Now in my third trimester, I’ve been having the awesome experience of waking up frequently during the night. And since we moved to our new place, our bedrooms are not as dark as we’d like because of emergency exit lights just outside the windows.

This means that often I find myself staring at my husband while he sleeps, studying him for signs of Addi. Will she have his nose? His forehead? His cheeks?

The other day I found myself flipping through the sonogram pics on my phone while I was on the bus. I stopped at the one of her hand and studied it closely. It’s already been 12 weeks since then and I miss those regular glimpses we had in the beginning.

“She has your hands,” I told Mekuria as we woke up this morning. I’d been looking at his hands during my early early morning wake before drifting back to sleep for awhile.

Only two months now until we see for ourselves what she looks like — who she looks like. I already feel butterflies just thinking about her smiling at me for the first time. The road ahead has never been so mysterious and exciting.

Reading an article in the Oakland Tribune this morning on a history of California marriage laws brought back some memories for me.

“It was the kind of kiss that could change the world.”  – the opening line reads. The article then shows one woman’s perspective of state marriage ban laws. As a young white girl in 1948, she found herself in love with a black man. California’s ban on interracial marriage forced the couple to have to leave the state in order to get married.

Fast forward to 2000. Times had changed for sure. I was a young girl finding my way around San Francisco in the midst of the dot-com carnage. Jobs were pretty scarce for recent grads with little experience. Rents were still bloated from all the people who’d flocked here chasing Internet dreams of rich business adventures. But somehow I still had a purpose here.

My close Ethiopian friend from college had invited me to stay with him and roommates until I figured out what to do next. I took a silly side job working for a tie dye t-shirt company so I could pay my portion of rent, bills and food. My friend — Mekuria — and I would meet up after working hours each day in downtown San Francisco to catch the BART train to the East Bay together.

And then one day, for whatever reason I do not know, I felt such joy at seeing his face in the crowd that I instinctively moved in for a kiss as we met. This wasn’t a friendly kiss on the cheek, nor was it “gross, go get a room” type of public make-out session. It swept my heart up and “was the kind of kiss that could change the world” so to speak.

I knew then that I had always been in love with Mekuria, but had never opened myself up to the idea because we worked so well as friends.

The rest, as they say, is history. Almost nine years later, I have the privilege of waking up next to him every day and calling him my husband. When I count my blessings, he is always on top. I watch him sleep and smile at the thought of our child being the next chapter of us.

I often take for granted the fact that we were allowed to be married in California a few years ago. But I guess that’s the point of all those who came before us. It’s true that we still get stares from people and can never really go anywhere without being noticed. But much of the time it’s more a happy look than one of disapproval. I look back at the couples who came before us and I understand why they would endure prejudice. When you’re with someone you love, it really doesn’t matter what others think and you tend to forget that it’s unusual from other people’s point of view.

But I do want to thank those who had the courage to stand up for the love they believed in, for taking on state laws in groundbreaking lawsuits.

Thanks to them, I didn’t think twice about that kiss on a public street nine years ago that would change my life forever.