I cannot believe it has taken me so long to tell this story because it is my favorite ever. Many of you already know the backstory, but for those of you who do not, Jay and I got engaged in November 2017. I was a 21 year old senior in college and Jay was 24 and working for the governor of South Carolina. We began planning our dream wedding immediately. It was going to be a big 300 person wedding in June 2018. In December, we paid our deposit for the reception venue (the Beaufort Waterfront Park). We had our engagement party, I bought my wedding dress, etc. Everything was going according to plan.
For New Years Eve 2017, Jay and I were in New Orleans with his family. The Clemson Tigers were in some sort of championship bowl (sorry Jay, I know it’s embarrassing that I don’t know what game it was). That whole trip I was EXHAUSTED. Now, I’m already a girl who loves her naps, but this was a new level of exhaustion. I couldn’t walk a block outside without needing to sit down for at least 15 minutes. I also felt absolutely terrible. I was always nauseated. I would wake up feeling so sick, even if all I had to drink the night before was one beer.
At one point during the trip, Jay and I were going to meet up with some friends of his who were also in New Orleans for the game. However, when it was time to go, I literally could not get up, I felt so weak and sick. I thought, “what the heck is wrong with me”? I was eating extremely healthy at the time (that wedding diet 😉 ), so I just thought it could have been all of the crazy rich cajun food I had been eating in New Orleans. Of course, pregnancy flashed across my mind (I’m sure plenty of you ladies reading this know that scary feeling). I would always quickly brush that feeling aside though because I was on birth control.
That trip came and went, and it was January 2018. For those of you who do not know, Wofford has a January mini semester called “interim” when students either take a fun class on campus (I took horseback riding my freshman year), they travel (I went to Cuba sophomore year), or they have an internship (I was a student teacher at an elementary school junior year). Well, for senior year interim, 3 of my best friends and I signed up for the Vietnam trip.
I was spending the weekend with Jay in Columbia because I was about to not see him for 3 weeks. This was Jay’s busiest work week of the year. Before law school, Jay worked on the executive budget for the state of South Carolina. The budget was getting released to the press that following Monday so Jay worked pretty much all weekend. Still, I wanted to be there with him for lunches and dinners before I left on my trip.
At this point, I was pretty late on my period, which was concerning, because I had very regular periods. But I continued to dismiss that scary thought. I was planning on saying goodbye to Jay and driving back to Spartanburg on Sunday. I would fly out on Wednesday. However, on Sunday morning around 5:15am, I threw up. Everyone knows what that means. We did have some wine the night before, but the amount we drank was far from throw up worthy. At this point, I pretty much knew I was pregnant. I still tried to push the idea away though.
I didn’t go back to sleep that morning. Thoughts were swimming around in my head. When Jay woke up, he told me he was going to go into the office to get some work done before the budget got released the next day. We decided that we would meet for lunch before I drove back to Spartanburg.
As soon as he left for work, I called my mom. This is how our conversation went:
Me: Hey mom
Mom: What’s wrong? (Moms can just tell sometimes)
Me: So…. I’m about a week late on my period…
Mom: …Okay…?
Me: …and I threw up this morning…
*Silence*
*More silence*
Mom: Are you pregnant?
Me: I don’t know.
Mom: Is Jay there? Does he know any of this?
Me: He’s at work, and no. I don’t want to worry him before I need to. I’m supposed to meet him for lunch though. Tomorrow is the biggest day of his entire work year so I don’t want him to have any distractions.
Mom: You’re probably fine, but after you meet him for lunch, you should take a pregnancy test just to ease your mind.
Little did I know that after telling me I was fine and hanging up, she immediately called my dad into the room and said, “Leigh’s pregnant.” Again, moms can just tell sometimes.
I decided that I wasn’t up for meeting Jay downtown for lunch. I told him that I didn’t feel well and asked him to just bring something back home for us to eat. He brought back Moes, which I hardly ate due to nerves. When he left for work, I said goodbye to him like I wasn’t going to see him for 3 weeks, even though I had a feeling the Vietnam trip just wasn’t in my cards. He left for work, and I waited about 10 minutes before leaving myself to go get a test.
This was the longest and most anxiety filled trip to CVS of my life. There was only one register open, and the couple in line front of me decided that they were going to use every single coupon they could possibly find for their 50 items that they were buying.
Once I started driving home, I realized that my gas tank was below empty. I am the type of person that does not drive with less than a quarter tank of gas, but I was planning on filling my car before driving back to Spartanburg. I thought, “If I run out of gas, I’m going to have to call Jay to come help me, and then he’s going to ask why I went to CVS in my pjs when I was supposed to be on my way back to school. I better just go ahead and get gas now to be on the safe side.”
I was trying to pump my gas in a hurry so I could get home and take the test, but the first tank I went to was broken. I’m not talking it had a plastic bag over it and said “Out of Order.” No, it took my card, started pumping my gas, but it was pumping about .1 gallons per minute. There was no way I was going to wait that long to get gas. So I stopped pumping, got back in my car, and drove to the next one.
When I was finally back in my car and on my way home, I got stopped by a freaking downtown Columbia train. I had gotten stopped by trains before in the car but always when Jay was driving. This was the first time I had gotten stopped on my own. I thought, “You have GOT to be kidding me.”
I finally got home and went straight to the bathroom. I read the directions on the pregnancy test. It said it could take up to 3 minutes to get test results. Well as soon as I put that test in the cup, a big giant “+” made it’s way across the screen. I immediately started hysterically crying. I put the second test in the cup and right away, the letters “YES” showed up.
I just sat on Jay’s bathroom floor for 10 minutes and cried by myself. Then I called my mom. When she heard me crying she said, “What?!” I said, “What do you mean ‘what?!’ You KNOW what!” During that conversation, she told me that she would get in the car and come see me in Columbia right away (Beaufort is a two hour drive from Columbia). She also told me even though I was shocked during that moment, that soon I was going to be overcome with joy, and everyday I would just grow more and more in love with the baby growing inside of me.
I called Jay and told him that I wasn’t feeling well and that I was just going to spend the night again and drive to Wofford on Monday morning. He said he was sorry that I wasn’t feeling well. I also told him that my mom was passing through Columbia and was going to bring me dinner because I knew if I didn’t say that Jay would have brought me dinner. My plan was to tell Jay that night when he got home from the office.
My mom came up to see me. She took me out to dinner. She called some of her connections and got me an appointment with an OB in Spartanburg for the following day. After dinner, we came back to Jay’s apartment. We talked and laughed and played old wives tale gender prediction games (which all said I was going to have a girl, by the way). Jay called me and told me that he was going to be in the office very late that night working on the finishing touches of the budget. My mom stayed with me until I was ready to go to bed, which was around 10pm. She left to go stay with one of her friends.
Surprisingly, I fell asleep very easily that night. I was probably asleep by 10:30. I was planning on telling Jay the news whenever he got home. Well, he walked into the door at 3am. It was so late, I knew I couldn’t tell him then. He would get no sleep before his very important day at work. I asked him what time he was waking up the next morning, and he said 7:30. So, I set my alarm for 7 (pro tip: allow yourself more than 30 minutes to tell your baby daddy about your unplanned pregnancy).
Around 5:45, my eyes shot open. I had a pit in my stomach due to the nerves over the conversation I was soon to have. There would be no going back to sleep that morning. I rolled over and looked at Jay. He was sleeping so peacefully with no clue that he was going to be a dad. I just sat there in bed going over how I was going to break the news to him in my head.
Finally, my 7am alarm went off. I immediately tapped Jay on the shoulder. He didn’t budge (he is one of the hardest people to wake up). “Jay?” I said. “I need to tell you something. Can you turn the lamp on?” This got his attention. He knew it was serious.
He asked what was up. I could tell he was worried. “I love you so much. I know that we thought we had everything figured out according to plan, but God has a different plan for us. I’ve been feeling so terrible lately. I’m late on my period, and I got sick yesterday. While you were at work, I took two pregnancy tests, and I’m pregnant.”
All Jay said was “Holy Moly.” He shut his eyes and kept them closed for what felt like a lifetime. When he finally opened them again, they were red, and a tear ran down his cheek. He wrapped me up in his arms and gave me a kiss. “I am so relieved to hear you say that. I thought you were going to call off the engagement.”
We both cried a little bit, and then started talking it through. Jay said, “I guess law school is out of the question.” I told him that that doesn’t have to be the case. I didn’t want having a baby to take his goals and dreams away.
We sat and pondered about whether the baby was a boy or a girl. All of the sudden, Jay’s eyes got very wide, and he said, “What if it’s twins??” I laughed and told him not to even think about that possibility.
Jay’s reaction was sweeter than I could have ever imagine. It just further showed me that I had picked an amazing man to spend my life with. From that moment on, I realized that my mother was right. My heart grew and grew with love and joy over our precious baby.
