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Thursday, September 29, 2016

The Best Gift Ever - The Story of Toby

When Jake and I were engaged we discussed when would be a good time to start a family. We both came to the table thinking two years sounded good. So that was the plan. We were both young, had no major health issues, and we didn't think it would take long to conceive.

Unfortunately we were wrong.

Three years after getting married? Still no baby. A friend of mine shared that a doctor had recommended she go on a gluten free and dairy free diet in order to help conceive. I had no reason to think this would work for me, but I wanted to feel like I was doing something to help the process, so it was worth a shot.

My gluten free/dairy free diet lasted two weeks. lol! It was Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory that did me in. We took a tour with some friends and the free ice cream at the end was too much to resist. Oh well. I figured I'd start the gluten/dairy free diet again the next month. Maybe then we'd get pregnant.

Here we were at the end of September, which is the lead-up to Jake's birthday on October 2. In our family we don't celebrate birthDAYs; we celebrate birthWEEKs! The birthday boy or girl gets a week of special attention—little gifts here and there, fun activities, special meals, and such.

Well, this particular year I FAILED! Like big time. On Monday night of his birthday week I apologized for not planning anything. He was a little disappointed.

So that night as I was praying I could only think of one way to make up for his birthday week. One thing that might put me back into my husband's good graces—if I found out we were expecting. So I prayed that I would be pregnant, and that if I was I would remember to take a pregnancy test in the morning.

Keep in mind I had NO reason to believe I would be. I hadn't had any symptoms or anything, it was more of a wish than a real possibility.

The next morning I remembered to take the test. It had two lines. I had never had two lines before. This must be some mistake. So I took another one. And then another. They all had two lines. According to these tests I was pregnant!

Now to figure out how to tell Jake.

I knew it would be a big surprise after having tried for a year, so I spent two days planning it all while keeping the whole thing a secret. Yikes, how did I even do that?

Since we were planning to move to Maui in just a few months I thought I would take him on a trip down memory lane to special places from when we were dating.


  • Our church, where he first asked me out.
  • The local pizza place where we used to share a plate of spaghetti almost every week.
  • The bench where we had a serious conversation about whether we wanted to "get serious" about our relationship.


Our final stop was at Harvey's Lake in Barnet, VT, the place where we first hung out, where he first told me he loved me, and where he proposed.

It only made sense that this be the place where I told him we were pregnant.

I parked in the lot and had him put my scarf over his eyes. He waited in the car while I went out to the lake shore and set up his camera and tripod, along with the pink and blue balloons I had purchased earlier that day. Then I led him out there and, well... the rest is on camera...


Dani the Fat Gurl Inside

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