"Gravity Can't Begin / To Pull Me Back to the Ground Again"

Pregnancy Story, Part 1

*I wrote this post when I found out I was pregnant and I've been DYING to post it. Now that almost all the families know, I figured I'd post it tonight. Warning: gross girly things are referenced in pargraph 2 and bathroom habits are referenced in paragraph 6. Skip this if you don't want to read about periods and peeing!

Today is August first, which marks many important events for us. August brings the beginning of the school year, cousins from France are coming for three weeks in August, and we have a slew of wedding related activities for two very special couples. On top of those, August would be our sixth month of trying to make a baby. July was our fifth, and it occurred to me in the middle of the night, that I should be finding out soon if I’m pregnant or not. I’ve been trying very hard to remain cool and calm about the whole thing this month, but there I was, in the middle of the night, wide-awake with thoughts.

See, there are two ways to find out if you’re pregnant. Normal people wait until they’re a day or two late, then take a test. Crazy people like me, we count the days until our next period and wait until a day or two before, then take a test to find out because waiting for a period is not good enough. Sometimes I have to know NOW. And that’s what I’ve done for the last four months. Each time it was negative and each time I was devastated, so this month I decided to take my mother’s advice, throw the calendar out the window, and do it the normal way. Until this morning. Here are the thoughts I was thinking:

The cousins are coming on Monday. Today is day 28 of my cycle, which isn’t the last day, but it’s pretty close. If I wait until I’m late, we’ll find out (one way or the other) when the cousins are here. If I take a test this morning, we’ll have a couple of days to deal with it before they get here. But I promised not to take a test until I’m late. But it’s day 28, which is really close, so I might as well be late. I could wait until tomorrow. Sylvain’s going to Lexington today and if it’s negative I’ll just cry all day, so I really should wait until tomorrow. I’ll wait.
When Sylvain finally woke up this morning he was in a very good mood, which is rare since he is NOT a morning person. He was puttering about the house, singing and humming and getting really excited about this bachelor party in Lexington. I wanted to talk to him about this whole pregnancy-test-but-the-cousins-are-coming dilemma, but I decided to wait and talk to him about it tomorrow when he got back. By the grace of God, he brought it up himself (a sign that things were going my way)! I explained that I almost took a test this morning, but decided to wait and before he left he said, “Call me if you take a test or anything,” and I smiled and said, “Okay!”

I put it out of my mind and went to the Farmer’s Market. On my way home, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to take a test. If I was pregnant, I could surprise Sylvain with the news tomorrow in a very old-timey traditional marriage sort of way where the wife knows before the husband and not simultaneously. If I wasn’t pregnant, I had a whole day to cry about it and get over it before he came home. I went back and forth, back and forth for hours while I was unloading groceries, cleaning, and preparing to bake a pie in the kitchen. Finally I had too much of this line of thinking and decided – That’s it! I’m just going to take the stupid test and be done with it! (This is how every past month’s disappointments have gone down – with me finally saying “I’ll take the stupid test and be done with it!”)

I decided that I just have to be strong either way. I hadn’t felt pregnant this month and we still had another month left in our window of trying, even though that month had house guests for three weeks, which would be a bit of a drag, but we’d do it. No big deal. I walked into the bathroom, unwrapped the test, said a prayer, made a sign of the cross (not even kidding), and sat on the pot. I barely peed at all and the directions clearly state that you have to have a steady stream for five seconds. Mine was more like a two-second trickle, so I was bummed from the get go. I put the cap on and watched the white strip saturate from left to right. One line appeared….then another….

Wait a minute.

I looked at the diagram. I looked at the test. Here were my thoughts:

I’ve seen a thousand negative tests, but never a positive one. This one did NOT look negative. Let’s just stay there for a minute – NOT negative.

My brain rested…

Not negative means POSITIVE. (I smiled.) Positive means pregnant.

I'm pregnant……

I’M PREGNANT!!!!!
Oh, crap, why did I do this??? There’s no way I can tell Sylvain on the phone, which means I have to wait until tomorrow, and if he calls and asks, what the heck am I going to tell him? I have NEVER lied to my husband, but I refuse to tell him on the phone. Why did I do this??? Ack!! I’m pregnant!!
I walked out of the bathroom with the test in my hands and my jaw on the floor. The word “shock” doesn’t cover it. And I was all alone! I decided to show the cat. I yelled at her, “Kitty, I’m pregnant! Look! Two lines! TWO!!” She was completely disinterested. Stupid cat.

Well, I had to bake this pie and I decided I would do my baking then take another test later, just in case this one was wrong. I turned my iPod on to all the baby songs I’ve been collecting for friends, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I did my two favorite things: sing and bake. I didn’t cry at all, I just moved extra slowly and carefully…and smiled and smiled and smiled. When I wrapped my apron around my waist I stopped for a split second to look down at my tummy. I’m pregnant. I smiled.

I was so grateful to have this information all to myself while I baked my peach pie. I resisted the urge to call everyone I know. After a little while it wasn’t as hard. This was my secret, and I had one whole glorious day to relish it. When the pie was finished I decided to go find Sylvain a “Daddy present” to give to him tomorrow when he comes home. I wandered around Babies R Us and the mall in a complete daze. I picked up little clothes and bibs and shoes, which I’ve done a thousand times before, but they felt different today. They felt weird. It was like I’d been let in to a secret club and now I knew what all this stuff was for. I tried to imagine our own baby in these clothes, which I’ve also done a thousand times, but this time I couldn’t. All I could think about was Sylvain and the little teensy embryo inside of me. I couldn’t even think about a baby yet, my head was still reeling with two pink lines.

All the daddy bibs I found were silly and not like Sylvain at all, so I settled on a baby UK shirt and baby UK cap to lay on his side of the bed tomorrow with the TWO pregnancy tests. I think he’ll like it, I just hope he doesn’t ask me anything on the phone. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight with this information in my head. I know one thing, though. Nothing else in the entire world matters at all to me right now. Not school or weddings or cousins. It feels like the world stopped turning for me today and I’ve been moving in slow motion. Me. Me and two pink lines. Pregnant me. Amazing.

Part 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5...) coming soon! There's a lot of catching up to do!