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Parenthood, Young Married Mom

May 2, 2010

Enter the Peanut: Part II

I called John the instant I got outside, hoping that he was already off the subway and almost home.  Unfortunately, he was still at work, but he shot home as fast as he could, thank goodness.  I felt better walking, and I talked to him all the way home, sipping my water here and there.

I stayed on the couch until he came home, which led me to almost get hooked on The Biggest Loser.  It made me cry.  John watched it with me, too, because clearly I was upset and it was a do-whatever-makes-her-happy night.  He also made me French bread pizza for dinner.  That guy is a wiz with frozen food and a good toaster oven.

Later that evening I called my mom to let her know what happened.  John knew, of course, but I thought she should too, in case anything else fishy should happen in the next few days.  Now I’d pretty much instantly (once I could form thoughts beyond the cup crisis at Verizon) considered that this could be a sign of pregnancy.  But when my mom suggested it, I denied it.  Yes, of course, I thought of it, too, I said, but I don’t think that’s it.  Keep an eye on it, she said, and I agreed I would.

The next day I got ready for work and went to morning Mass with John, but my head hurt a little, and since I still wasn’t sure what was going on with me, I decided to stay home and rest. In retrospect, if my head hurt from a fall when I passed out, staying home alone and taking a series of naps throughout the day probably wasn’t the best plan.  But alas.

It was a good, relaxing day, full of healthy food, rest, reading, and a couple of phone calls with my mom.  As the day went on, I started to think more and more that maybe I was pregnant.  If it was the first thing I thought and the first thing my mom thought, maybe it was the case.  After I spoke to my mom in the late afternoon, I decided to take one of the tests we’d stowed in the cabinet.  The first thing I learned was that you should try to take those tests when you actually have to go to the bathroom.  If you’re nervous already, then making something happen out of nowhere is going to be much more difficult than it needs to be.

The package said that even a faint line meant you were pregnant, but I still wasn’t sure.  I could wait a few days, maybe, and try again.  I wasn’t at the ideal time in my cycle to have conclusive results.

A few hours later, though, I couldn’t wait any longer—not for another few days, not for John to come home, nothing.  So I did it again (this time I was more prepared), and what do you know?  Another pair of pink lines.

I’d been nervous about getting pregnant since before we were married.  As much as I believed being ready to marry meant being ready to have a family—not a common belief, I know, and one that I hope will be addressed in another post later—I prayed that God would give me some time.  First I thought maybe a year or two.  Then I thought maybe three or four months.  But just not right away, I prayed, give me just a little more time.

You can imagine that I spent a lot of time beforehand worrying about how I’d react when I knew I was pregnant. Would there be any regret about timing?  Any resentment of a small and innocent life?  Would I be able to love something so tiny, so seemingly unreal?  Could I really be the mother that a new person in this world would need?

But the instant I knew, none of those worries were there anymore.  I was filled with a peace I can only describe as God’s grace.  I knew there would be times ahead when I didn’t feel so confident, so sure, so utterly blessed.  But then, I did.  It was a wonderful, quiet, magical moment.  I was sure this was right, that this little person needed to be born when he did, that I needed to have this child at this time.  And as much as I’d figured our first child would be a girl—for no reason in particular, really—I knew this one was a boy.  I started calling him by his name right away, and although Peanut has taken over now, and now I wonder if it is a boy or not, when I’m alone, I still often call him by his name.

I considered texting John the news or at least a hint at it, but I knew it would be better to tell him in person.  When he came home, he asked about my day, and I told him all I did—including taking the pregnancy tests.  I told him there were faint lines, and that even faint lines were supposed to be positive reads, but I still wasn’t sure.  I was nervous and couldn’t believe it.  Things are so much more real when you have to say them out loud to another person.  I toned it down a lot to not make a big deal of it (what was I thinking?).  But I think I downplayed it a little too much.

Eventually, he said we’d just wait and see.  He had changed out of his work clothes and was ready to have dinner.

“No, wait,” I said.  “This is real.  I’m, like, 98% sure.  This is really happening.”

It took maybe a hundredth of a second for his smile to burst across his face, and he hugged me and kissed me, and then hugged me and smiled some more.

I showed him the tests and we both knew it had to be real.  Before we had dinner we danced a little bit—the kitchen being, of course, the best place in the house (or apartment) in which to dance—and all through dinner, all through the next hour, he simply smiled.  Barely said a thing, but I know he was the happiest guy in the world.

Clearly, this was one of the best days of my life: the abundant grace of God, the tremendous love of an amazing husband, and the fresh knowledge that our family was a family in a new and even better way.  I knew things wouldn’t always be this easy, this happy, this peaceful, but for that evening, I knew without a doubt that everything had fallen into place.

  1. Karl Schlegel says:

    WOW!

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