Fact Plus...

About 15 or so days ago I woke up and thought, "I think I'm pregnant." Which is completely silly because, well, I'm thirty five and I had thought that before. Besides when I went to the doctor for my ear infection they gave me a pregnancy test. Granted this was a new month full of new possibilities. (Or in my case new opportunities to be disappointed.) So I told that thought to take a hike and tried to get on with my life.

Except there were a few odd symptoms. "Hmmm...what's up with that?" Off to Google we go expecting to find some hitherto unknown Crohn's symptom. "Early pregnancy? Puh-lease! Even if I was, I really couldn't be more than a few days and that's a bit too early for early pregnancy symptoms...Or is it?" So I tell my brain to shut it's mouth but it keeps whispering. "What if we are?" and spinning fantasies of how it will be and just generally tormenting me.

So I end up at Walmart by myself...

And as I'm running throught the store picking up the last few things we need for dinner, I make a run for the "Family Planning" aisle and grab a pregnancy test. Fact Plus, two pack. "This is nuts...I"m not even expecting my period until the eleventh" But into the cart it goes and once I get home I hide it in the bathroom closet behind some stuff and think about it constantly until the eleventh.

The morning of the eleventh I wake up hideously early, head downstairs, open the closet door, grab the hidden pregnancy test and almost pee on myself because I have to go so desperately. Sooo...I decide to wait for the next opportunity, which arrives at approximately 7 am. This time I manage to pee on the stick and while I'm waiting for the results I'm repeating this mantra. "You're not really pregnant, you know that, don't you? Stop being a nutter and get on with your life." Five minutes or so of this and the test is one line. Not pregnant. I'm okay. Really. Just...well, I still think I'm pregnant.

I spend the next few days argueing with myself. Telling myself I'm not pregnant and then explaining to myself why that test could have been wrong. And the whole time I'm just waiting for my period to start so I can stop being crazy woman and start being me again. I can't tell Karl either.

We pretty much don't talk about the no baby thing. We love each other, we realise how fortunate we are to have each other and know that pining for "extra" stuff could break us. You can take a minor pain like childlessness and magnify it so it's the biggest thing in your life. You can make it so big it overshadows the true things like how much you really love each other. So we've set it aside. And I know he's thought about it, as have I, but we have each other and we can love Sam and Baylee and George and Graci and Lara and the new baby and still be whole and happy.

Except I'm still not getting my period and I still have a pregnancy test in my bathroom closet. I'm almost frantic because I hate being one of those baby crazy women. I decide on Friday that I'm going to take the second pregnancy test. Then I decide to wait until Sunday. I figure Sunday is Father's Day and there's got to be some good mojo in that. If I'm really pregnant what better day to tell Karl...

I woke up this (Sunday) morning and I was so scared that I would have started but I hadn't. So I made my way quietly downstairs and peed on a stick. I set the test down and told myself not to get my hopes up. Then I turned on the shower, and went to get a towel from the laundry. I came back and...plus.

"Plus? is it really a plus?" I wanted to shout. I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to run up the stairs, shake Karl really hard and yell "Is that a plus sign?!!!" Instead I took a shower.

Because when you want something and you've resigned yourself to the fact that you're not going to have it, when it does happen, the possibilty that you might be hallucinating does occur to you.

I took a shower and I cried a little and I danced a little and I kept telling myself when I got out of the shower it wasn't going to be a plus sign...but it was. So I took my little stick and myself up the stairs and I gave Karl a little shake...

"Babe, I've got something to tell you." He looked a little dazed, definitely not awake, but I couldn't wait. "We may not be able to go to England for Christmas." "Whu?" and then I reached over to grab the test and said "because I'm pregnant"