I woke up this morning and it was just like any other Tuesday.

Up before the kids. Making coffee. Turning on the news. Starting laptop up. Chatting with my husband.

When I came into my office to start writing, I noticed the date. There was something about March 15th. I had a feeling about the date. I can’t quite describe the feeling, it just felt like a warmth came over me, a good warmth.

5 years ago today I was in a doctor’s office seeing a beautiful little heartbeat on a ultrasound machine. “BB” as we were calling the baby. Leading up to this ultrasound was pure craziness… I had found out (a huge surprise) I was pregnant mid-February 2005. William was 16 months, Alex was 4 months. I remember thinking, “How the hell am I going to do this?” And then somehow, someway, this maternal instinct kicked in and I just knew that I just would.

Well… before finding out I was pregnant, I had been rushed to the hospital with severe pain in my lower back early February 2005. At the hospital they tested me to make sure I wasn’t pregnant so they could do more intensive testing (everything came up negative in early-FEB, when in actuality, I was about 4+ weeks pregnant). After the negative result, I went through rounds of x-rays and cat scans to see what was wrong with me. I had kidney stones. They were awful! As soon as I started to get better, I started to get a little sick… and I realized I hadn’t gotten my period. I found out I was pregnant.

To say I was nervous is an understatement. I was beyond nervous because of the x-rays and cat scans, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I remember being terrified to go to the first sonogram… and then when we got there, we saw a beautiful little heartbeat. My heart soared… he/she was OK. The technician said everything looked good, but then the doctor came in and asked me to come back in a week to get another sonogram done, just to make sure everything was growing properly. Seven days seemed like an eternity. Why did they want to see me again? What did they think was wrong?

I went back a week later, and I was devastated, there wasn’t a heartbeat. I was crushed. Truly and utterly crushed. As every mom knows, as soon as you see two lines on a pregnancy test, your life changes. All of a sudden, there’s an addition coming… and it was very tough for me to realize that it wouldn’t be for us at that time.

But today… March 15th… today was a good day 5 years ago. I saw a beautiful little heartbeat and it brought a smile to my face. I hadn’t planned to get pregnant at that time, and if it wasn’t for that baby… we never would have tried for Benjamin and in turn, Henry.