The News

On Saturday March 27, 2010 I married my best friend and true love. On Sunday June 20, 2010 I found out that I was pregnant. Here's how it all went down.

I was 29 on our wedding day. I was also once divorced, done with grad school, a homeowner, and ready to have a baby. Well, by "ready" let's just say I wanted one. My clock was ticking, plain and simple. Leading up to the wedding my husband had told me "If you get X job, we'll start trying to have a baby." I got X job. I went off the pill 7 days before our wedding.

June 20 was Father's Day this year, and my husband and I joined his parents, brother, and sister for dinner at a nearby restaurant. I had two glasses of wine with dinner. Halfway through my dessert wine, I furrowed my brow and wondered "How long has it been since I had my period?"

Hmm.

I have never been good at keeping track of my cycle. I've spent time on and off the pill in my adult life and just never paid much attention. My periods aren't notably early, late, heavy, light, or anything else. Each month it just happened. Until it didn't.

As we got in the car to drive home it was slowly dawning on me that I was actually late. About a week before this I had finished a huge trial which consumed every bit of my time and attention for a week. The week when I probably should have had my period, now that I thought about it. I casually asked "Should we stop by CVS and get a pregnancy test?"

To his credit, my husband took that question very calmly. "No," he said, "Let's wait until you're definitely late." Just the day before I had told him I felt crampy and must be getting my period, and that it may be a bit late. "OK," I answered. "But I think I'm actually pretty late right now. And I really have to pee." We stopped at CVS.

The directions on the home pregnancy test say to wait two minutes for results. It took approximately 3 seconds for both lines to turn a bright, solid blue. My first thought was "That's weird, I thought two lines meant pregnant. But both of my lines are blue. Huh." Then I looked at the directions. I was still sitting on the toilet. That's how fast this all happened. So I looked at the little folded sheet from inside the package. Oh. Then I looked at the front of the box. It has a picture of two tests - one is pregnant and one is not. Ho-ly shit.

My husband was still walking the dog when I made it out the front door on wobbly knees. I met him in the front yard. He took one look at my face and asked, "What!?" I barely managed a weak smile.

"Happy Father's Day."