For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you already have been informed of the teeny little secret I’ve been keeping for the last… oh… four plus months.

Legit teeny. Legit secret.

It honestly still feels so crazy to say and I’m still pretty much in shock. Not because this was a surprise in any way — in fact, it was actually very much part of ‘the plan’ — and for those of you who know me, there’s usually always ‘a plan’. Rather, that in this freshly 33rd year of life I think I’m finally going to feel more like an adult than ever before and that life is about to get SO real.

Because guys…we’re having a baby!

In honor of this news, I wanted to share a bit about our story — how we came to this moment and how freaking excited I am to finally let you in on this piece of joyful news that we learned one Monday evening in November.

Note: this has been in draft mode for the longest time as I had reallyyy hoped to do a video with Trevor… and we just haven’t gotten around to it. SO you’re getting the heavy copy + image version for now, with much more baby content to come!

Remembering Our Story

When I look back on the last nine years of our lives since meeting, I can’t help but bucket them into chapters — because each year was full of something new and pivotal.

So here’s our thus far story as told via nine short chapters with snippets of the thousands of photos I’ve managed to take throughout our relationship to the tune that reminds us the most of the months when we first met.

The years have totally flown by, but damn has it been a fun ride… (cue the theme song to our love in 3… 2… 1…)

01 : SUMMER LIVIN’ TURNED FALL LOVIN’ // 2010

Who would have thought, one wild summer night a girl and a guy from rival collages would meet at a bar through mutual friends and spark a fire. Trev thinks I asked for his number this night. I am still in denial of this — along with the fact that I was rocking a sundress over a bathing suit and a fedora hat from boating all day. Ladies, sometimes you’re going to meet the guy you’ll spend the rest of your life with when you’re least expecting it — like living your best life as a 25 year old damsel in distress. After a few months of chasing (literally, he followed me down to a music festival in San Francisco), introducing me to his parents and relaying our growing feelings for each other, I canceled my plans to move to NYC to stay in Seattle for Trevor. Best decision I ever made.

02 : THE LOFT AND SEATTLE PARTY DAYS // 2011

We moved in together after a short three months of dating and since Trev expressed he always wanted to live in a loft like the movie Big Daddy, I found us a spot downtown and our life together began. We had no walls, but a sick rooftop and location to all of our friends and places to hop around like young bloods in the city. We lived it up, while we grew up, and had the time of our lives.

03 : NYC ENGAGEMENT // 2012

Since I traded in my plans to move for love, we took a little trip to NYC together for our two year anniversary, my birthday and to show Trevor his first big apple experience. Little did I know he was planning another reason to fall in love with this city. He proposed to me during a carriage ride in Central Park on the most amazing night out in Manhattan. Now New York holds an even dreamier status in my heart.

04 : WHEN SMALLS CAPTURED OUR HEARTS // 2013

I can’t believe I was hesitant about getting a dog for so long, because the moment we laid eyes on our little puppy, our lives changed for the better. Trevor had always been obsessed with the French Bulldog breed and when we started our dog hunt, we knew it was going to be the perfect companion. We chose the runt of the litter, who we named Smalls (last name Bigelow, Biggie Smalls, hehe) that literally gazed into my eyes upon first meeting — which he still does to this day. He has the biggest personality and sweetest heart. And if you can’t tell already… we’re pretty much obsessed with him.

05 : BIGELOW SOLSTICE // 2014

We decided to have a longer engagement and enjoy our time as fiancees for a little under two years. On summer solstice in 2014, we were married downtown in the historic area of Seattle with 185 of our friends and family. It was — as they all say — the best day ever. See more about Bigelow Solstice here.

06 : STAKE IN THE GROUND // 2015

We outgrew our wall-less loft and bought our first home in a neighborhood of Seattle where we first met — Fremont. A charming 1920 craftsman with all the character and rooms for nesting and decorating to our hearts’ content. We’ve done a few interior updates by hand and hired contractors to remodel the exterior since then. Talk about feeling like a grown up!

07 : AROUND THE WORLD // 2015 – 2018

After we checked off a lot of the adult boxes, we decided it was time to make travel our priority. We did damage in the US for weddings, friend getaways and family excursions, but international trips consumed our minds. We spent our honeymoon in Italy and Croatia, traveled to Australia over Thanksgiving, spent a week in Paris romancing, took a quick adventure in Iceland, a pop over to London and visited beautiful Portugal and Spain.

08 : LIFE MOVES // 2018

Since we knew the time was coming we had agreed to start trying to grow our family, we took this year to focus on self-improvement and major career moves. While introducing positive habits and upgrading our shared Prius of 7 years to new wheels, Trevor worked to improve the structure of the company he had started back when we met and I took a leap to leave my corporate job at Nordstrom to start my own as well. It was a tough year full of emotional trials and struggles, but we came out better than ever before. And we even tacked on one final international trip — a revisit to Italy and an extra special “baby making trip” to Greece. And yeah… it freaking worked.

09 : BABY BIGELOW // 2019

So now, here we are, 5 months pregnant looking onto 2019 as the next major chapter of our lives, and we are feeling ALL the things — excited, blessed, hopeful, scared. But we are more than ready for that next part of our lives… and we are so confident it will be the best that’s yet to come.

Baby Bigelow, Coming July 2019

I’m so thrilled to finally let all of you in on this news — it’s been so hard to keep a secret! We totally didn’t expect it to happen right away and are just so grateful and elated that it’s actually happening according to plan.

As I go through this new experience for the first time, I hope to share with you all about the journey along the way.

Stay tuned for a recap of my first trimester, a fun little gender reveal and all the craziness that comes in between now and our due date of July 18th.

Here’s to the next life edit —

// cb