Either I'm Pregnant or I've Completely Lost My Mind

"Either I'm pregnant or I've completely lost my mind." The thought sprang fully formed from my head at 2:30pm on Tuesday June 30th. This was all the more shocking because it was the only complete thought that I had achieved in a few hours. I was driving home and sobbing. Why? I wasn't sure exactly why, but I was absolutely positive I had the right to cry.

I had just hung up the phone on Andrew. We had spoken three times already that morning. This being problematic for him because he was at work trying to be a productive member of society and frequent phonecalls from a wife who was alternately beseeching, accusing, questioning, threatening, and generally conversing (sometimes all within the same call) were not helpful. In my defense, I was not having a picnic racing through these feelings either.

I calmly examined the thought for a moment. Now, Andrew and I have been married for four years and have a relatively steady life. We want a family and children and we were thinking that it was beginning to be a good time. However, when standing on the edge of that decision; I felt the first thing to do was take a nap. I was exhausted. Come to think of it, I napped yesterday.
As I crawled into bed at 3 in the afternoon. I said to myself, "I will go buy a pregnancy test when I wake up."

At the pharmacy, I picked up a pregnancy test and just to hedge my bets, a box of tampons. I drove home carefully preparing for the options. I realized that I was going to be very sad if after having gone to the trouble of taking the test it turned out negative. (That would by default mean that I had actually stepped over the thin boundary that was keeping me from crazy.) I decided that if I wasn't pregnant I would go see my friend Kim. She has answers for everything. Then I decided that if I was pregnant I would go see Kim (see: answers for everything mentioned above).

I carefully read the instructions on the box and began the test. Unfortunately, I instantly got a case of stage fright. I remember Ryan famously suffered a similar fate early in his Airforce admittance. (It encouraged me Ry.) After a few drops and not at all the recommended 5 seconds in the stream [if this bothersome to you I apologize, I assume the blog may only get worse] I began to regret not buying a multi-pack of these tests. How was I supposed to guess that I could fail this test?

I stared intently at the window and saw one pink line immediately. It seemed to have "took" as it were. Then I began to muse on what constituted the "existence" of a critical "second line." If I could see the outline of where the line was, did it exist? I returned to the instructions where helpfully in ALL CAPS which let me know that EVEN a FAINT LINE constituted a SECOND LINE. Two minutes later, after a harrowing and probably ill-advised drive, I arrived at Kim's house (It was the plan in place before the universe turned upside down).

Kim would like you to know that I walked in her door, said nothing intelligible and handed her my test, the instructions and my debit card. After an hour of soul searching and comforting words and interesting information like, "No, it is not common to have false positive pregnancy tests. They are very accurate in diagnosing positive pregnancy results." I returned home ready to discuss with Andrew the fact that our lives were never ever going to be the same because I passed one silly test.


Having just had my own come-to-Jesus-moment with the news (and I was the one whose innards had been aching for babies or puppies for the last six months), I realized that Andrew may need time to be receptive to the news. Andrew was fantastically enthusiastic and supportive from the first second of receiving the news. Truth be told, since he was expecting to come home to the nutcase he had spent the day talking with on the phone, learning we were pregnant probably felt like a bullet dodged. "Whew! I don't have to have her committed after all."