We're Pregnant!

So it is official! We are pregnant. 

Every story isn't perfect ... but it is the truth ...

FINDING OUT I'M PREGNANT


Fall is a really busy time for me at work. This was my 2nd enrollment season but first year of re-enrolllment for Obamacare for my Retail Center. I was working most days of the week and typically 10-14 hours a day. I was extremely exhausted and around the 17th of November I realized that "my friend" hadn't arrived yet and so I checked to see when that was supposed to happen, to only learn that I was late. I kind of doubted that I was pregnant since we had been trying for 2 years and so after a few days finally bought some pregnancy tests. I woke up at 5AM on Thursday, November 20th and took the test. When it said I was pregnant I put the test back in it's box and laid back in bed thinking for a while..

I went to work an hour later for a long day of meetings, one where I had to train a lot of people too and I was kind of in shock, not sure what to do. I debated if I should tell Omar right away. He gets so excited about things and isn't good at keeping secrets because of it.I knew it was still really early and a doctor hadn't confirmed the pregnancy so I didn't want everyone to know.

I was kind of going crazy at work so I called this girl, Sarah P., that works at the corporate office and was still around because it was later in the evening. I told her I just found that morning I was pregnant and she was the first one to know. She told me that I had to go home to Omar and tell him. I told her that I wanted to do something cute to tell him but wasn't really feeling it. My idea was to maybe put a sign on the dog's collar about being pregnant that he would find. Sarah told me to do whatever even if it was giving him a jar of Prego spaghetti sauce.

TELLING OMAR

I was feeling pretty down about the whole pregnancy thing --- total hormone craziness --- and didn't want to tell Omar until I was feeling better about it. Since Sarah from work pushed me to tell Omar --- when I got home about 8PM  I was sitting at the dinner table with Omar and he asked what was wrong and I just started crying and told him I wasn't sure if I should tell him. Then I just finally did. He didn't believe me. I told him I was being serious and then he said, "prove it." So I walked into the bathroom and showed him the pregnancy test. He of course was super excited.

TELLING MEGAN & EDDIE (Brother & Sister-in-Law)

Somehow a pinterest board entitled, "first baby" that I made "private" wasn't so private after all. Megan texted me asking me if I was pregnant and I asked why she would think that. She then said she saw my pinterest board. It was too early for anyone to really know so I basically responded that just because I have a pinterest board about kids doesn't mean I'm pregnant. Omar and I were itching to tell someone and so we called Megan & Eddie up. They were snowboarding for the first time and we told her that we were pregnant. Right then the service went out of the phone on the mountain. She called back and said she was screaming from excitement and that she knew that I was pregnant and told Eddie and that she knew I was lying to her about it. Since we weren't ready for any of the parents to know yet they had to talk to Jayden (our 6 year old nephew) about making sure he didn't accidentally leak that we were pregnant since he overheard the conversation.

TELLING KELLY & LINDSEY

I called Kelly and told her that she was going to finally become an aunt and then did the same thing to Lindsey when she came home from work.

TELLING MY PARENTS & MICHAEL

Every year for Thanksgiving we write in a book where each person who attends our Thanksgiving shares what they are thankful for that year. Our book has been going for many years and the pages have been full for quite some time. My mom has tried for years to locate a new memory book without success so we have added white pages to the old book so we could continue with our tradition. 

I was trying to decide how I wanted to tell my parents about our first child and their first grandchild. I told Kelly my idea was to buy mom a bouqet of blue and pink flowers as a Thanksgiving centerpeice and put inside it my positive pregnancy test. Kelly gave me the suggestion of writing it in the Thanksgiving book. I decided to search again to see if I could find a new Thanksgiving book. I found 2 of them after searching multiple ways. I bought both of them and had them shipped to my mom's house overnight. 

I was very diligent about having everyone sign the book that day. Then after Aunt Nancy and the boys left everyone was in the family room watching football and I told mom that we needed to read what everyone wrote in the book. This is what I wrote...

My dad was cleaning up in the kitchen and refused to come sit down. I recorded the whole thing. It was funny because Michael was like, "Are you recording this?" I responded, "No. I'm just playing with my phone." So the video quality was not perfect...but still a great keepsake. 

OMAR TELLS HIS PARENTS

The night after I told my parent's Omar left to go spend some time with a friend. When he came home Megan, my sister-in-law, texted me to tell me that Omar told his parents. I was like, "what?" She said that they had lost the boys for a while during the lighting of Temple Square and were sad about Omar's grandpa dying, so he wanted to cheer them up. Omar had walked into the house and hadn't said anything to me about it. I was pretty upset that he told them without me.

TELLING MY DAD'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

Everyone got together virtually on my dad's side of the family to celebrate the life of my grandpa since he turned 90 years old on December 7th. Everyone had a chance to talk to grandpa through the internet and we had a whole slide presentation from family and grandpa's friends. I texted my mom through Omar's cell phone asking if we should share that we are pregnant. After our turn already took place my mom said to the family since she was the host of the online session that Omar wanted to share something else. He told the family that we are pregnant.

TELLING MY MOM'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

My sister's and I threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom at my aunt's house. I decided that since most of my aunts and uncles would be present it would work well to tell them there. I wanted to tell them all together and I told them I have a picture I wanted to show them when my uncles were done with what they were doing. My Aunt Dianna (Marshall) was like, "you're pregnant aren't you?" She ruined the surprise but everyone was really excited. This is the first baby on the whole Wallis family side.

TELLING MY BOSS, CO-WORKERS, AND EMPLOYEES

I shared that we have an interesting statistic at my retail center where since our doors opened up in September 2013 we have had a baby every year. 2013 my employee Tanya had a baby and then in 2014 my employee LaToya had a baby. Now for 2015 we have to keep up the tradition and I am going to have a baby.

TELLING THE WORLD --- AT LEAST THE FACEBOOK WORLD

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Thanksgiving 2014

We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house this year. Omar, Lindsey, Goldie (our dog) and I drove down on Wednesday evening. It took a little while longer to get there because we had to make 2 pit stops with the dog. Thanksgiving Day was not anything out of the ordinary this year. It seemed like a smaller crowd than normal. My brother Michael, my Aunt Nancy, Jamie, Aaron and his 3 kids came over. Nancy also brought a recent convert/single woman named Linda to the meal too.

We had most of the normal Thanksgiving food. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, jam, bread, 2 kinds of green bean casserole, creamed squash, creamed onions, an asian shrimp salad, and sweet potatoes with pineapple. The exception is Nancy decided to not go so traditional this year and did a different type of sweet potatoes and bread instead of rolls and Aaron brought the salad. Omar decided that next year we are going to host Thanksgiving and that Nancy is coming but she must do make pecan pie, coconut pie, sweet potatoes, and bread. Poor Nancy.
 
 There were lots of football games on and my mom rented "The Expendables 3" not realizing what the movie was about. In general this season has been disappointing for movies in the Theater so we did not keep our annual tradition of going to the theater. This year Black Friday became Black Thursday. I think my dad was sad that we didn't participate this year like in year's past. We ended up going last minute after pushing and prodding him to go to Best Buy around 4pm on Friday. He was all bummed because he couldn't get my mom to commit to purchasing a larger TV and so decided he didn't want to go anymore.

 Friday morning we went to the Orlando Temple. My dad just got his Temple recommend. My dad has not been to the temple in years! My mom said it has been 10 years, but I am not sure that it has been quite that long. It was wonderful to attend. My dad, mom, Omar, me, my Aunt Nancy, Jim & Diane Rowland and Mo & Tim Merrill. What a great day!

Me, Omar, Dad, Mom, Aunt Nancy

Me, Omar, Dad, Mom, Aunt Nancy, Jim Rowland, Diann Rowland

 Following we went back home and then went and got PG's wings with my folks and Lindsey. 

Saturday morning slept in a little bit and then Nancy, Aaron and all the kids came over again because Aunt Corrine, cousin Christine and her family just flew in the night before. We talked and had lunch and they then left for the beach after 1 pm while we left for home. It was good to see them.