two pink lines

March 26, 2007

So today, I feel like the best kind of Looney Toon. I’m laughing, I’m crying, everything is beautiful, especially the wind and rain outside my office window on the green green spring plants and pink vining roses.

Yesterday morning at 5 a.m., I bolted awake again. My period hadn’t come yet. My sister was in town, sleeping in the next room. I was awake, wide awake, and although I had already decided I wouldn’t re-test until after she left, I was marching to the kitchen for a cup, marching to the bathroom to pee in the cup, dipping the stick (for some reason, peeing directly on the stick doesn’t appeal to me, although that is how I refer to taking the test — peeing on the stick).

I replace the cap, lay it flat on counter, run out of bathroom into bedroom to wake Scott and let him know what is happening, sister wakes up and heads for bathroom, dash back out into hallway, cut her off, go into bathroom and sneak out cup, stick, box, accidentally leave instructions on floor but figure she’s too tired and not wearing glasses so won’t notice. She goes to bathroom and back to bed. Scott and I turn on light and stare at stick.

One heavy dark pink line, one faint, light pink line. Two lines. I’m pregnant.

WHAT?

What does the light pink line mean? Should it be darker? Is something wrong?

Run back to bathroom, get instructions, read out loud. Faint line still means pregnant. I’m pregnant. Hello?

What?

…let me just say here, that in the week between the two tests, I had firmly come to terms with the idea that not only was I not pregnant, but that I was not ready to be pregnant, and that actually I might never be ready, might not be the sort of person that has children, might AT LEAST want to wait ANOTHER YEAR before we tried again, aging eggs and other risks be damned.

During that week, I had the distinct feeling that I had come back to myself, remembered who I was. I have a great career opening up in front of me. I know how to do this life. I will be good at it.

And now, I’m… I don’t know who I am in this new scenario. The first few minutes, maybe the first hour, I just sat there. Mourning. Mourning my ‘single self’ because even as a married person, I still felt like the single me, the me who could pick up and do anything, even if the latest version of me would have to pick up and carry a husband and a mortgage to wherever I was off to. (More freedom than that would be another internal conversation entirely.)

I tell all of this to Scott. He says maybe the not knowing who I am is a good thing.

Interestingly, as much as the idea of having a baby had scared me before, because I felt it would be the most permanent link between me and my beloved imperfect human husband — that wasn’t what scared me yesterday morning. Linked to him for a lifetime, fine. But being responsible for a child, now that’s scary.

Scott goes back to sleep, and I go downstairs to the living room and watch TV and knit. And then it is around 6:30, a reasonable enough hour to get Scott back up and start our morning.

We tell my sister pretty much as soon as she gets out of bed. Her eyes light up and her whole face splits wide with a huge grin. “I’m going to be an Auntie!!!”

I’m glad she was here. She’s been the easiest person to tell so far.

My fear is that everyone is going to have opinions and advice, and somehow I need to protect myself from that. Also that people will have expectations about how I am supposed to feel. And maybe I don’t want to talk about feeling complicated. In some ways I don’t even want to talk about my joy. It is such this private thing. But then, it’s me, and I always talk about me to my friends.

I called Gabie, one of only three people who had been in on the fact that I might be “trying.” (I’d barely had time to even discuss it with anyone else!)

She was wonderfully happy for us, and admitted that she also thought if it hadn’t happened this month, we might get scared and not try again for a long time. But she’s glad it did and thinks we’ll be great parents.

I called my best friend from high school — the one who’d told me about the prenatal vitamins. I was still in shock. She seemed to be in shock too. She said “Congratulations.” And then she said, “I don’t know what to say.” And I said, “That’s okay, I don’t know what to say either.”

I want to tell Jenny, Leila, my parents. Scott wants to tell his parents. But we run out of steam for phone calls. We feel a little strange. I’m not ready to deal with everyone’s reactions.

I just want to get used to the idea for a bit.

But I’ve already at least discussed the possibility of being pregnant with my insurance agent, my chiropractor… I will soon have to tell my facialist, waxing person, pilates instructor, our financial advisor.

When do I tell everyone else?

I’m only 5 weeks along. Anything could happen. Everyone we tell, we’ll have to keep posted if things change. That’s a challenge too.

I start a list on my computer, for tracking purposes.

Today Scott’s going to tell his coworkers that they were right.

How am I? I’m surprised, happy, scared, excited, emotionally loop-de-loo.

This is the flattest and sexiest my stomach has ever been my entire life. Ironic, no?

Bye-bye sexy tummy.