here’s the thing…if you’ve read our story, we struggled with infertility for years.

I remember vividly the day the fertility doc told us that IVF would be our “only option” for a biological child. I was pretty inconsolable when I first heard this news. I couldn’t go back into work that day. But yes, I moved on from that day and those feelings. I gained perspective – that we are in fact lucky to have had the option of and later the success through IVF. Hello, Ellie Sue!

When I took the pregnancy test less than a week before this past Christmas it was because I had some weird nausea and realized my period hadn’t come yet. I had only had one since Ellie. I didn’t expect anything to be like clock work after childbirth though.

I remember talking to my friend Carmen at work a few days earlier when suddenly a wave of nausea hit me…All I could think was – “oh no that stomach bug?!” I had to sit down. A little voice in the back of my mind said “this feeling is familiar…morning sickness?…” I shrugged it off. Until a few days later when I asked Nick to grab a pregnancy test at CVS while he was picking up last minute Christmas cards. I just couldn’t shake the need to triple check, as silly as it seemed for me. Nick didn’t think much of it all. If you’ve struggled with infertility, you’ve likely taken a lot of tests. They’re not that exciting anymore.

I’ll never forget when that line went solid blue within seconds. The bluest blue I’ve ever seen. Like blink ya eyes am I hallucinating blue. My first reaction “oh.my.god., what? Is this thing broken?”

I walked the test downstairs to Nick and said “look at this.” We just stared at each other and started laughing. And both kept repeating “no way, no way.”

Clearly this wasn’t planned. I mean, I didn’t expect we’d ever get pregnant on our own after everything we went through before. We were told we had a 5% chance to naturally conceive!

I spent days in a state of anxiety with mixed emotions. From…omg this means we don’t have to do IVF again!! Thank god! It’s a miracle!! To…omg, I don’t think my body is ready. I don’t think WE are ready for this journey again. What about Ellie? Does this take away from the time we planned with just her? It’s so soon to have another, oh my!! (They’ll be 14 months apart!) What about work? I feel like I just got back. Etc etc etc I had ALL the thoughts. My mind went wild. Once again, my body is not my own. Holy sh*t.

Am I happy? Of course. We always hoped for another child. We always hoped Ellie would have a sibling to navigate life with.

But really…it was the biggest surprise that all we could do initially was laugh and stare at each other in disbelief.

Even if this means our little family expands sooner than we anticipated, we are grateful. And since when have we ever been able to plan this stuff!?

here we go again!

Baby BOY Moore

Already have a name…

Charles Francis

Named after Nick’s grandfather and my Dad.

Lil Charlie 💙

Due early Aug

Pic below – Ellie thinks my big (yes already!) baby belly is hilarious. This is the cake I made to surprise Nick with the gender.