There is no better place to start the story of our family than when we truly became a family. Of course, when Jeff and I got married in August of 2005 we were a family. A little, tiny family that got up in the morning, went to work, and came home and did God knows what. We ate long, leisurely dinners (that I cooked! From scratch!), watched a ton of tv, and played Scrabble. I use the term "played" loosely because it was usually Jeff kicking my butt, what with his vast vocabulary (compared to my itsy, bitsy, what-on-earth-does-that-word-mean, vocab) and the fact that it always ended up in a fight over whether or not a word played was truly a word. Life was good and peaceful. In January 2006 we brought our yellow Lab, Lucy, home. Slowly, the J. Dunham family was growing. At first, Lucy was such a huge responsibility that I remember thinking, "This dog is the best darn form of birth control money can buy!" It wasn't long before I wanted to be a real mom, though. On Mother's Day 2006 we got the news we were hoping for. I got up early in the morning and took a pregnancy test without telling Jeff. Fingers crossed, I waited for the results, which popped up in record time. I remember a huge smile coming to my face and shaking because I was so excited, nervous, shocked, you name it. I ran to our bedroom, climbed into bed and woke Jeff up by putting the stick in his face. Yeah, gross, whatever...I had the protective cap on it. I kept saying, "Two lines! Jeff, look, two lines!!!!" He had no idea what I was talking about, or why I was waking him up at 6am by shoving a piece of plastic in his face. The rest of the day is a blur. I remember that we had our families over for a Mother's Day dinner and it took all of my strength not to scream out during dinner, "I'm pregnant!! I am pregnannnnnnnnnnnnnnt!"
I can't remember how long we waited, but it wasn't long before we shared the news with our family and friends. I had a relatively easy time with the pregnancy, and was only sick for the first couple of months. I craved junk food and ate lots of it. It was a hot summer that year and I sat on our bed, the only air-conditioned room in the house, and ate french fries with gravy from Top Dawg. Come to think of it, I spent pretty much the entire pregnancy eating. Swedish meatballs for breakfast, Stouffer's mac and cheese for lunch, and McDonald's filet-o-fish value meals for dinner were main staples. After going to bed I would use our landline phone to call Jeff's cell phone and request bowls of cereal in bed. Actually, it was the baby who called Jeff, and he could never say no to that precious, hungry little baby growing in Mommy's tummy. Another time, my aide at school ran out one morning and got me a pancake breakfast from McDonald's because I was starving and hadn't brought enough rations to work to get me through the day. All that eating led me to gain 50 pounds while I was pregnant, but I didn't care. I was fat and happy, pregnant, and loving it.
This would be the "before the 50 pound weight gain occurred" picture.
I can't remember how long we waited, but it wasn't long before we shared the news with our family and friends. I had a relatively easy time with the pregnancy, and was only sick for the first couple of months. I craved junk food and ate lots of it. It was a hot summer that year and I sat on our bed, the only air-conditioned room in the house, and ate french fries with gravy from Top Dawg. Come to think of it, I spent pretty much the entire pregnancy eating. Swedish meatballs for breakfast, Stouffer's mac and cheese for lunch, and McDonald's filet-o-fish value meals for dinner were main staples. After going to bed I would use our landline phone to call Jeff's cell phone and request bowls of cereal in bed. Actually, it was the baby who called Jeff, and he could never say no to that precious, hungry little baby growing in Mommy's tummy. Another time, my aide at school ran out one morning and got me a pancake breakfast from McDonald's because I was starving and hadn't brought enough rations to work to get me through the day. All that eating led me to gain 50 pounds while I was pregnant, but I didn't care. I was fat and happy, pregnant, and loving it.
This would be the "before the 50 pound weight gain occurred" picture.
And...this would be the "I've gained 50 pounds and I don't give a crap" picture. Check out those round cheeks! Hot!
From May to August, before we found out at our ultrasound that we were having a girl, pretty much everyone we knew was convinced we were having a boy. I followed suit and was soon sure that, come January 19th-ish, 2007, we would be bringing home our baby boy. Part of the reason we all envisioned this little baby was a boy was because Jeff nicknamed the baby "Thor". Everyone referred to the baby as Thor and I even wrote it on the tape (yes, I said tape...as in super-obsolete video tape) of an early ultrasound "Baby Thor Dunham". Then, in late August, we found out at our ultrasound that, not only was our baby perfect and healthy, but he was actually a she! I was in complete shock when the tech showed us, and even asked her if she was really, truly sure that the baby growing in my belly was a girl and not a boy. She told me that she never tells parents that she is 100% sure, but that she was "99.9% sure" our baby was a girl. On our way home we went to Babies R Us and picked out a couple of pink things. (Reason #462 why I should have started this blog 4 years ago: I have no idea what I bought that day. No clue.) We spent the next few months getting ready for our little Claire to enter the world. We got the room ready, put together the crib, stroller, bouncy seat, swing, pack and play, washed and hung all the teensy clothes in the closet, set out the diapers, got the car seat installed and then safety-checked by the police, and waited....
And that, my friends, was the beginning of us truly becoming a family. Stay tuned because there is so much more to come.
*So...the dark brown chair was a mistake when Lynch Furniture placed our order. Not only did they bring us the correct color chair when Claire was about 2 days old, but Jeff's mom Ann thought the chair was so comfortable that this exact chair, dark and hideous in a little girl's room, is now looking quite nice in their house!
