And Baby Makes Three: Big Storm, Big News

Dear Baby,

I have known about you for about a month now. I discovered your existence on 1/23/2016 in the middle of one of the greatest snow storms Virginia has ever seen, Winter Storm Jonas. Naturally, you would come into existence (or at least come into existence to my knowledge) during a snowstorm such as this, as your ancestry hails from Maine, state of many a formidable and infamous nor’easter. As we Leavitts do not meddle in mediocrity, of course I discovered you during a day of not snowfall, but record snowfall (22.1 inches at Dulles airport). If you need confirmation of this, please go to Wikipedia. That is the source of information for our time, although I’m sure by the time you are able to read this, you will roll your eyes as something more innovative will have taken its place.

Fortunately, while everyone was stocking up on bread—a Virginia storm phenomenon that I have yet to understand, as Virginia storms never last more than one to three days—I bought a pregnancy test. I was probably the only one in line buying such an item. Again, I don’t understand who doesn’t have enough food on hand to last through the weekend, but hell if I wasn’t going to find out about your existence until Monday or Tuesday. I had hoped that you were coming, and I am generally impatient about finding out about these things, but I forced myself to wait at least until the day my period was supposed to come. That was on Thursday, but I strategically waited until Saturday to take the test because nobody wants to find out they are pregnant and then have to go to work the next day. Buzz kill. This was my reasoning, however, I’m sure your father will tell you that I waited until the storm so that I would have him trapped in the house for a couple of days. But do not listen to him; this was merely a happy coincidence.

Anyhow, I bought the test right before it began to snow, and dutifully waited until the next morning to take it, both because I had told myself that I would wait until Saturday and in truth I was a little nervous. On Saturday morning, I woke up at 6AM, and though I knew your father would not wake up until hours later, 6AM was about all that my patience could handle. I took the test—didn’t even wait the allotted 2 minutes, but simply stared at the stick the entire time, another testimony to my patience—and upon seeing the positive sign got butterflies of excitement in my stomach.

Your first form of communication, letting me know you're there.

I began pacing. I checked the stick several more times, and peed on a second stick for good measure. Again positive. I told myself to wait until 10AM to wake your father up and tell him about you (you can tell that giving myself imaginary deadlines is a thing for me). I paced, I watched TV, I made myself breakfast then panicked about what I ate because I had no idea what I was supposed to be eating and not eating at that point. Then I panicked about what I ate the day before. I tried to nap… bad idea. I considered waking your father up earlier than my deadline, but then talked myself out of it because I wanted him to be in the best mood possible. Truthfully, he had been up until all hours of the night the night before playing video games… something that you will only ever be doing in extreme moderation. And I’m sure by the time you read this you will know that your father isn’t quite the morning person that I am, especially when he is up too late the night before.

Quite obviously, I had too much time to kill. Pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes with a
mushroom-kale-onion-cheese scramble. Oh boy.

Anyway, some how, some way, I made it until not ten, but eleven AM. The very second I heard him stir I ran into the bedroom. You must understand the kind of insanity that being the only person in the whole world with this knowledge can drive a person to. I was literally the only person to know about you for almost five hours, and with that kind of information I was about ready to burst. So, at this point, I run into the bedroom and lay down next to him.

He greets me. I greet him.

And then I just start balling.

He is extremely confused.

Of course, this is out of a combination of happiness, fear, exhaustion from holding in this secret for five hours, and pregnancy hormones. But he does not know any of this, and asks me many times, “what’s wrong?” I keep crying, but finally (after what seemed like an hour but was probably just a couple of minutes) he saves me the trouble by saying, “Are you pregnant ?” …That obvious, huh Tony?

Anyway, I am actually very grateful and relieved that I don’t have to come out and say it (I don’t know why? I have said it many times since), and I simply say “Yes.” He is MUCH calmer than I would have expected, and entirely calmer than me (which surprised me, as I always thought the idea of you scared him more than me), and he hugs me and says, “Congratulations.”

I feel a huge weight off of my shoulder that I am no longer the only one to know, but then realize that since it is so early in the pregnancy (we are talking four weeks at this point, since I literally took the test only two days after my missed period), I realize I should probably wait to tell anyone else. At least that is the protocol that I had heard from friends and, oh I don’t know, the internet. I knew I would never be able to wait that long to tell a handful of people (i.e. your grandparents and uncles), but I figured I would give it a couple of days for this to be your father and my little secret.

We spent the rest of the weekend shoveling snow, marathon-watching TV shows (another habit which you will not be picking up), making homemade pizza and chicken noodle soup, playing Trivial Pursuit with your Uncle Eli, and me obsessively thinking about everything and anything that could happen from the next week or so, to the next twenty years of life. I didn’t sleep at all that weekend, I drove your father nuts with my questions (he is more of a one-day-at-a-time sort of guy), and the snow plow did not come once to Edgewood Street. Ultimately, it was a weekend of happiness, excitement, and of course, unprecedented snow. So you will always be my little snow prince OR princess.

Love,

Mom

This was the last night that both your father and I were ignorant to your existence.
Your crazy father felt the need to get in the first shovel, and then warm himself by the "fire."