"I'm What?"

Here I am at 36 weeks along and I am finally starting to get EXCITED about the fact that in a few weeks I will be a mommy. I have to tell you that this whole journey has been somewhat surreal. In finding out about this life-changing event, it was fairly shocking although my body was telling me, “you know something is different.” As I’ve recounted to the multitude of people who have asked me how I found out, I’m a pretty regular type. I have to eat at the virtually the same time everyday to avoid the crankies; you could tell time by my bathroom breaks; and I have an almost dead-on accuracy of the day my cycle is supposed to appear. So by the 7th of June when good ole Aunt Flo hadn’t shown, I started to get a little anxious. When she didn’t arrive in the second week, that anxiousness started to escalate to something close to panic: to the point where after a swim, I cut my usual hot tub therapy short because of the precaution against pregnant women.

How I truly found out was very comical. After cutting off my hot tub therapy, I was determined to find out, for better or worse, although some innate part of my psyche knew. So I got dressed, left the gym and headed for my local CVS. The CVS I chose was by my apartment and when I made my way to the aisle where the pregnancy tests were held, I discovered a locked case. After asking a sales associate to page someone with a key, I waited patiently by the cabinet…and waited…and waited. No one came and after five interminable minutes (my imagination would like to say it was more like fifteen), I left the CVS, sans test.

It was around 8pm and I was faced with a choice: travel to another CVS or go home and try not to panic. I chose option two, and went home and sat in front of the television. Then I said to myself: I would like a drink. And since this could very well be my last drink for several months, I’m going to enjoy one. And so I opened up a vodka cooler and sipped it to my heart’s content, and savored like it was the best drink on earth (in all probability like a convict on death row). I had two more in the fridge, but they would just be for my DBBF when she found out the news (in truth, I think my father raided the refrigerator and pilfered them). Yes, I had relegated myself to the reality that I was destined for motherhood.

Let me just take a commercial break here and state that I seemed to be the only person who did not want to admit that I would be a viable candidate for motherhood. I’d listened to countless relatives and friends tell me how great a mom I would be, but personally I was happy at the notion of being the eccentric aunt/cousin who had forgone children in exchange for traveling around the world and seeing the great mysteries of earth. I mostly remember my aunt telling me how I was already motherly toward all my younger relatives, and that one day, they would all be jealous of my child. (I only wish she would have lived to see the day when I had a long-term relationship and a child.) But I was happily steeped in the delusion that I would never have kids of my own.

Back from the slight digression. The next day, I went to work as usual and resumed this major shifting and shelf reading project that we had undertaken. However, the constant unknown factor was making it difficult to concentrate and less than an hour later, I found myself later, I found myself downstairs, asking my boss to excuse me for a few minutes while I stepped off campus. Being that it was 10am, I’m sure she thought this was odd, but she didn’t say anything other than okay. So I hopped in my truck and zoomed over to the nearest CVS, which was only a block away, and this CVS did NOT have their tests behind a cabinet, so I grabbed a two-pack of digital Clear Blue Easy that had gave the read out of the word Pregnant or Not Pregnant—believe me, I didn’t want any confusion with those dumb little plusses or minuses—purchased it, then hauled ass back to my job, where I went to the private bathrooms on the second floor and positioned the stick just so to catch the flow of urine (I would end up doing this several times in the upcoming months).

Now for another digression. I would like to say that there is no time that I feel more penis envy than when having to accurately pee in and/or on something. It really is a messy affair for us women. First, we have to gauge the strength of our pee to know exactly in which direction it will flow. The inevitably leads to us at some point to peeing directly on our own fingers. So men, you’ve gotten off pretty easy. There will be more gripes of your easy life in future blogs.

Let me confront the first fallacy of pregnancy that I was able to discover: those commercials where they tell you that you can find out your status in as little as two minutes are completely bogus. A more accurate time frame is 30 seconds. Yes, within thirty seconds (the time it took me to de-pee my fingers on toilet paper), I found out the news that would be the first step in changing my life forever.

Needless to say, the thought of doing any more constructive work for the day was out. I went back to my desk and just sat in stunned silence for most of the day. At least I assume that’s what I did because I recall very little of that day five minutes after the news sunk in.