Welcome to the shit show!

As I sat there staring at the test in my hands, I couldn’t help but think, what the actual fuck? It was 5am on my day off, and I had snuck downstairs to the bathroom where I could unwrap the plastic from the boxes without being detected. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to say anything to my partner; I just wanted to be sure. You see, we had gone through this before. Except that had ended with me crying in my OBGYN’s office as she told me about chemical pregnancies. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying; I hadn’t wanted to be pregnant at that time, and my body had rejected it on its own, just as I had an inkling that I was pregnant. I wasn’t taking care of myself at that time and was drinking a lot of wine, partying with friends, and not eating a lot. It wasn’t a surprise that my body was inhabitable. It just sucked. 

Here I was, though. I had gone to the store the previous day on my way home and had grabbed two boxes of pregnancy tests. One a digital store brand and the other, the first response early detection. Somehow I knew I was pregnant. In fact, they say “it’s impossible,” but I knew 3 days after a “woopsy” moment. I had been lightheaded and had intense nausea for a couple of days with no known cause, that seemed to come and go in the late afternoon. It only lasted a couple of days and then subsided. I could feel in my body something was different. A week and a half later, my breasts felt warm and heavy, and I was crampy, but in a different way than my period cramps. So when they say “it’s not possible,” ignore them, because you know your body best.

After following the directions, I found myself sitting with a couple of digital tests with blank screens, because for some reason they decided not to work, and two sticks with lines so faint that they indeed could be a false positive. 

What’s a false positive? Yeah, that’s the day I learned about them too. Apparently, it’s common to have faint lines indicating a positive test, when in fact you are not pregnant. However, it’s also common to have faint positives, as the hCG in your urine is just enough to be detected, but not high enough to give you a definite line. Meaning you’re very early in your pregnancy. As I read about it online, and looked at all the pictures of people’s pregnancy tests of faint positives versus false positives, I realized, I would not be getting an answer today. It was too early to know. 

I ended up texting my sister to ask her about it because she had recently been pregnant, and was a nurse. I figured if anyone knew it would be her. I said “what the fuck is this shit? Did you know this was a thing?” She essentially confirmed what I had read, but then added, “I think you’re pregnant!” And told me to keep testing in the mornings with the first pee of the day. That’s when the hormones in your urine are most present, so you’ll get the most accurate results. Part of me thought she was just saying that because we had always wanted our kids to grow up together, but the other part of me knew how my body felt, and I couldn’t deny the nagging feeling that it was indeed a faint positive. 

I did just that. After a couple of days I stopped and got more tests and tested in the morning. The lines were a little darker and pink, but still faint. Knowing that I had had my previous chemical pregnancy, I wanted to make sure the trend was going in the right direction before bringing it up with my partner. Last time they had faded away. So over the next week I tested and watched the tests growing darker in pigment. I then tried the clear blue digital test and there it was, the word pregnant. It was time to tell my partner. 

The last time I had thought I was pregnant I had ordered a newborn Sublime onesie, and with sadness had tucked it away for future use. Yes, I’m a millennial mom, and a big fan of 90’s music. I pulled it out of the box, wrapped it in tissue paper, and put it in a small gift bag. In the morning, while drinking our coffee I gave it to him. He looked at me as if he knew what it was and opened it. I wish I could say he was delighted, but he wasn’t. That’s the honest truth. We were partially through renovating our house, half of it being a literal construction zone, and we were not well off. The renovation was very slow going because we both worked so much, and on top of everything, our relationship was rocky. It really was terrible timing. I wasn’t surprised at all by his  reaction, or rather, lack of reaction. I guess from what I’ve heard, that’s a guy thing. They tend to freak out and go into logical mode. Mind you, we were mid to late 30’s, had been together for 7 years, and had always talked about getting married and having kids. Unfortunately things were just not turning out the way we had envisioned or planned. 

Regardless, I had to call my obgyn and make an appointment. When I did, they scheduled me for an 8-week appointment . Now, this is still so confusing the way they do this. Something about the last day of your known menstrual cycle. If you understand it, you can drop a comment and explain it to me and everyone else. I’ve had it explained many times, and can’t wrap my head around it, and I’m a very high-functioning individual. 

So 8 weeks, which meant I had to wait a month from when I scheduled my appointment to confirm that I was in fact pregnant, which to be honest, is kind of crazy. There’s so many things that could happen in that time frame, and doing a simple blood test would be nice, but hey, that’s America’s healthcare system for you. If you’re not dying we don’t care about you; if you are dying, it’s gonna cost you a kidney, and your child’s inheritance! That’s not a dig at the providers, just the system.

By the time my appointment came rolling around, I was more than confident I was pregnant. I had fully missed my period, had started to get nausea, and my breasts hurt all the time. I was also craving strawberries and chocolate like no other. 

After sitting in the waiting room for twenty minutes, watching pregnant women coming and going, it was finally my turn. They took us back to a dark room with a reclined table, a giant screen, and the ultrasound machine. By that time I really had to pee. We lived an hour away, so I had been holding it for some time, and was told I had to hold it a little longer. When your bladder is full it helps position your uterus better for the ultrasound. So I undressed from the waist down and put one of those terrible paper gowns over my lap. My partner sat in the chair next to me. I’m not going to lie; part of me didn’t want him in the room while some stranger did an internal exam with a dildo-looking probe. It was fucking weird, but at the same time, this was an important moment. As my mom would say, “suck it up buttercup!”

The tech was sweet, you could tell she did this several times a day, all day, because she knew what to say to make you feel comfortable and made it less weird with her jokes. I could tell she loved what she did. She had decorated the room with lights and she seemed just as excited to find out the results. I guess when you’re in the business you get used to probing people. 

Up on the screen popped the image of my uterus. You could see right away, a tiny blob. It was the first time I felt excited. There it was, right in front of me. Everything I had felt and knew about my body had been dead on. I was indeed pregnant. 

We left the appointment with a photo, and complex feelings. My partner was freaking out, but I was calm. I was a mom. Something I wasn’t sure I would ever accomplish in my messy, chaotic life. I wasn’t ready at all. I was nervous about so many things. Was I cut out to be a parent? Would I even be good at it? Would she hate me? I had so much to learn and figure out in the next 9 months. Not having a support system made this even more overwhelming, but hey, I was a mom. Life had given me lemons and I had made fricken lemonade.