So, as promised, here is a more detailed post about the news that we shared with you last week - that we're expecting!
We found out in mid-October and decided quickly to attempt to keep it a secret until Christmas. We figured it wouldn't be too difficult since we were out here on the west coast and all our friends and family were back east. That lasted until mid-November when I went home to surprise my talented brother who was the lead in "Phantom of the Opera" (he did amazing by the way!) and my morning sickness, although not that bad, gave away to my mother's motherly intuition. Even though I denied the possibility of being pregnant several times she still knew so I shared the news with my parents and brother while Jake called his parents and shared. They were still all sworn to secrecy until Christmas (which believe me, for our mothers, was a tough promise for them to make.)
Christmas F-I-N-A-L-L-Y came and we ended up sharing the news via "Facebook" for friends and some family but as for my grandparents we sent home a calenders as Christmas presents that were supposed to be used as the baby's first year but I wrote what week I would be on each week. It took them a minute to figure out what we were telling them but the got it eventually :)
So the next mile-stone in my mind was to know if we were having a boy or a girl. At the time, we were certain that Jake was going to be deployed during my due date so I wanted him to be as much of the experience as possible...that would have been the case deployment or not but if he's going to be gone for the actually delivery it makes the pieces he can be a part of just make it that much more special. Anyway, the date was set for THE ultrasound but the problem came up that Jake was going to be in his last week of a month long training but I didn't want to know what the bean was without him so at the ultrasound I had the technician write down the secret and seal it in an envelope so that Jake and I could open it together.
I know you're thinking "Aww, how sweet!" and that is what I thought until I had the envelope in hand. I have quite a few friends who are also expecting at about the same time. In the real world THE ultrasound is anywhere from 16-18 weeks. In the military world they make you wait between 21-24 weeks! And on top of that I had the answer I had been anticipating in my hand and still couldn't look. I had not quite thought that the whole waiting thing through.
The day that Jake came home was the longest day ever because I was certain that since he had been away training for a month that they would let him off at a semi decent time...wrong. 7:30pm finally rolled around and I got the call. We could not get home fast enough.
Drum roll please....
Then after much discussion we chose the name - Cameron Faith. We are major fans of different names but not so different that she would grow to despise it as she got older because it was so different. We liked that although Cameron is somewhat common for a boy it isn't quite as common for a girl. We also got the suggestion from friends and family to spell it with a "y" (Cameryn)... cute but in the month Jake had been gone I had been filling my time with research and one saying kept popping out in my mind "If you take a common name and spell it differently, congratulations, you've taken a common name and spelled it differently." as in there was no point to spelling it differently.
So there you have it. Our story up to this point but we are very excited to keep you all updated as our story progresses. Jake is no longer supposed to be gone during the due date which is awesome but for any and all military wives out there, I know to keep my hopes and expectations low and just take it a day at a time.