God Laughs

On a Saturday night at the end of June, Scott and I were sitting at home, watching a movie, and generally doing nothing at all.

We’re in our mid-30s, we can do that without shame.

It was on the heels of the plane incident, the moment where for the first time in more than a year I could see the benefits to not having kids in our family. For some of the flack I got, I felt pretty satisfied in the conclusion I came to after that experience, and in some ways it lent credence and credibility to what Scott and I have always said: We are a family with or without kids.

So I turned to Scott, out of nowhere and said, “We have a limit on how much our insurance will cover. Once that’s done, I’m done. I’m really not going to the ends of the earth in service of this. We’ll go travel, remodel the house from top to bottom…it’ll be fine.”

And I meant it. Scott grabbed my hand and once again reassured me that we were going to be fine no matter what. He has a habit of not elaborating on what I’m saying, most especially when the statement is declarative, which is more often than not. I’m big on the declarative statements. So I don’t know that it’s that he’s afraid of getting in trouble or just that it’s his way, but he doesn’t usually do more than reassure me it’s all going to be OK. It’s probably a little of both.

It all felt very much like a breakthrough of sorts, especially in light of the next round of tests. We both had checked out in the positive at the fertility clinic (Yes, folks, Scott had been tested, too. He just asked me not to discuss it on my blog.), and I had an ultrasound and more blood work ahead of me, once my period arrived.  My period was its usual wonky self, but all of the moodiness and cramping signaled that it would be along soon. It’s not the first time I’ve been late. And then we noticed, well, something funky going on with my nipples. I’m sorry, it’s TMI, but it’s what happened and it freaked me out. I assumed not the worst, but not the best, and truthfully it wasn’t a priority for me to investigate until I got back from my trip to Utah.

“Are you sure you’re not pregnant,” asked my husband.

“Of course not,” I said. “There is no way I’m pregnant.”

And so, of course, I am.

No one is more shocked than the two of us, I assure you. After more than a year of trying and not succeeding, we spent the majority of the morning we saw the first stick pop a second line staring at each other. I am pretty sure we both had truly come to a peace with not having kids, so to go ahead and get pregnant without any assistance was as shocking as it could get. I kept staring at the test. Couldn’t stop staring.

I must admit I was looking forward to heading back to Santorini soon. I’d also put in a request to head to Africa. And New Zealand. The lists were getting long.

I am writing this, obviously, weeks before we’re telling anyone. As of this writing, I am only five weeks and five days along – much, much too early to tell anyone, let alone the Internet. I am not scheduled to see my OB-GYN until July 8th, and I imagine it’ll be only then do we tell close family members. I have not yet told my sister, which is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s for the best – in the past 24 hours we’ve had a little secret all to ourselves, and that’s rare, especially in our families. And we still have much to process.

(Edited to add: We’re actually headed into our second trimester now.)

I am having difficulty with the fact that our upstairs has not yet been remodeled and how in the world will we get that done by February 18? I should be processing other things, I know.

I certainly don’t want to insult or upset anyone else who has been trying and still hasn’t gotten pregnant, especially since I’m painfully aware of how much can go wrong. It’s been a long year, and I’m grateful for the minimal amount of work it took, in hindsight, to get us here. I am pretty convinced it was the lack of stress that helped this more than anything – being in a much happier, better place in life does wonders. I believe that. I know that’s not the case for everyone, but for me, minimizing stress, and maybe the acupuncture, was a big help. If anything, it allowed me to move forward dealing with the stress of not getting pregnant and not just pile stress onto stress.

So holy shit. We’re pregnant.