Change.

This photo is hard for me to look at. So much happiness and pain– I’m not sure how to feel and that is so hard.

I remember feeling like a sick and bloated mess of a human. Nausea in waves. But I didn’t care. I was so ridiculously excited and happy that our dreams of growing our family were FINALLY coming true. Months and months of negative pregnancy tests and wondering what was ‘wrong’ and why we weren’t getting pregnant came to a magnificent halt when we finally saw those two lines. A September baby. Crisp fall air. I couldn’t wait.

I didn’t hesitate for a second to cancel our free trip to Costa Rica. We wanted to protect this sweet baby and our doctors told us Costa Rica was a big NOPE. Zika is rampant there, and we wanted our baby to be safe so we gave up our free trip and spent a little savings and took the girls and our growing baby to Florida.

When we went to the beach we took some photos. Some of both of us with the girls and me with my more bloat than baby bump. We had lied to our friends and family about why we couldn’t go to Costa Rica and we were excited that in just a few months we’d be able to share this photo and tell the world why we hadn’t left the country. We were ecstatic to tell the world that this sweet little baby was on the way and that our lives were going to change forever and we couldn’t wait.

I guess we weren’t wrong– our lives have changed forever. Just not the way that I’d thought.

-Nicole