So I haven't written in awhile, and for VERY good reason. ;)
I met my person.
Well, re-met.
I knew him back in elementary school and only because he was my brothers' best friend. I remember going to his house and playing with his sisters, I remember finding him on Facebook (or maybe it was MySpace back in the day) when he and my brother re-connected- we have been "Friends" for years but had not been single at the same time until one day on Plenty of Fish I was scrolling through and came across his profile. I did not recognize him and just wrote "YUP" as a message to him....obviously I was in a fed up with dating mood and didn't want to waste much time LOL!
He responded with something like "I was bound to run into someone I knew on here!" and I wrote back that I would have remembered him if I knew him...he was living in the South Bay about an hour and a half away from me, I couldn't think of any logical reason how I would know him, and then it clicked.
After some general conversation and catching up we decided to try to meet up in person to catch up more. At this point I wasn't sure if he was actually interested in me or if he still just saw me as a friend's little sister. With the distance between us I really didn't think anything would happen even if we hit it off.
Plans kept falling through and he had a few mini vacation trips on the weekends and again with the distance, I didn't think we would ever actually meet up.
One Saturday in July we made plans, finally. We were suppose to meet up at a wine tasting venue in Malibu at 10 or 11am. I made the mistake of hanging with friends until the wee hours the night prior and crashed at their house, waking up around 10am! I contacted him to let him know my situation and thought I had blown my chance. He was already at the venue where we were suppose to meet and I felt TERRIBLE! He decided since he had already driven an hour to meet up with me, he would drive the additional half hour to my friends house where I was with the same group from the previous night.
I was...to put it lightly...a hot mess! Once I decided I wasn't driving anywhere, we started in on mimosas and bloody Mary's and really dedicated the day to just hanging out. Since I wasn't expecting anything to come of meeting up with him, I was relaxed and myself and really didn't try to impress him. If anything, I was so far not me that day but he hung out and fit right in with all my friends and we ended up having a really fun day! He stayed late into the evening in fact and we made plans to see each other again soon.
I was already hooked.
I couldn't wait to see him again but I felt I needed to make up for my first impression; so I planned a real date. There was a Blue Moon that was to happen on July 31 which landed on a Friday, which worked for both our schedules. I went and got some Blue Moon beer and would take him after hours to the Paramount Ranch to walk around and show him the Old Western town, which I thought was something different and kinda "guy' cool. The date went well and we saw each other a few times after, usually meeting up mid-week and mid way for late dinners.
I had posted back in August 2015 when I was already head over heels but he was still trying to keep things casual and light. I was frustrated because he wouldn't give me the title of girlfriend and just said we were moving in the right direction without giving in fully. I could tell there was more there and he wanted to jump too but with the distance, our schedules, his fears, he wasn't ready yet.
Cut to a month later in September when he agreed to come over to my parents house to see me mom...My mom knew him as a little boy and had been asking about him ever since I started talking to him online! We had been seeing each other for a little over a month when he came over to re-meet her. As per usual, he was awesome and easy to talk to, got along with the family and some family friends that ended up coming over and things were just ...easy.
The friends meet (on our FIRST "date") didn't scare him away...
Me being a HOT MESS didn't scare him away...
My emotional breakdown about wanting a title didn't scare him away...
The parent meet didn't scare him away...
This guy is a keeper!
I opened up to him and divulged my deepest darkest secrets, and all my hopes for the future. He still didn't run. In fact, he got even more involved at this point and come October, we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend.
There was a local Halloween Festival that I go to every year with a group of friends and their kids; he was in, even donning matching costumes with all of us (deck of cards, where each family was a suit; parents being King and Queen, and their kids in order of birth were Ace, 2, 3, etc.- I snuck in as a King with the absence of one of the dads, and we made him a Joker).
That is the day our lives changed forever.
3 weeks later at my annual check-up, the doctor confirmed me to be pregnant.
The day after I found out, we planned to have dinner where I would tell him...I made a card, not really knowing how he would take the news and not knowing how to actually tell him, I just slipped the card to him across the table at Red Lobster and waited. Shaking. Nervous. I don't think he fully read the card at first and the words "I'm Pregnant" probably stood out to him as the only writing; he took him time processing the information, looked up at me and asked as if confirming what he thought he had just read...and then said "I knew it".
I was so nervous still, and obviously shaking. He moved sides and slid in next to me and gave me a hug with a smile on his face. I didn't know what to say, so I just said "We can make this work...right?" he said "I don't want it to work. I want it to last!"
We spent the rest of the night kind of freaking out, talking about him moving, or me moving, and if we should get married now and what about finances and me working and...and...and...we worked ourselves up quite a bit that first week but once the dust settled and reality sunk in, we were good. We would handle everything together and build our lives together but it would take some time. We wouldn't tell anyone yet and as a code word we started calling the baby "Ace" (because we conceived the day of the festival where we were a deck of cards and this was out little Ace).
We were growing stronger as a couple, both knowing we were in it for life at this point. With the holidays fast approaching, we had plans to visit his family in Arizona and I started planning the reveals. The holidays would coincide perfectly with the 12-13 week marker where it is "safer" to finally tell people you're pregnant. We told my big group of friends first, then his family in Arizona just before Christmas. We made a video of our Arizona trip for my parents and at the end revealed that we were expecting; this was their Christmas Eve present and it couldn't have gone any better!
Once everyone important in our personal lives knew, we posted on Facebook New Years Eve.
A few weeks later we found the perfect home to rent less than a mile from my parents and my best friends, and we moved in! Signing a 2 year lease, knowing that our baby was going to be born into this home and would take his/her first steps in it, running around in the backyard when he/she became more mobile...it was a GREAT feeling!
Knowing I have my person, knowing what is coming in the VERY near future...I couldn't be happier! All my wishes and dreams are coming true and all the waiting, all the dating was well worth it. I wouldn't appreciate everything as much as I do if I had not gone through all the bad. I hate to be so cliché but things really do happen when they are supposed to.
It was time to delete my Z list contacts the day I met him but I am just now getting around to it because it is time consuming to delete almost 200 contacts in an iphone! Yes, I had over 200 guys saved in my phone but not as a little black book kind of thing; it was more in case I received a random text a year after I met someone who had ghosted me and it would jog my memory of who it was. I always put names in under "Z" so that they were all at the bottom of my contacts and grouped together and all had some kind of brief description. Such as "29/Law School" or "6'1 Sherman Oaks Sushi", or "Super Creepy", "High Fisherman", "Fake Accent", "Jay Leno chin", "Motorhome weird eyes", "Don't Ever Text Again" and so on....I always also added how I met them, "Match", "Tinder", "POF", "Bar", etc.
(can't make this stuff up!)
I actually received a missed call from one of the Z's just last week! I didn't pick-up and there was no message left but it reminded me that I HAD to just take the time and get all these guys out of my phone once and for all!
I need to now make room for just 2 guys....my love and my SON!
Yup, it's a boy, and we plan on raising him to be a gentleman just like his daddy. When he is older, I will mention some of the boys I came across in my dating tales and make sure he doesn't end up like any of them! He will have his Grandpa (Papa) and Daddy as role models to look up to!
I didn't think it was possible to find my dream man...I was always told I was too picky, but look at me now! I found him and I am never letting go.
Marriage is in our future, we just didn't want to rush into it just because of the baby...
I am no longer Single in the Suburbs, but Happily Knocked Up in the Suburbs! :)
(Currently 29 weeks pregnant)
