So we blew it. The cat was out of the bag. We told our friends Damon and Om that we were pregnant. They were the ones who explained that the month after you quit the pill that you become a fertile Myrtle. Where were they on Valentine's weekend when we needed them? Never mind.
That night something weird happened. Aunt Flo finally paid a visit. Of course this all happens after we make our first announcement. I remembered reading on one of the websites that spotting was to be expected during the first trimester of pregnancy. This makes me wonder, because I've also read that some women get pregnant all the time and never find out because they had a miscarriage in that first month and it looked just like their period. So now Dave and I are left wondering if the two lines we saw two days earlier really meant that we are going to have that little poppy seed after all.
Thinking back to that first pregnancy test the two lines looked very clear. I took the test again the next day for Dave (two tests came in the box). The second time I took the test the second line was faint. When we put the two test side-by-side it looked like I was preggers. Looking at the second one, it wasn't so sure.
So now we're in limbo. The test we used said that if the lines were faint then wait a week. The problem is, I'm leaving for a conference this week and I'll be seeing all my buddies. All of whom will notice that I'm not drinking and then I'll have another weird situation: Do I tell them or not? What if I'm not even preggers anymore? What if I am?
I'll just take another dang test tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sunday Night
This was an important night. It was the first test to show that Dave and I could keep the news to ourselves even though our friends would be coming over to have dinner and we would have loved to spill the beans.
But before I get into that I wanted to point out that somehow, after finding out you're pregnant you notice all the symptoms you never noticed before. The website said I would get tired a lot and thirsty. So I took a lot of naps and drank a lot of water over the weekend. A whole bunch of water. Truthfully speaking, I'm already sick of water.
Let's be real for a moment. One of our favorite things to do over the weekend is work on the house, take our fuzzy baby (our dog, Zephyr) out to the park, and sip on a beer or two while sitting in the sun. Well, now things have changed and there will be no more beer, or any other kind of alcoholic drinking for me. This is where things get a bit tricky. All of our friends and family know that Dave and I usually don't turn down an adult beverage unless one of us has to drive. In fact, we just bought a case of champagne the other weekend to last us the year (Korbel was having a huge sale, how could we not?). Well, now I think it'll last a bit longer than we expected.
The truth is, Dave and I always said that there is no way we would be able to keep a whopper of a secret like this for long because our friends would probably notice that I wasn't drinking. So when Sunday night came around, and our friends were knocking on our door, that's when our theory was put to the test for the first time.
Damon and Om came over about 6:30pm. I offered everyone drinks and snacks. We put the kabobs on the grill and all was well. We sat down to eat, and made it through dinner. No one said anything about babies or piss tests or anything related to pregnancy. I thought we were in the clear. I thought we had hit a home run!
I thought that since we were in the clear we might as well play a game of apples to apples. As we were setting up the game, Om commented that the wine they were drinking was pretty good. Dave said it got better once it had a chance to breathe. Uh oh. Suddenly it became brutally apparent that I did not have a glass. Om said that I should try some. I said I would take a sip of hers. She asked why I didn't have my own glass. I started sweating. I could feel my face turning red as it always does when I feel like I'm put on the spot. I looked at Dave. He just looked back at me, blankly.
I took a deep breath. I told myself to calm down, Dave and I rehearsed what I was supposed to say in this situation. "Oh ... I have a big day tomorrow. Really stressful. Uh huh. Takin it easy tonight." So that's what I said. Practically those exact words. I said those words with confidence and no hesitation. Then I thought, "whew ... that was a close one."
Actually, I never had time to think that because by the time I had said the word "tomorrow" she had already accused me of being pregnant. At which point I shrugged my shoulders, looked at Dave (who was still staring at me blankly ... a little help here? please?), and admitted that we were in fact expecting a baby.
But before I get into that I wanted to point out that somehow, after finding out you're pregnant you notice all the symptoms you never noticed before. The website said I would get tired a lot and thirsty. So I took a lot of naps and drank a lot of water over the weekend. A whole bunch of water. Truthfully speaking, I'm already sick of water.
Let's be real for a moment. One of our favorite things to do over the weekend is work on the house, take our fuzzy baby (our dog, Zephyr) out to the park, and sip on a beer or two while sitting in the sun. Well, now things have changed and there will be no more beer, or any other kind of alcoholic drinking for me. This is where things get a bit tricky. All of our friends and family know that Dave and I usually don't turn down an adult beverage unless one of us has to drive. In fact, we just bought a case of champagne the other weekend to last us the year (Korbel was having a huge sale, how could we not?). Well, now I think it'll last a bit longer than we expected.
The truth is, Dave and I always said that there is no way we would be able to keep a whopper of a secret like this for long because our friends would probably notice that I wasn't drinking. So when Sunday night came around, and our friends were knocking on our door, that's when our theory was put to the test for the first time.
Damon and Om came over about 6:30pm. I offered everyone drinks and snacks. We put the kabobs on the grill and all was well. We sat down to eat, and made it through dinner. No one said anything about babies or piss tests or anything related to pregnancy. I thought we were in the clear. I thought we had hit a home run!
I thought that since we were in the clear we might as well play a game of apples to apples. As we were setting up the game, Om commented that the wine they were drinking was pretty good. Dave said it got better once it had a chance to breathe. Uh oh. Suddenly it became brutally apparent that I did not have a glass. Om said that I should try some. I said I would take a sip of hers. She asked why I didn't have my own glass. I started sweating. I could feel my face turning red as it always does when I feel like I'm put on the spot. I looked at Dave. He just looked back at me, blankly.
I took a deep breath. I told myself to calm down, Dave and I rehearsed what I was supposed to say in this situation. "Oh ... I have a big day tomorrow. Really stressful. Uh huh. Takin it easy tonight." So that's what I said. Practically those exact words. I said those words with confidence and no hesitation. Then I thought, "whew ... that was a close one."
Actually, I never had time to think that because by the time I had said the word "tomorrow" she had already accused me of being pregnant. At which point I shrugged my shoulders, looked at Dave (who was still staring at me blankly ... a little help here? please?), and admitted that we were in fact expecting a baby.
The First Weekend
After I told him the news, hung up, and finished my meeting ... I tried my best to be normal the rest of the day. By normal I mean not yelling at everyone, "I can't friggin believe I'm pregnant! Dave and I are going to have a BABY!!! Isn't that NUTS?!"
We sent text messages to each other all day. Asking questions, trying to figure all this craziness out. There was an extreme sense of excitement in between intermittent freaking out. The first thing you notice when you get that news is how many babies and pregnant women are all around you. For me it was at Safeway, a lady with two babies in her shopping cart was right in line in front of me. For Dave it was at his work; a woman who looked like she was going to give birth tomorrow dropped her Porsche off to get fixed and kept walking around the dealership.
It would have been nice to take the afternoon off to freak out ... I mean bask in this news ... but that just wasn't an option. Besides, I heard somewhere that you're not supposed to tell anyone the news until you know fo-sho that you are indeed preggers ... something like 2 months into the deal or after the first doc appointment that shows every thing is a go. How could I excuse myself from work? I wasn't sick, nor did I look it, with the exception of my red face but people are used to that. I couldn't say that I had a doctor's appointment because you have to get permission ahead of time. Since we decided it wasn't time to tell anyone yet, we just had to wait and I continued working til it was quiting time.
We waited until Saturday morning to really freak out ... I mean talk freely about it. Friday night I had plans to go into the city to meet 3 of my teachers and go out to eat. Of course, they all asked me when Dave and I would start thinking about having babies that night. Little did they know!! I barely skated by the subject and just started talking about something else. It took a lot of work not to tell my co-workers that night. I started to realize how difficult it would be not telling anyone. Later that night, I met Dave at his parents house. We couldn't really talk about it then, either. So once we left Tiburon, we could talk about it all we wanted.
All of a sudden we couldn't stop talking about it. Not only that, but over night I turned into the most fragile being to grace the earth. Every thought turned to, "if I eat tuna, or drink coffee, will I hurt the baby?" or "Maybe we shouldn't paint our bedroom, the chemicals might hurt the baby." Then it became a joke, it Dave farted I would say that he's hurting the baby. If I wanted to eat the last piece of pizza I would say that I'm eating for two now so I should get the last piece.
We did research on the internet about the baby. Most intriguing fact: our baby was currently the size of a poppy seed. So then we stopped referring to our baby as a baby and started calling it a poppy seed. "Don't hurt the poppy seed!" I said when he squeezed my hand as we walked back from the store.
We talked more about that darn poppy seed until we couldn't talk about it anymore. Not because we were sick of talking about it, but because we were having friends over on Sunday night. How were we supposed to keep this news locked up inside?
We sent text messages to each other all day. Asking questions, trying to figure all this craziness out. There was an extreme sense of excitement in between intermittent freaking out. The first thing you notice when you get that news is how many babies and pregnant women are all around you. For me it was at Safeway, a lady with two babies in her shopping cart was right in line in front of me. For Dave it was at his work; a woman who looked like she was going to give birth tomorrow dropped her Porsche off to get fixed and kept walking around the dealership.
It would have been nice to take the afternoon off to freak out ... I mean bask in this news ... but that just wasn't an option. Besides, I heard somewhere that you're not supposed to tell anyone the news until you know fo-sho that you are indeed preggers ... something like 2 months into the deal or after the first doc appointment that shows every thing is a go. How could I excuse myself from work? I wasn't sick, nor did I look it, with the exception of my red face but people are used to that. I couldn't say that I had a doctor's appointment because you have to get permission ahead of time. Since we decided it wasn't time to tell anyone yet, we just had to wait and I continued working til it was quiting time.
We waited until Saturday morning to really freak out ... I mean talk freely about it. Friday night I had plans to go into the city to meet 3 of my teachers and go out to eat. Of course, they all asked me when Dave and I would start thinking about having babies that night. Little did they know!! I barely skated by the subject and just started talking about something else. It took a lot of work not to tell my co-workers that night. I started to realize how difficult it would be not telling anyone. Later that night, I met Dave at his parents house. We couldn't really talk about it then, either. So once we left Tiburon, we could talk about it all we wanted.
All of a sudden we couldn't stop talking about it. Not only that, but over night I turned into the most fragile being to grace the earth. Every thought turned to, "if I eat tuna, or drink coffee, will I hurt the baby?" or "Maybe we shouldn't paint our bedroom, the chemicals might hurt the baby." Then it became a joke, it Dave farted I would say that he's hurting the baby. If I wanted to eat the last piece of pizza I would say that I'm eating for two now so I should get the last piece.
We did research on the internet about the baby. Most intriguing fact: our baby was currently the size of a poppy seed. So then we stopped referring to our baby as a baby and started calling it a poppy seed. "Don't hurt the poppy seed!" I said when he squeezed my hand as we walked back from the store.
We talked more about that darn poppy seed until we couldn't talk about it anymore. Not because we were sick of talking about it, but because we were having friends over on Sunday night. How were we supposed to keep this news locked up inside?
Friday Morning
I believe the expression in my head was "Holy sh%t, I'm knocked up." I said this to myself as I stood in the staff bathroom at Windsor Middle School feeling my heart pressure soar as my face turned bright red.
Take a big deep breath
Let me take you back. Don't worry ... I won't take you there to the "beginning" per se. That's none of your business and I'm willing to bet y'all can figure that one out. The beginning in my mind was when Dave and I narrowed down the time frame in which we thought it might be a good time to start "trying" for a baby.
This has always been a funny concept to me. You see, prior to the thought of babies coming in to your world the word "trying" had nothing to do with what you were doing or what you're thinking about at the time ... right? Then, all of a sudden, what used to be called sex (Dave and I refer to it as doing the laundry, but that's a different story) is now "trying." Sex becomes a socially acceptable topic once you've deemed it for procreation sake. You just mask it by saying, "oh, we've been trying to have a baby for the last year." Really, is it all that different when you say, "yeah, Dave and I have been doing the naughty a lot since last time I saw you" while giving your friend a high-five.
So Dave and I thought that since I generally have July-August off (perks of working with the school system), that we might want to start trying next October. I read on a website somewhere (darn internet) that if you're trying to get knocked up that you should stop taking birth control pills a year prior. This means, I should have stopped taking BC last Halloween. I happen to be a sensible person who already bought and paid for BC pills to last me until the end of January. My sensibility, or stringiness ... whatever, told me that I couldn't let those valuable pills go to waste. So February was my first month off of BC.
So fast forward to this week here in March. Last Friday, specifically. It's about 9am and I'm thinking to myself that there's no way I can wait until Dave gets home before I tell him this doozie. I've got a half and hour before my meeting. So I go out to my car, drive to the Safeway parking lot and call him. He knew I was taking a pregnancy test this morning because I told him the night before that I was going to start to worry if I didn't get my monthly visit from Aunt Flo soon. Now, I know that there are about a million cutesy ways to tell your sig-o that you're knocked up. I could have sent him a pizza at work to feed him and all his co-workers, with one of the pizzas having a pepperoni design similar to the one I was staring at for ten minutes after my morning pee. Truth is, I lack the gene that enables people to withhold information for the sake of a lavish, thoughtful surprise. Nope. Once I get my hands on some juicy tid-bit, I must purge it like a bulimic sorority girl. Besides, I told him I would send him a text as soon as I found out ... one line or two.
But no, I at least had the thought to call rather than just send a text, "will u pick up din 2-nite? o & Dave Jr will b there 2." Thank GOD he picked up. Otherwise I would have burst. Well, I kind of did burst ... into tears. I was trying to give him the news in between sobs and giggles. He was surprised, happy, though surprised. Similar to the time I came home with my hair chopped quite short and he didn't even know I was going to get a hair cut that day. Ooops. I know better now to give him a heads-up first.
Technically, I did give him a heads-up this time around. Though it was after he went to bed and he was half-way asleep. Ooops. I honestly didn't think this would happen. Yes, I do know about the birds and the bees. I did do my homework and tried to figure out when certain flowers would be ready for pollination. I tried to avoid him during that time. I even told him when that time would be and that he should avoid me, too. Unfortunately, that time happen to coincide with our anniversary of when he proposed and it was Valentine's weekend. Double whammy. I think he was maybe figuring that the BC pills would still be rushing through my vains a mere 3 weeks after my last ingestion. Uh huh.
We found out on Sunday night that quite the opposite is true, and that you are in fact way more likely to get knocked up in that first month off the pill than any other time! I wonder how different my life would end up being knowing that little tid-bit of info prior to that oh so romantic weekend.
Take a big deep breath
Let me take you back. Don't worry ... I won't take you there to the "beginning" per se. That's none of your business and I'm willing to bet y'all can figure that one out. The beginning in my mind was when Dave and I narrowed down the time frame in which we thought it might be a good time to start "trying" for a baby.
This has always been a funny concept to me. You see, prior to the thought of babies coming in to your world the word "trying" had nothing to do with what you were doing or what you're thinking about at the time ... right? Then, all of a sudden, what used to be called sex (Dave and I refer to it as doing the laundry, but that's a different story) is now "trying." Sex becomes a socially acceptable topic once you've deemed it for procreation sake. You just mask it by saying, "oh, we've been trying to have a baby for the last year." Really, is it all that different when you say, "yeah, Dave and I have been doing the naughty a lot since last time I saw you" while giving your friend a high-five.
So Dave and I thought that since I generally have July-August off (perks of working with the school system), that we might want to start trying next October. I read on a website somewhere (darn internet) that if you're trying to get knocked up that you should stop taking birth control pills a year prior. This means, I should have stopped taking BC last Halloween. I happen to be a sensible person who already bought and paid for BC pills to last me until the end of January. My sensibility, or stringiness ... whatever, told me that I couldn't let those valuable pills go to waste. So February was my first month off of BC.
So fast forward to this week here in March. Last Friday, specifically. It's about 9am and I'm thinking to myself that there's no way I can wait until Dave gets home before I tell him this doozie. I've got a half and hour before my meeting. So I go out to my car, drive to the Safeway parking lot and call him. He knew I was taking a pregnancy test this morning because I told him the night before that I was going to start to worry if I didn't get my monthly visit from Aunt Flo soon. Now, I know that there are about a million cutesy ways to tell your sig-o that you're knocked up. I could have sent him a pizza at work to feed him and all his co-workers, with one of the pizzas having a pepperoni design similar to the one I was staring at for ten minutes after my morning pee. Truth is, I lack the gene that enables people to withhold information for the sake of a lavish, thoughtful surprise. Nope. Once I get my hands on some juicy tid-bit, I must purge it like a bulimic sorority girl. Besides, I told him I would send him a text as soon as I found out ... one line or two.
But no, I at least had the thought to call rather than just send a text, "will u pick up din 2-nite? o & Dave Jr will b there 2." Thank GOD he picked up. Otherwise I would have burst. Well, I kind of did burst ... into tears. I was trying to give him the news in between sobs and giggles. He was surprised, happy, though surprised. Similar to the time I came home with my hair chopped quite short and he didn't even know I was going to get a hair cut that day. Ooops. I know better now to give him a heads-up first.
Technically, I did give him a heads-up this time around. Though it was after he went to bed and he was half-way asleep. Ooops. I honestly didn't think this would happen. Yes, I do know about the birds and the bees. I did do my homework and tried to figure out when certain flowers would be ready for pollination. I tried to avoid him during that time. I even told him when that time would be and that he should avoid me, too. Unfortunately, that time happen to coincide with our anniversary of when he proposed and it was Valentine's weekend. Double whammy. I think he was maybe figuring that the BC pills would still be rushing through my vains a mere 3 weeks after my last ingestion. Uh huh.
We found out on Sunday night that quite the opposite is true, and that you are in fact way more likely to get knocked up in that first month off the pill than any other time! I wonder how different my life would end up being knowing that little tid-bit of info prior to that oh so romantic weekend.
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