Bet You Didn’t Know

Is the World Ready?

Published on by Lisa

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?

Bet You Didn’t Know

Published on by Lisa

Factoid Numero Dos
(that’s #2 for you non-Spanish speakers)

I bet you didn’t know that May 19 is quite a day for me.

Back at Central Catholic Highschool in 1996 (oh my, that sounds really ancient), when I was a junior in highschool, my group of friends and I were a bit of hellraisers. Back in ’96, May 19th started out like any other day…

We first went to a party where we didn’t drink alcohol, but I drank 8 cans of Surge, a short-lived soda that doubled the amount of caffeine in Mountain Dew, and sent my heart pounding for days.

After the party, we head back to a friend’s house for more partying.

We get dressed up and decide to TP all of the houses of guys we had crushes on in hopes they’d ask us to the next homecoming dance (because, you know, TPing someone’s house is the way to communicate desire when you are 16)…

So, I am wearing a long dress and heels. We’re ALL ridiculously dressed up with an ungodly amount of toilet paper in the car. We squeeze seven into my friend Meg’s huge Buick and take off, laughing about how COOL and AWESOME our idea is. Then we have another brilliant idea: let’s throw rotten apples on the lawn and make signs on paper plates.

Then geeky me who is scared of breaking laws stutters, “Isn’t that vandalism?”

Of course everyone ignores and moves on with the rotten apples and paper plates plan.

While we make signs that say ASK TRICIA TO PROM. ASK JEN TO HOMECOMING. I silently hope that I would get thrown out of the car so I can run home.

We stop at the first house. I am shaking my head. It’s May 19 and only 9pm which means THERE IS STILL A LOT OF LIGHT IN THE SKY AND PEOPLE CAN SEE US.

I duck while my friends litter this poor guy’s house. And then this poor guy walks out of his house with his girlfriend and we take off down the road, speeding 90mph down a cul-de-sac. Ugh.

House number 2.
We decide to TP the house, no apples or paper plates for this guy. Relieved, I get out of the car in my heels and, this being my first TP experience throw the TP in all kinds of directions. As the TP bundle lands at my feet, I bend down to pick it up and the wind blows right up my fanny and the long skirt I had been wearing flies over the back of my head and veils me from behind.

As I am flailing my arms because I can’t see, my rear end exposed for the world to see with the TP in my hand, one of the neighbors comes out and turns on her light, “Um, girls, what are you doing?”

Blinded by a long skirt, I start running in the direction of where I think the big Buick is and finally free myself from my skirt and dive into the backseat…when we think everyone’s in the car I scream, “GO MEG!”

She slams on the accelerator and takes off… and I didn’t see that one of the doors was still open and poor Kara is hanging onto the open door for dear life screaming, “NO MEG!”

Which sounds a lot like my scream, “GO MEG!”

And Kara nearly got dragged by the car.

Fortunately, we pulled her in and we were all safe. Ridiculous, but safe.

It was only 10pm.

WHAT REBELS we were.

That night concluded with another party, probably more Surge for me, and talking about how we would always be best friends. We always said that if we could survive that night, we could survive anything.

Isn’t it funny how we measure life’s obstacles when we’re 16?

I still keep in touch with some of those friends. They are still ridiculous and hilarious, but we’ve been through more serious things as friends. Some of them have children, some have had divorce, some have had illnesses.

But, we always email each other a greeting on May 19 that we dubbed “our day,” to remember how great it was to be in high school, have your license, freedom, and especially friends.

Happy May 19 to Tricia (“Trick”), Jen (“Jenny-D”), Kara (“Deeters”), Meg (“Smeg”), Tara (“TLM”), Heather (“HK”)…from Lisa (“Slee”)

Bet You Didn’t Know

Published on by Lisa

A new series I’m starting on the blog — small factoids that I think are trivial and therefore entertaining about Nick and I….

I bet you didn’t know that I can’t stand those lion statues that some people place in front of their houses. I think they’re pretentious and weird. What if I just started putting sculptures of rhinos on my lawn?

Lions? Lions.

Nick says, “Oh, I love ’em! I think they’re great. But they need to be big lions, not those pissy small ones in front of a small house. If the house is big, the lions need to be big, too.”

What do you think?