Playing with Guns

The Hubbs and I have known we wanted kids since I think our second date. He is creative and enthusiastic and loving and all sorts of other things that will make him a really great dad. I have grown up with a mother who cared for her laboring women and pregnant mothers like they were her family and then spent 10+ years raising other people's children to various degrees as a nanny and thus, have been waiting all my life for my turn to be a pregnant woman and then a mother. I should admit that I have always looked at pregnancy with the same degree of mystic awe as I have for zero gravity and space travel. I looked at both as things that you could probably never truly describe to anyone who hadn't been there first hand and, as someone who had not been there first hand, I felt I couldn't 'know' until I had been there. But, it seemed so cool. It seemed like this amazing process that I was so curious about I could hardly wait for my turn.

On the other hand. I loved my life just as it was. Sleeping in, eating out, hanging with friends, taking spontaneous trips, working rock medicine at festivals....The Hubbs and I had a beautiful thing here so why muddy the soup? I had waited 28 years and another 2-3 were not going to kill me. Then things started happening around us. Friends who had waited to try were struggling. Friends who seemed totally healthy were taking pretty big fertility meds and in not one but THREE heartbreaking cases, friends who had made progress experienced big losses. I was starting to think nobody just "got pregnant" anymore. At least not without many months of calculated effort and potentially some pharmaceutical assistance. I started to worry that if we waited until everything was perfect to "try" we would end up waiting another year or two to get pregnant. I told this to G and he thought he understood but he maintained that I was going to be a baby making machine and that we would get pregnant right away. I remained dubious and fretted some more.

I asked The Hubbs if he reeeeeally understood how small a window we were working with on this whole thing. Did he know that an egg is only viable for like 36hrs and then its no good? Did he know that my hormone levels have to be just right to keep the pregnancy happily ensconced in my uterus long enough to build a placenta and make it to 12 weeks safely out of the first batch of woods? Did he realize that since we work 4/4 and with my upcoming schedule change we would never see each other long enough for sex on days on making it more than 72hrs and OMG what if I ovulated on the morning of day2? There would never be enough left over sperm or a strong enough egg and we may have month after month of "missing our window". This was a potential fertility minefield did he realize THAT!?

He lovingly listened to my nutty, if scientifically accurate, explanation for why I wanted us to abandon the condoms and just "let it be" for a while. I felt like if we waited I was going to be very very (neurotically) ready when we decided to let fly and try for real opening up the very likely possibility that I would become a bit of a hyper focused mess if it didn't happen after the start gun went off because "I HAD WAITED AND NOW WAS TIME FOR MAKE BABY!!!" I said if we just open the window and see what happens I think it would be easier for me/us to adjust to 'woops that was sooner than planned' rather than 'what is wrong with me? Why arent we pregnant yet?'. The Hubbs remained steadfast in his beliefs that we would have no trouble and I would be a machine however, he admitted that he had never realized there was such a small window. He said sex ed in middle school had done such a good job he was still convinced he was walking around with a loaded gun in his pocket which at any moment could go off and knock someone up without any consideration of where they were in their cycle. I sort of chuckled at how cute that was but assured him 'no, these things are not instantly that simple'.

We talked and I cried a little bit while admitting that I felt ready and really wanted this chance sooner rather than later. We talked some more and The Hubbs seemed to be assimilating the new information and genuinely changing his perspective. We ended the conversation agreeing that 'oops' now was preferable to 'why not?!' later. Then we went upstairs and gleefully tossed the box of condoms from the bedside table.

I had begun reading the book Taking Charge Of Your Fertility and tracking my temperature and cervical mucous. Sounds gross but actually VERY informative! This was only my first month of tracking and it was sort of all over the place, not helped by my nutty work schedule. I was having trouble determining if I was seeing changes indicative of fertility and my temp was all over the place so I had chalked this month up to data collection. I was looking forward to gathering 6 months or so of data so I could really get to know my cycles and if I had fertility problems I could take my chart to the midwives and we could figure it out by the glorious months of data I had collected. During all of this The Hubbs and I were enjoying the condom free world we now lived in and joked about "practice" making perfect. We were doing it all the time. One morning, after three other mornings of being ships in the night due to hold over for him at work he got home in time for literally 5 minutes of sex. I was working with a mutual friend that day and G jokingly texted him "My gift to you this day 4 (our Friday) is a happy partner". Indeed, I went to work feeling all giddy like a college kid with a new boyfriend. The next week I switched to a new work schedule where we literally DID NOT see eachother for 4 solid days. I continued to track my data and since my period had been really early the month before I wasn't totally clear when to expect it this month. The work week came and went...the weekend came and went and there I was....charting my data on day 35 of my cycle. Looking back at my calendar and doing my best to speculate I noted that I hadn't had a cycle over 28 days ever? Was that right? I peed on three sticks....negative...."WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANT TELL IF I AM 10 DAYS PREGNANT OR NOT?! Stupid test!" I began to feel changes in my body. By breasts were pretty huge actually...who's boobs were these? I thought I must be about to get my period. But my breasts usually swell when I ovulate like 2 weeks before my period...hmmmm. More sticks....more negatives....more cursing....bigger boobs and now they sort of felt electric.

I am sure at this point G was convinced I had gone straight crazy and wanted nothing more than to retract his agreement to this whole thing. This is just about the point where I started getting really, really, soul crushingly tired. I have been a night shifter, a school followed by night shift in a busy trauma center-er for years. I honestly used to go to class, go home for a sandwich, go to work all night, come home and sleep for 3 hrs and go back to class....it SUCKED! But I did it and I only complained a little (right honey?). This was a new sort of exhausted that I had never felt before. When it came on it was like a rain cloud. I had to seek shelter and FAST! Otherwise I would start stumbling around like a sleep walking 5 year old bumping into things and crying. Naps were not optional. I was blasted tired and my body ached from head to toe but exponentially more at the tatas.

We were getting ready to spend 5 days working rock medicine at a techno festival out in the middle of nowhere Oregon when I woke up early and peed AGAIN! By this point I was almost certain I was pregnant. I had very vivid hallucinations of a faint pink line the day before and had warned a girlfriend or two that I thought I was 'for reals'. This morning there it was, the little blue plus sign. Not bold but dark enough to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. I decided this was it, I went upstairs to execute operation "You'se gonna be a daddy". I had bought this sock puppet kit for G thinking it could be a cute way to tell him. This morning I had the test in one hand and the sockodile in the other. "Pick a hand". He chose the sockodile. I explained to him that I had this "new project" I was working on and I didn't want him to feel left out so I got him a project too. He looked confused as he held the kit. Then I showed him what I had in my other hand and he said "Awwhhh, Oh my goodness" on a loop for about 15 minutes while he kissed me and hugged me and stared at me like I had just cured cancer or something. I kept asking over and over "Is this OK? Is this Ok?" and he laughed and said "OF COURSE! This is great!"

That week at the festival was a lot of fun. I took my mandatory naps and learned that tums are excellent for backaches as the calcium is a great muscle relaxant. I tried very hard not to obsess over every little cramp or twinge but it was hard. If my boobs didn't hurt more than the day before I was sure it meant I was about to start my period. I was only 3 weeks out from that fateful morning anyway. When I got home I peed on another stick "just to be sure". This time there was no question. I was pregnant. It was the middle of the day and I had been drinking lots of water. I was really really pregnant.