Dear IB...

Dear IB (Imaginary Baby),

After several weeks of feeling symptoms of pregnancy, and after finally accepting the life change that was about to happen, I found out late last night that you are, in fact, imaginary. I didn't think the information would be so hard to hear, but when the doctor told me that my blood test was negative, I had tears in my eyes. I didn't realize I wanted you so bad.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. Before I met your daddy, I wasn't sure what I wanted for my future. I knew that I never wanted to go through the things I went through in my past and really never gave marriage or having more children a second thought. I figured that this was my opportunity to get my life in order and be the mom to C that I always wanted to be. Then, when I least expected it, I found the one person who could make me laugh and smile like no one ever has.

Your daddy is the only person in the world who I have ever been able to see a future with. He's an amazing, smart, handsome man who I have fallen so deeply in love with. He is more than just my boyfriend, he has become my best friend and the only person I could imagine by my side for the rest of my life. Not only has he been good to me, he's been amazing to your brother, C. He is kind, playful, and I have always told him that I could imagine him to be a good father someday.

While we have talked about marriage and creating a family of our own, our plan wasn't supposed to happen until at least he was done with school. Even though we had been careful, when I started having symptoms that usually coincide with pregnancy, that was my first assumption. When I shared this with your daddy, he said "Don't tell me because you are going to get my hopes up." I didn't realize he was actually ok with the possibility that he could be a daddy sooner than we both expected. I also didn't realize that of the two of us, I was the one with the anxieties of the possibilities that you might be real.

Yes, I'm not going to lie, the moment I started feeling nauseous in the morning, and when I noticed I started gaining weight, as well as the moment I truly realized that the possibility of a baby growing in me was real, I kind of freaked out a little bit. I had thoughts about possibly not being adequate enough since your daddy and I aren't married, or even engaged, nor do we even live together. But of all  people, your wonderful, amazing daddy calmed my fears and reminded me that I'm not going to go through this alone and that he would be there for every step of the way. I caught on to his excitement and I looked forward to the day we found out that we were going to have a little angel together.

The day I was expecting my period and it didn't come, I took a pregnancy test and it came out negative. I couldn't understand how that was possible because I felt you inside of me. I felt like you were real and that all the symptoms I felt were proof that you were growing inside of me. I was definitely disappointed, as was your daddy who told me he had "lost hope". I wanted so badly to prove him wrong. I wanted him to know that the symptoms I felt were real and that you weren't just a product of my imagination. Two days later, on Saturday morning, I took another test, and once again it came back negative. That's when I started to call you my "Imaginary Baby" and I got to blame all I was feeling and craving on you.

I couldn't take this anymore. Nausea, sore breasts, back pain, missed period, majorly emotional, heightened sense of smell, weight gain, etc. There HAD to be a reason for all of this. Even more so when I started having a sharp pain in my lower right abdomen. On Monday morning (yesterday), I had asked your daddy to go to the doctor with me on Tuesday (today), but I couldn't wait very much longer. I decided to head on over to urgent care and see a doctor. I needed the confirmation that you were in fact growing inside of me. While I wished your daddy could have been there with me (he was at work being the responsible man that he is), I knew I had to do this to calm all our minds that were being wracked with thoughts of you all day.

While I waited in the waiting room, people asked me what I was there for and I said, "To find out if I'm pregnant". I never felt such a sense of pride and excitement to found out about you. I wanted to tell the world that I may be pregnant. While I was super nervous and thought about how the result of the blood test I had just taken would change mine and your daddy's life forever, I was definitely looking forward to the doctor confirming that you were no longer imaginary.

I was wrong. My body, mind, and heart tricked me. They led me to believe that you were growing inside of me. The moment the doctor told me that the test was negative, I cried in the exam room, wishing this was all a bad dream. I wanted you to be real after I imagined what you would look like, and be like. I wanted you to be your daddy's little gorilla, boy or girl. I felt like that was all washed away at that moment and I was all alone to dwell in those thoughts and then had to snap out of it, as the doctor requested for me to take more tests to get to the bottom of why I am really feeling like this.

Since last night, my mind has been racing at the possibilities of everything that could be going with me. At this point, I have no idea what to think. The doctor said he would call me with the results of my extra lab work, but at the moment I don't really have a clue of what's going on. I did research that several people have had blood and urine tests come back negative and still have viable, healthy pregnancies, so I'm not giving up hopes of you being fully imaginary just yet, but I do have to admit that I'm not even so sure of myself. Even if you truly were imaginary, I have to tell you that I loved the thought of you growing inside of me and the idea that eventually I would get to hold you in my arms and whisper in your ear how beautiful or handsome you were and how much I loved you for being a piece of me and your daddy.

Thank you, IB, for making me realize that I definitely want to be a mommy again, and I want J to be the one to go through parenthood all over again with. Thank you for opening up my mind and heart to the idea of a family, whether before or after your daddy and I get married. Thank you for not making me scared of what people say or think and for giving me the strength to realize that my happiness is my own and that no one else's opinion of it matter. Also, I thank you for giving me a timeline I want to stick to as far as the future goes and giving me the drive to get things done sooner rather than later. Thank you, also, for making me cry as I write this, because even though you may be imaginary, my emotions and my love for you are not... :)

I love you, IB.

Love,
Your Mommy