Lintel Bean (and sometimes spelled Lentil Bean)

Lintel Bean - a  bean considered to be a type of pulse, a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds.

And well it's also the name we decided to call the baby growing in my belly.

I can't take credit for our name choice. This time. I've been known to nickname everyone with names such as "butterbean" "peanut" and "anard" and my favorite ---their first name + marie ---no matter the gender. For example: "Daddy Marie" "Jason Marie" and  "Christen Marie" - whose real middle name is something like Delores or maybe its Deanna.

I found out I was pregnant about 10 weeks ago.

When I was kid I pictured the way my future husband would propose, never thought much about the wedding, and thought alot about the moment I would tell him I was pregnant. I'm sure most girls think about weddings. But I mostly thought about those special conversations.

I replayed them in my mind, the scenerios, the happiness, the excitement.

I'll have to share my proposal one day, both of them. :) Just not today because this story is about the much anticipated, "I'm pregnant."

When I met Jason and I knew (much later on) that he would father my kids one day, my scenerio became more specific. 

I pictured this:

I took a pregnancy test. Alone. And then I waited, because I'm such a CALM person. So this makes sense. I waited until the timing was perfect.We would be in Target. Walking hand and hand down the aisles and then magically we would wander onto the aisle for the baby clothes and just as Jason would tug my arm to direct me down another isle. I would look up at him and smile a radiant smile. A smile that says I have something incredible to tell you. I would say something like,"I think we belong on this aisle. Picking up a onesie, I would say, "I'm pregnant." And we hug and laugh. And buy everything on the baby isle.

Sound creepy and weird?

It is.

Let me tell you how it really happened. :)

But before I go there. I have something I need to say.

Do you know the story of the boy who cried wolf? And then no one believed him. I think that's how it goes.

Well when I got married to Jason, while he had picked up the habit of snoring....Click here... I had picked up the habit of thinking I was pregnant. Every. Single. Month.

I can't tell you how many tests I took. Or the secret pleasure I felt in buying them. Or how often I told Jason we were going to have a baby. But what I can tell you is that it finally happened. And when you've gone through it as many times as he had, I imagine it's pretty tough to believe it.....well pretty tough for me to believe it either.

So this past June went like most of the other months had. I just knew I was pregnant.

And so it started.

"So I think I pregnant." I told him on the way back from the movies. (This is on Saturday)

Jason smiles and shake his head. Keeps his eyes on the road. No shock, just completely calm. Why? because why should this month be so different then the past 7 months I thought I was pregnant.

"I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant." I said, as I sipped on a Whiskey Sour at a bar on our street. (Saturday night)

We both smiled and shake our heads. No way, Hosea. We both thought. But just for fun, I said it anyway.

"The baby and I are headed to church," I said smiling a goofy smile and waving goodbye to Jason as I headed off to church. (This is Sunday morning)

He chuckles and rolls his eyes.

"We'll say some prayers for you." I say for good measure.

"The baby and I are going to the gym for a while, we'll be back later...." I call out to him as I lace up my tennis shoes. (This is Sunday afternoon.)

I hear him laugh and say, "You know you're not pregnant, you did this last month." (and every month for the past seven months, but whose's keeping score.

You're probably wondering why, if I thought I was pregnant, did I not go immediately buy a pregnancy test? (or drink a Whiskey Sour?)

Because I really didn't think I was AND I embarrassed the heck out of myself buying 5 sets of pregnancy tests all on different trips to the SAME Wal-greens the month before. I couldn't stop myself. I really, really believed I was.

And I wasn't.

And the girl at the check out counter....She knew I wasn't either. I'm surprised she didn't stop me, pull me to the side and say, "You have to stop this right now."

So by Monday night I had the strangest feeling that even though I was saying I was pregnant and I thought I wasn't pregnant that I might actually really......be pregnant.

I made up my mind I would wait until Jason left in the morning. Fly to Wal-greens, pray to God the same woman wasn't working the counter and get my test! The test would, of course, be negative.

It was positive. 

I rubbed my eyes really hard. Squintted my eyes. It can't be. I never thought. My mind was racing. I couldn't think. I started dialing.....but wait!

It can't go down like this! I can't give up my dream of telling Jason. My beloved Target scenario....

But my fingers wouldn't listen. My pounding heart (that I could hear through my ears) egged them on. And the next thing you know, I hear this.

"Hello?" (Such a lighthearted response.) While my mind was racing, my husband was thinking about what he was going to eat for lunch that day.

"Jason are sitting down?" I say this in one breath.

He laughs, "Well I'm driving"

"I'm pregnant." I say and then I hold my breath.

Silence.

"Huh?" "Did you say you were pregnant?"

"I am."

"How do you know?" At this point he senses that I'm not joking anymore. That I'm not going to say "The baby and I just took our 110th pregnancy test and we are pregnant. ha ha! Just kidding!

"It was positive."

"You had a plus sign?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know." But really, how could I not be sure a minus is a minus and a plus is well.... a plus.

And after a few moments of wrapping our minds around it..... we laughed. Because that's what we do when we're nervous. 

Really nervous. Happy, really happy and very nervous. 

For the rest of the day we called each other twenty times. Just to make sure that it was true. Just to remind each other that in nine months we were going to have a human being that looks a little like him and a little like me. And for now we were the only ones who knew. 

And that's how it started with our lintel bean. :) 110 pregnancy tests, A few "I'm pregnant"s (who am I'm kidding....many), and a panicky not so perfect or dreamy phone call later. :)