Sensitivity Warning: This post could be triggering for someone navigating a difficult fertility journey.

Hey, girl.

It’s been a while.

Three months and three days since the last time you’ve read any of my new musings to be exact.

We all feel the collective and individual “its” we’ve been going through this year. For me, being still in the midst of the chaos (and the blessings) was the thing I needed to do the most.

I hope you have found the thing(s) you have needed to do most in this season without guilt or shame and that you are still doing those things.

But I’m back and I figured we should just get the big news out on the table.

I’m pregnant.

Yup, you read that right. I am about to be somebody’s entire mother.

You go ahead and let that sink in.
Take your time.
Lord knows I’m still working through it.

Now, don’t misread my shock for disappointment. I’m excited to be entering this season of parenthood with my husband.

Our life is good.
This goodness is why I feel excited to be a mom.
It’s the same goodness that makes our village excited for us to expand our family.

And it’s that very goodness that makes me feel emotions besides excitement. It feels like if anyone has these besides-excitement- emotions , I don’t hear about them. So I thought we could chat.

Normally I’d tell you to come sit beside me while I pour us a glass of my favorite Brown Estate Chardonnay, but the way the world…and pregnancy are set up, I can feel the love from wherever you are.

Still have a few sips for me tho.

How We Got Here

Marriage and motherhood weren’t a simultaneous package deal for me.

There was never a doubt, Lord willing, I would be a mom.

I also knew, Lord willing, I would be a wife.

But, I did not become a wife solely to be a mom. It was this deep desire to share my life with my intellectual and spiritual equal and my dawg for life that prompted marriage. I knew before marriage my husband would be an amazing dad, but I didn’t commit solely for that reason.

We’ve been married for over 5 years and honestly? I would have been content with just me, him, and the dog, for a few more years.

So, when Shamar and I used to talk about having a baby, it was a beautiful distant thought, not an immediate urgent need.

Sharing is caring.

But Nicole, if you have such a great life, wouldn’t you want to share that with someone?

I do share it with someone, my spouse.

There is something divine about the way slivers of sunlight peak through my blinds and dance on my pillow on a Saturday morning. I love rolling over and seeing my husband looking back at me, a lazy pile of arms and legs tangled in sheets as we contemplate how to spend our day.

I love spur of the moment plans.

There is nothing like just booking the plane ticket (in a past life) and going to wherever the flight deal took us. My husband is my favorite travel partner. He is the ultimate podcast listening while road tripping pilot. We like the same snacks and the same music. It’s bliss.

Savoring long dinners and expensive bottles of wine while we talk about our personal and professional dreams is how I know God designed this man just for me. I love late Friday nights because I know I have nothing to do on a Saturday morning but lay tangled in him and sunlight.

Changing the flavor.

I like my partner and I like what we’ve built, so when my OBGYN told me it could take up to 6 months of us “casually trying unprotected” to get pregnant, ya girl was cool.

Until we casually tried and casually got pregnant the first time.

I knew I was pregnant before I ever took a test, but that didn’t change the reaction when I finally saw the positive sign.

Shock gave way to the deepest and warmest gratitude I have ever experienced. Shamar was misty eyed and filled with just as much emotion when I told him the night before our 8 year dating anniversary.

We went out to dinner on a rooftop in jeans and sweatshirts and celebrated with patty melts and Cokes. It was just two days before the anniversary of my grandmother’s passing.

I knew God had his hand on this timing.

And even still on my birthday the following month, when my mom told me, “Having this baby is just the icing on the cake.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling she was both right and wrong.

This baby is another layer of sweetness and goodness in our already blessed life, there is no doubt about it.

But this baby isn’t just a layer on top of what already existed, it is a whole new ingredient. The cake is about to be an entirely new flavor.

Am I a terrible person for liking my cake the flavor it is right now?

Owning my feelings

I felt safe naming this for my mom, but up until the point of writing these words, I’ve only ever heard one other woman, share this sentiment.

When people ask how I feel I say, “Excited!” but this only feels like a partial truth, the one others expect to hear. So then I started saying ” A little nervous and a lot excited.”

Even though that was a lie too.

I’m a lot nervous and a lot excited.

I love kids. I’ve devoted my professional life to them. Raising one isn’t what scares me, losing myself and my life the way I know it, is.

People keep telling me to enjoy pregnancy and savor it.
I am.
It is incredible that my body is creating life.
I stand in awe of my God and His creations.

And I’m also using this season to nurture the the relationship that allowed me to bring forth this new life, my marriage.

I want to stay a tangle of lazy limbs in sunlight soaked sheets every Saturday Shamar and I have left, just the two of us.

I want to savor delicious meals and talk about the dreams we have for our child and ourselves, collectively and individually.

And I will mourn this season of my life unapologetically. I have learned that grieving the loss of something can only be done when you loved it deeply.

This next season of raising a child will be one of our greatest collective adventures yet and I cannot wait for it, and the first 8 years of our love story, those years where we only had to worry about each other, will always have a special place in my heart.

There is magic in our musings, our beginnings, and our futures,
Nicole