The Beginning.

Brady and I began seeing each other shortly before I became pregnant.  To avoid looking like a pair of whores, I won’t say how shortly, but if you were to ask me if I got pregnant on our first date, I would nervously change the subject.

There were clues almost immediately, but I never put them together. The rosy glow around nachos, the way my boobs were suddenly threatening to crawl up out of my shirt and flag down passers-by. Falling asleep on the train. I’m not saying the thought that I could be pregnant didn’t buzz around my head once or twice like a fly you wave off.  “Wouldn’t THAT be crazy … huh.  Anyway.”  Objects in motion tend to remain in motion, etc, and 17 reproductive years without reproducing feels like a trend.

I called to schedule an appointment to discuss a small pain in my side.  On the phone with a nurse, she asked me if I could be pregnant.  I told her that since my period was now seven days late, yes, I supposed it was possible.  She asked if I had a fever and I said that I was getting over a cold from the previous week.

She was quiet for a minute and said these things might all be unrelated, or that I could have ectopic pregnancy.  Since that’s a rather serious thing that has to be treated asap, she advised me to go into Urgent Care and get that ruled out.  “Ectopic or no, you’ll find out if you’re pregnant, for sure, as well.”  “Uh, ok.”  My imagination was still more fired by the fear that I was facing some ladybits cancer or disease.

Aurora came with me to Urgent Care and in hindsight, I don’t know how I would have survived without her.  The UC nurse asked for a urine sample first.  The UC doc came in shortly after and said casually, “Well, you’re definitely pregnant.  Any nausea?”

My eyes widened and filled and I looked at Aurora who stood up and put her arms around me.  All I could think to say to the doctor was, uh, yeah, NOW, thanks.

The doctor then went on to explain that without an ultrasound machine, he couldn’t tell me if my pregnancy was healthy or ectopic, so I’d have to check myself into the ER.  I got dressed.

Dazed, I sat there in ER lobby with Aurora,  just wanting to know what to prepare for, motherhood or miscarriage.  For someone who worked so hard at not being pregnant, I was instantly desperate to keep the one I had.  I watched a mother and toddler sitting across from me.  The mother held the girl and handed her cheerios.  It didn’t look so hard.

The foot traffic around my vagina that evening was very high.  After another urine test, a blood test, a ultrasound across my stomach AND up my vajayjay, and a full spelunking expedition with tools and lights, I was informed with all the certainty in the world that I was pregnant, and apparently everything was fine.  The pain in my side had been my internal organs reordering themselves to make room for my soon to be expanding uterus.

By now it was very late, and Aurora drove me home.  I honestly can’t imagine not having her there.

The next morning Brady, aware that I hadn’t been feeling great the day before, and that I was going to see my doctor, asked how I was feeling.   When I asked him to swing by my desk, he came over, wondering (he told me later) if I was about to tell him I had cancer or something horrible.

I had no idea what he’d say or even what I wanted him to say.  When I told him I was pregnant with his child, all he could manage to say at first was, “Ok ……… ok.”  I went on to say that I hoped he would want to be involved and seeing me starting to shake seemed to loosen his words and he reached out and stroked my hair and told me that he was here and that there was no way I was going to have to do this alone.  Having had very recent experience with the whole world changing, I was really impressed with how quickly he moved from shock to thinking of me.  By the end of the conversation, he’d thought to tell me I was glowing.

I could think of a million ways that conversation could have been worse, and not a single way it could have been better.  For a content thirty year old bachelor  suddenly facing the business end of a loaded uterus, he was amazing.

If you ever want to really get to know someone quickly, let them knock you up.  I was about to learn that Brady and I are about as different as two people can get, but we share the one thing that really matters, our excitement to raise this baby.