Lesson 1: You Keep Stuff You Peed on as a Souvenir
I was fairly certain that BD and I had failed again. When you’re trying to conceive, (an activity I later discovered has an adorable acronym: “TTC.” EVERYTHING HAS AN ADORABLE GODDAMN ACRONYM.) every month that you get a big fat “F” on your pregnancy test feels like weeks passing like minutes towards death. You will never have a family. Then you will be dead and no one will come to your funeral because you are dead. Without a family. I am typically VERY pragmatic, but the mental picture of an abandoned gravesite located in a part of the country where it has literally never stopped raining is difficult to process… even for the most rational girl.
The day after my most recent “F” I went to lunch with my dear old friend, Susan Morris, who was expecting and fourteen weeks along. (That’s something else to remember: When you are trying to conceive, everyone around you is pregnant. Also, when they die? In 200 years with no wrinkles? Their gravesites will be located in meadows of fresh flowers and will be dappled by sunlight 24 hours a day so their exceptionally attractive and successful children can visit whenever the mood strikes them. It’s science. Look it up.) So my friend Susan and I go to lunch, and I tell her my tale of woe and she gives me a pile of incredibly sound, useful advice. She reassures me to my core. I feel genuinely better. I, of course, had been drinking. I went home and told the whole reassuring story to my husband, who agreed that Susan is a VERY reassuring person. The following day, I woke up crabby. I decided to pout on the sofa. My husband allowed this for a couple of hours and then suggested that we go to the zoo! Who doesn’t love the zoo? I conceded that I did enjoy a nice zoo, so we went. The Norfolk zoo is sort of like a park/botanical garden that also happens to have a giant lion yard. You would be surprised to see them if there wasn’t a sign out front that said “NORFOLK ZOO.” They have tigers, and monkeys and snakes and BABIES. Everywhere I looked was some blued eyed baby or some expectant mother. (To be fair, I live in a military community so most of the expectant mothers were wearing tube tops and had neck tattoos. In other words, they were not as glowy or beautiful as I’m making them out to be.) Moral of the story: If you wake up depressed about babylessness/certain death, don’t go to the zoo! Go to the art museum! Or you can go to a bar… which is what we did. We had to because there was NO BEER at the zoo. Trust me; we looked.
The number of calories I consumed at said bar, say 20,000 or so, gave me pause. It wasn’t a lightning bolt or even a light bulb, it was just a pause. (My husband used that brief moment of hesitation to eat the rest of the cream based dip that I had been hoarding on my side of the table. I’m happy to report that he still has all of his fingers, but barely.) I ignored the pause and continued to eat saturated fat at a rate of 2 pounds per minute and then we headed for home. I had… a few beers at lunch and had to pee. My pause moment and my Miller High Life brain suggested that would be a terrible waste of pee to not take just one more pregnancy test. My husband, always kind and accommodating man that he is took me to a drugstore so I could spend twenty more dollars on pregnancy tests that I would almost certainly fail. I should mention that during her reassurances, Susan implored me not to take any pregnancy tests until my period was late. I could get a false positive and be happy! I could get a false negative and be sad and then happy! “Just wait” she said. She’s a good friend who gives good advice; advice that promptly I ignored.
Frankly the moment of truth is incredibly anticlimactic. Remember before when I mentioned that I am extremely pragmatic? It was never truer than in that moment. I would not get excited. If you have never taken a pregnancy test, you don’t know that your pee creeeeeeeeeeeps across the Window of Destiny and then lines or hearts or smiley faces apppeeeeeaar very slowly. I never forgot that they’re hearts and smiley faces made out of beer pee. That’s sort of how my brain works. This time my beer pee made A Line. It wasn’t an A+ line though. It was more of a C- student-- very faint but visible. I texted Susan. Luckily she doesn’t hold grudges when people ignore her sound and wise advice and texted back immediately something like “WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEE IF YOU CAN SEE IT THEN ITS POSITIVE THAT’S WHAT MY FRIEND HAD AND ITS GOOD!!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO WORRY!!!!” She did tell me not to worry. I tiptoed downstairs and my husband (who will be known subsequently as BD) looked up. I sort of shoved the test in his face and said “what does this look like to you.” As he has never taken a pregnancy test, I would imagine that it looked like something I had just peed on and was now being shaken two inches from his nose. He said he wasn’t sure and what did it look like to me. I explained that yes there was a line and it was what we were hoping for, but it was just an anemic little line, the Tiny Tim of lines but that meant that it was positive but that WE WERE NOT GETTING EXCITED. He raised his eyebrows and said “So you’re pregnant which is what we want, but we’re not excited.” I agreed that this was correct and sat down next to him to watch Tosh. The next morning I took another test whose line was far more robust. It was at least B/B+ work.
I called my mom and told her not to get excited.
The positive pregnancy tests now reside in my desk drawer.
I was fairly certain that BD and I had failed again. When you’re trying to conceive, (an activity I later discovered has an adorable acronym: “TTC.” EVERYTHING HAS AN ADORABLE GODDAMN ACRONYM.) every month that you get a big fat “F” on your pregnancy test feels like weeks passing like minutes towards death. You will never have a family. Then you will be dead and no one will come to your funeral because you are dead. Without a family. I am typically VERY pragmatic, but the mental picture of an abandoned gravesite located in a part of the country where it has literally never stopped raining is difficult to process… even for the most rational girl.
The day after my most recent “F” I went to lunch with my dear old friend, Susan Morris, who was expecting and fourteen weeks along. (That’s something else to remember: When you are trying to conceive, everyone around you is pregnant. Also, when they die? In 200 years with no wrinkles? Their gravesites will be located in meadows of fresh flowers and will be dappled by sunlight 24 hours a day so their exceptionally attractive and successful children can visit whenever the mood strikes them. It’s science. Look it up.) So my friend Susan and I go to lunch, and I tell her my tale of woe and she gives me a pile of incredibly sound, useful advice. She reassures me to my core. I feel genuinely better. I, of course, had been drinking. I went home and told the whole reassuring story to my husband, who agreed that Susan is a VERY reassuring person. The following day, I woke up crabby. I decided to pout on the sofa. My husband allowed this for a couple of hours and then suggested that we go to the zoo! Who doesn’t love the zoo? I conceded that I did enjoy a nice zoo, so we went. The Norfolk zoo is sort of like a park/botanical garden that also happens to have a giant lion yard. You would be surprised to see them if there wasn’t a sign out front that said “NORFOLK ZOO.” They have tigers, and monkeys and snakes and BABIES. Everywhere I looked was some blued eyed baby or some expectant mother. (To be fair, I live in a military community so most of the expectant mothers were wearing tube tops and had neck tattoos. In other words, they were not as glowy or beautiful as I’m making them out to be.) Moral of the story: If you wake up depressed about babylessness/certain death, don’t go to the zoo! Go to the art museum! Or you can go to a bar… which is what we did. We had to because there was NO BEER at the zoo. Trust me; we looked.
The number of calories I consumed at said bar, say 20,000 or so, gave me pause. It wasn’t a lightning bolt or even a light bulb, it was just a pause. (My husband used that brief moment of hesitation to eat the rest of the cream based dip that I had been hoarding on my side of the table. I’m happy to report that he still has all of his fingers, but barely.) I ignored the pause and continued to eat saturated fat at a rate of 2 pounds per minute and then we headed for home. I had… a few beers at lunch and had to pee. My pause moment and my Miller High Life brain suggested that would be a terrible waste of pee to not take just one more pregnancy test. My husband, always kind and accommodating man that he is took me to a drugstore so I could spend twenty more dollars on pregnancy tests that I would almost certainly fail. I should mention that during her reassurances, Susan implored me not to take any pregnancy tests until my period was late. I could get a false positive and be happy! I could get a false negative and be sad and then happy! “Just wait” she said. She’s a good friend who gives good advice; advice that promptly I ignored.
Frankly the moment of truth is incredibly anticlimactic. Remember before when I mentioned that I am extremely pragmatic? It was never truer than in that moment. I would not get excited. If you have never taken a pregnancy test, you don’t know that your pee creeeeeeeeeeeps across the Window of Destiny and then lines or hearts or smiley faces apppeeeeeaar very slowly. I never forgot that they’re hearts and smiley faces made out of beer pee. That’s sort of how my brain works. This time my beer pee made A Line. It wasn’t an A+ line though. It was more of a C- student-- very faint but visible. I texted Susan. Luckily she doesn’t hold grudges when people ignore her sound and wise advice and texted back immediately something like “WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEE IF YOU CAN SEE IT THEN ITS POSITIVE THAT’S WHAT MY FRIEND HAD AND ITS GOOD!!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO WORRY!!!!” She did tell me not to worry. I tiptoed downstairs and my husband (who will be known subsequently as BD) looked up. I sort of shoved the test in his face and said “what does this look like to you.” As he has never taken a pregnancy test, I would imagine that it looked like something I had just peed on and was now being shaken two inches from his nose. He said he wasn’t sure and what did it look like to me. I explained that yes there was a line and it was what we were hoping for, but it was just an anemic little line, the Tiny Tim of lines but that meant that it was positive but that WE WERE NOT GETTING EXCITED. He raised his eyebrows and said “So you’re pregnant which is what we want, but we’re not excited.” I agreed that this was correct and sat down next to him to watch Tosh. The next morning I took another test whose line was far more robust. It was at least B/B+ work.
I called my mom and told her not to get excited.
The positive pregnancy tests now reside in my desk drawer.
