Mama Bearable: Our Pregnancy Journey Part 2
Let's see, where was I?
Oh yeah, early April, and the little plus sign.
I was in the bathroom alone, determined to keep the results to myself. We had had too many negative results, I didn't want to make Eric go through that again. The excitement of being a few days late, only to have our hopes dashed faster than we could toss the test into the garbage. Eric found out later that I had taken many pregnancy tests he didn't know about, with gentle correction he reminded me that we were in this together, meant to traverse the hills and valleys side by side. His patience and reassurance in life keeps me grounded in so many ways.
I remember my reaction when I stared down at that little plastic stick, the plus sign staring me in the face. I closed my eyes tight, and opened them again, thinking that my eyelids would wipe the image away. But there is was, that little plus. I thought to myself "no, no way" this has to be wrong. So I took another test, just to be sure. After all false positives happen, not that often, but they do happen. But the second test left me just as speechless as the first, pregnant.
In those first moments alone in the bathroom, I oscillated back and forth between joy and panic. We had waited for this for so long, but held in the balance were all the things that now slipped from my grasp. Selfish, I remember those first moments being filled with selfishness. Many moments after that would be filled with selfishness too, too many to count... I was frozen, unsure of what to do next, Eric was downstairs, just 12 steps down the flight of stairs separated him from this news. There was a part of me that wanted to keep this news to myself, because if I shared the news, somehow it wouldn't be true anymore, or worse it would be true.
But that wasn't fair to Eric. He needed to know, as I left the cocoon of the bathroom and traversed the stairs down to my husband, thoughts, feelings, and panic filled my mind. I don't remember clearly everything I was thinking about, but I do remember being afraid of Eric's response to this news. Would he be joyful, would he be filled with panic, skeptical of the result? I paused at the bottom of the stairs, Eric was sitting unsuspecting at his desk. 8 steps, I gently placed the test on his desk in front of him. The next 5 seconds felt like an eternity, Eric looked at the test, stunned in disbelief. I don't remember his verbal response, but he stood up, placed his hand in disbelief over his mouth, and hugged me. Tears filled his eyes and mine as we adjusted in a split second what our new reality was going to be.
That's all it took, 15 minutes, and we knew our world was going to be completely different. The next phrase that came out of one of our mouths was "What do we do now?". I look back now laughing at how many times over the next year those words would come out of my mouth, or cross my mind. What does any logical person do when they don't know what to do? They Google it, obviously! "What to do once you find out you're pregnant?", schedule a doctors appointment to confirm.
I called our healthcare provider, unsure of what to actually say. When the central hub operator answered and asked how they could direct my call, I just said "I'm pregnant, I need to have a doctor's appointment." They transferred me to the OB/GYN hub, where I clumsily explained why I was calling. After listing all the possible doctors I could be paired with, Dr. F was picked at random, mostly because she was a woman. Little did I know just how much having Dr. F and her team would help Eric and I through the pregnancy process.
I have found it to be true that life is a series of choices, sure there are the mammoth choices that we know are going to change our lives, like relocating, taking a new job, or having children. But life is also made up of a bunch of little choices, and often times those choices are the ones that guide and direct our lives. Because if I had made even one choice differently over the past 30 years, my life wouldn't be the same. I can spend lots of time thinking about the what-ifs and the should haves, but I can't change the past, I can only be content in the present, and embrace the future.
Oh yeah, early April, and the little plus sign.
I was in the bathroom alone, determined to keep the results to myself. We had had too many negative results, I didn't want to make Eric go through that again. The excitement of being a few days late, only to have our hopes dashed faster than we could toss the test into the garbage. Eric found out later that I had taken many pregnancy tests he didn't know about, with gentle correction he reminded me that we were in this together, meant to traverse the hills and valleys side by side. His patience and reassurance in life keeps me grounded in so many ways.
I remember my reaction when I stared down at that little plastic stick, the plus sign staring me in the face. I closed my eyes tight, and opened them again, thinking that my eyelids would wipe the image away. But there is was, that little plus. I thought to myself "no, no way" this has to be wrong. So I took another test, just to be sure. After all false positives happen, not that often, but they do happen. But the second test left me just as speechless as the first, pregnant.
In those first moments alone in the bathroom, I oscillated back and forth between joy and panic. We had waited for this for so long, but held in the balance were all the things that now slipped from my grasp. Selfish, I remember those first moments being filled with selfishness. Many moments after that would be filled with selfishness too, too many to count... I was frozen, unsure of what to do next, Eric was downstairs, just 12 steps down the flight of stairs separated him from this news. There was a part of me that wanted to keep this news to myself, because if I shared the news, somehow it wouldn't be true anymore, or worse it would be true.
But that wasn't fair to Eric. He needed to know, as I left the cocoon of the bathroom and traversed the stairs down to my husband, thoughts, feelings, and panic filled my mind. I don't remember clearly everything I was thinking about, but I do remember being afraid of Eric's response to this news. Would he be joyful, would he be filled with panic, skeptical of the result? I paused at the bottom of the stairs, Eric was sitting unsuspecting at his desk. 8 steps, I gently placed the test on his desk in front of him. The next 5 seconds felt like an eternity, Eric looked at the test, stunned in disbelief. I don't remember his verbal response, but he stood up, placed his hand in disbelief over his mouth, and hugged me. Tears filled his eyes and mine as we adjusted in a split second what our new reality was going to be.
That's all it took, 15 minutes, and we knew our world was going to be completely different. The next phrase that came out of one of our mouths was "What do we do now?". I look back now laughing at how many times over the next year those words would come out of my mouth, or cross my mind. What does any logical person do when they don't know what to do? They Google it, obviously! "What to do once you find out you're pregnant?", schedule a doctors appointment to confirm.
I called our healthcare provider, unsure of what to actually say. When the central hub operator answered and asked how they could direct my call, I just said "I'm pregnant, I need to have a doctor's appointment." They transferred me to the OB/GYN hub, where I clumsily explained why I was calling. After listing all the possible doctors I could be paired with, Dr. F was picked at random, mostly because she was a woman. Little did I know just how much having Dr. F and her team would help Eric and I through the pregnancy process.
I have found it to be true that life is a series of choices, sure there are the mammoth choices that we know are going to change our lives, like relocating, taking a new job, or having children. But life is also made up of a bunch of little choices, and often times those choices are the ones that guide and direct our lives. Because if I had made even one choice differently over the past 30 years, my life wouldn't be the same. I can spend lots of time thinking about the what-ifs and the should haves, but I can't change the past, I can only be content in the present, and embrace the future.
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