Before we get this party started...

I have some news I need to share with you all. It has seemed like I have dropped off the face of the earth, I know.  And I am sorry, but it's good news I promise!

You see, in November, Mr. Ly and I decided to go away for our engage-aversary.  We went to Williamsburg, VA, which seemed so appropriate because we got engaged while we were staying in Williamsburg (Brooklyn). I had every intention of blogging about it, too. We had just sent out our invitations, we didn't have much to do planning wise, and we were looking forward to popping our bottle of engagement champagne we had been saving for a year. We had a wonderful weekend, except I wasn't feeling great.  I was tired, like bone-crushing tired.  I had to nap every day, which is not like me at all.  I first suspected that I might be pregnant, so I took a test and it came back negative (way to spice up a romantic weekend - right?). There might have been a really faint evap line, but it was definitely negative.  So we popped the champagne and drank the bottle between the two of us in the hot tub!

The next day, I still did not feel well, and felt really faint while we were shopping at the outlets.  I chalked it up to too much champagne the night before.  By Tuesday we were home and back to work, but I was still having weird cramps and twinges, and yes still SO tired.  Mr. Ly told me not to take any more home pregnancy tests until I actually missed my period (it was due that Thursday), but I couldn't wait.  I stopped on my way home from work and picked up 2 boxes (one regular - pink lines - and one digital.) Didn't do a 4 hour hold, or use first morning pee or anything... and it was positive. Like really positive.

Tested again in the morning, and it was still positive. AND I add a digital in for good measure.

Yup, I was definitely pregnant. So, for a few days Mr. Ly and I walked around in a daze and complete and total shock.  We were planning on TTC after the wedding, and I was charting, but apparently I hadn't quite figured the whole thing out yet. Of course the timing could have been better, if anyone had ever told me I'd be 13 weeks pregnant at my wedding, and 100% happy about that - I would not have believed them.  But wedding stuff just seemed so much less important from that moment on.  Sure, our all inclusive honeymoon to Jamaica seemed a bit over priced when I couldn't drink all day, but we made up for it plenty with lots of good meals, and I had my fair share of virgin daiquiris and coladas.

We told people early, like 6 weeks. But my bachelorette party was happening that weekend, and I obviously couldn't get away with not drinking all weekend.  I was so glad we had planned something low-key, because there was no way I would have made it out all night dancing. I knew it was risky, and I was just hoping this baby was going to stick. Over the next 6 weeks I stressed more about baby stuff than I did about wedding stuff.  I celebrated every single week, and every single successful doctor's appointment. And yes, I let blogging kind of slip away, but mostly because I just wanted to tell EVERYONE and I was afraid I'd let it slip! I had a very easy first trimester, very little symptoms and virtually no nausea or morning sickness.

Fast forward to our wedding day, we had our 12 week scan a week before, and baby was looking great. I was 13w4d pregnant at the wedding - and we wanted to find a way to incorporate a reveal into our wedding some how.  Since we already told so many of our friends and family, we thought a gender reveal would be really cute. We obviously didn't know at the time what we were having so after the ceremony we snuck off with our photographers to the park across the street and took a set of pictures with pink shoes, and a set with blue shoes.   We had an elective ultrasound on Valentine's Day and found out that Baby Lyre is....

Photo by Mike Landis Photographer  / Text added by Mrs. Lyre

A BOY! This is the inside of our thank you notes that went out this week (well, it had our last name instead of "Lyre" but you get the picture!), which is why I had to wait until these went out before I could reveal it on the internet!

He's been kicking and moving around a lot these days, and we are so very excited to meet him in July!

My goal is to have my recaps done long before the baby gets here, but I couldn't really tell the story of our wedding day without this very important detail.  Look for the Lyre recaps starting soon!

Did anyone else have an unexpected surprise before your wedding?