. 

The ride home from visiting the maternity ward felt so severe. At first Tim didn't understand. "It's not a big deal. Don't pay any attention to what other people say." 

"It IS a big deal! And it's not because of what anyone's saying. It's what I'm feeling and what I've been wanting for so long."

Wait, how long had I been wanting this? I've always known I wanted to be a mother. I remember being 5 years old and squeezing my baby brother so tight he would cry every time I held him. When I was in my teens, I would dream freely about getting married and having babies. In my single twenties, I shut down those desires completely out of self-preservation. When Tim and I got serious and started talking about marriage, I started to dream again, this time about little dark-haired technologically inclined sassy Franco-American children. And now that we were settled and happy in marriage, the deep desire to start a family was past longing. It was primal. It was pain.

There was nothing to wait for. I wanted a baby more than a house. More than a Master's degree. More than another major-responsibility-free year in my twenties. More than a good night's sleep and more than the money we save by being childless. I wanted this more than any of those big things that couples usually want to get settled first before having a baby.

We took a few more weeks to pray about it, and then it was firmly decided. 

We would try.

an announcement :)

I am almost 16 weeks pregnant! More to come soon on this amazing new season that Tim and I are embarking on. We couldn't be more thrilled, giddy, scared, and honored.

stay online, dear.

Tonight Tim and I were hanging out in a Starbucks in two easy chairs pushed towards each together, my feet propped up on his lap, talking easily about big and little life things.
Eventually, as is normal for us, we talked through everything we had on our minds and then turned our eyes to our iPhones and starting scrolling through our various social media apps.

"Did you see this picture so and so posted to Instagram?"
"Listen to this quote an old acquaintance retweeted....do you think that's true?"
"This blog post is so riveting..."
"Ha! ______ is so funny on Facebook."

And this is how it goes for us. We use technology to explore new concepts and ideas and art and music and articles, and then we share them with each other and talk at length about what we're seeing. It's so normal to us that we've stopped thinking about the process. We do this at home when we're not working and when we are working. Now that I think of it, we have a specific type of work-related social media study and discussion that we usually do while Tim is editing photos and I'm taking care of administrative tasks. We do this in the car a lot too. I hate battling Chicago traffic, so I scroll and talk through what I'm reading on my phone, entertaining Tim while he drives. We do this when we're out to dinner or coffee. We don't so much do this when we're with friends. The phones stay in my purse and his pocket when we're connecting with other people.

So why do I always hear criticism about how time spent on social media is bad for the relationship health of couples? It's no longer a new argument, yet I see a reference to a new article written on this topic (usually by a major world news publication) almost weekly.

I know that a major reasoning for social media bringing hardship and separation to couples is the opportunity to connect with new crushes or reconnect with old flames, and I know this could be a big temptation for a relationship that's already in trouble...but it's not like cheating was impossible to do before the internet. Divorce rates (and marriage rates, for that matter) started falling before the social media age and have continued to fall as the internet takes over.

If anything, my own family experience has proved otherwise: that the internet brings couples together. My sister and I both met our husbands thanks to the internet. You'll have a hard time convincing us this is a bad thing.

I think that the internet and social media are neutral mediums (kind of like money) that anyone can use as a tool for good or harm. We use it to learn new things every day, adapting to a world that's changing faster than we can imagine. Somewhere along the short line of our new marriage, Tim and I unconsciously created some social media boundaries that work for us and help us to benefit each other with their use. I did a little brainstorming and came up with a few to share:

• No hiding. Our phones and computers are not off limits to each other. Our computer screens face each other while we're working and we're constantly switching phones throughout the day to look up different information. This happens naturally, no spying necessary. He could scroll through my text messages to look for a picture or lost phone number we need to look up and that wouldn't be weird or uncomfortable for me.
• We know each other's passwords. I can't remember how this happened, it just did. He asks me to answer his Facebook messages for him sometimes because email is a pain to him and enjoyable to me. This is normal for us.
• We're connected on every social medium. Facebook friendship, Twitter/Path/Instagram following...basically everything but Pinterest because he's just not that into it. Whatever I'm looking at, he can see the same thing.
• We routinely delete Facebook friends if it's someone of the opposite sex whom we just don't need to be connected to anymore.
• No lonely vacuums. As I mentioned before, we talk about what we read online. We don't disappear into our solo internet worlds. We keep the connection to each other open. 

All this is not to say that we don't have private conversations with our same-sex friends. We've just found an easy balance between being private and being secretive. Privacy means you can have access if you respect each other in the information that you want to know. Secrecy is different and not applicable to our relationship. Unless it's what I'm getting him for Christmas. 

What do you think? Is social media getting a bad rap in your mind or should couples be on their guard and spend less time interneting?

Tim's wedding day text messages to me. Photo cred.

Houseshow recap

So, the houseshow was completely lovely.

It's always a push for me to feel like my home is adequately prepared for guests. It's my easiest stresspoint, I think, and I get irrational and testy about how hard I perceive it's going to be to clean up and make food and get myself presentable plus be welcoming when the people come. For my dad, it was getting the car packed for roadtrips. For Tim, it's memory cards with wedding pictures on them before they're backed up. We all have the easy stresspoint. Mine is my house before people come over.

But Tim and I finally created this and I sighed and snapped a picture right as Sara pulled up. I should add that, weeks later, those flowers are still in that vase on the right and they're totally dead and gross. We don't keep up appearance when we aren't having people over, which is probably why I try to have at least monthly gatherings here. Good motivation.

If I ever wondered at some point in the planning process "Why am I doing this?", I was immediately reminded as soon as we all got settled in our cozy, softly lit living room with our dear friends and Sara's sweet voice washed over me and I just melted into the experience. I love live music. And I love my home and my friends. The perfect blend of those three things was a profound gift to me. It was an I'm so lucky! moment. And those are always the best.

I was hoping for a packed house so Sara could walk away with a fat bankroll of sweet tips, but we were a sparse group of 14. It's probably just as well since we have a third floor apartment in a quiet neighborhood. Even though we invited our neighbors, none came so I was worried about bothering them. But no one complained! So either we weren't that loud or they're just very tolerant. Both work for me. The people who came were incredibly attentive, appreciative, and generous listeners. I think Sara was happy, so that's all that matters.

Sara is one of those sparkly-eyed people. Have you met one of them before? They just keep sparkling at you and they can hold a genuine smile in their eyes for hours and even talk through a real, honest, from the heart smile. It's really impressive.

Kate and Joel right up there, you guys. They're cute.

Just to convince you to come to our next Houseshow, take in the video below. Sara gave me permission to share this even though this brand new song of hers isn't finished yet and it's not going to stay the way it is in the video. She's about to move to London on a wonderful new adventure, and this song really captures that sure anticipation of leaving behind and beginning again. I love it.

Cinco dé Houseshow

I've been missing Kansas City something fierce recently. Mostly the local music and my friends and how those two things worked together so naturally. I used to go to shows several times a month during the summer. The venues were close and the tickets were cheap, and the chances were high that the person on stage was dear to me. The "current favorites" playlist on my iPod generally housed my friends' music. 

Anyhow, Chicago life is still the best ever, I just have to keep a closer eye on tour dates and such so I can still see these people live and in the flesh. 

Well, my pretties, one of Kansas City's greatest, Sara Swenson, is touring through Chicago THIS weekend.

Now, let's pause and listen to some of Sara's music. 

   

Great. Thanks for going there with me. Well, on a whim, I emailed Sara (whose shows I've attended but I've yet to have the pleasure of meeting her in person) and asked her if she would be interested in playing a house show at our place on the night before her big gig opening for Peter Bradley Adams, and she said yes!

And then I felt like the world was small again. 

So if any of you who read this blog live in the Oak Park/Chicago area (do you exist?) and would like to come to this little shindig, please email me at bethany.tabailloux@gmail.com because I'd love for you to come! It will probably be a really great and wonderful time. 

Chapter 12: the kiss. oh, the kiss.

As much as Tim had dated before me (I've heard from several sources that the number of girls he dated was in the 20's), he had never had a girlfriend, and since it wouldn't have been in his character to kiss a girl he wasn't in some way committed to, he never had. Let me rephrase so you can fully appreciate this little nugget of information: he had never kissed a girl.

He had a system, he explained: if he liked a girl, he asked her out. If she accepted, he took her out on a date. If the date went well, he kept asking her out on up to 3 dates, but no more than 3 dates because if she made it to 3 dates then they would have a talk. A DTR, if you will. If he wanted her to be his girlfriend, he would ask her, and if he didn't want her to be his girlfriend, he would tell her gently but clearly that he really enjoyed spending time with her but he had decided over the course of their 3 dates that he didn't think they were right for each other, and would ask if they could just be friends.

Apparently, women loved him for this. He kept friendships with nearly all the girls he ever dated. His dates' roommates would write him emails thanking him for respecting their friend and being clear and open in communication about how he felt and where he did and didn't see the dating relationship going. Some of his former dates later asked him to shoot their weddings.

Using his system to navigate dating relationships throughout college and post-college, he had only found one other girl he wanted to be his girlfriend, and she wasn't into it. And then there was me. For seven years he had been searching and filtering and asking and dating, but never committing or kissing. He had finally found one special girl whom he really wanted and really wanted her to want him too, and it was me.

So that brings us to the couch in his living room on the second day of my trip, after I had met his brother and future sister in law and most of his closest friends. Everyone was gone and we were up talking when he told me he wanted to kiss me and he had never kissed anyone before.

My past relationships never prepared me for this kind of situation. I had only heard about committed Christian men who saved their first kiss for so long they were now pronounced man and wife before they kissed their lady. So I gently asked: "Are you sure you don't want to wait until marriage?" To which he replied: "Absolutely NOT!"

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