Never Throw Out the Instructions for a Pregnancy Test

Written April 21, 2014.

For the last two weeks, my nipples have been hard as rocks. Okay, sorry I should have warned you all that that was coming. I would go for a run and my nipples were in so much physical pain that I winced when my sports bra rubbed against them. It was weird, but I didn't think much of it, thinking it was just a symptom of my race training.

When my period was four days late, I also didn't think much of it, because when my period was nearly a week late a few months ago, it wound up being a false alarm. So when I woke up Saturday morning and headed straight to the bathroom for my morning pee, I lackadaisically thought I'd use the pregnancy test I had leftover in our medicine cabinet from a few months before.

I did my business, waited and saw two very distinct pink lines.

Panic.

I had thrown out the box and instructions to the test to save space and had no idea what two pink lines meant on this particular test! I ran to our computer, my heart beating a mile a minute to Google what the heck two pink lines meant on an "Answer" pregnancy test. Just as I was scrolling through the results, Chuck started knocking on the front door. He had stayed up late hanging out with his family and spent the night at their house to avoid driving under the influence and he chose this moment, of all moments, to have his sister drop him off at our house.

I swung open the door, eyes wide as saucers, and proclaimed, "I'M FREAKING OUT!" Chuck looked terrified as he tried to access the situation and figure out what had me panicked. I ran to the bathroom, showed him the test and said, "I think it's positive."

Various obscenities were muttered and then Chuck responded, "Can [my sister] borrow Season 3 of Sex and the City?"

"That's your response?! Can we focus on the situation at hand, please?"

"Well, she's waiting outside."

"Well then, yes. Give her the whole damn series. Just get her out of here!"

I shoved the stack of DVDs into his hands and went back to my computer. The result was positive, it was definitely positive. How did this happen? I mean, I know how it happened, but...how did this happen?

Months previously we had "tried" and nothing. Soon after that, when our finances got a little rough, we decided we were going to wait a few years until we felt more stable. So we stopped trying. And yet, here we were, two pink lines in hand.

Once Chuck came back in, we decided we needed to get a more accurate pregnancy test. We assembled a grocery list (which took forever, as we couldn't stop swearing and freaking out- totally suitable future parents...) and made our way to the local grocery store to stock up on smoothie ingredients, organic meats, and oh yeah, the test that was going to reveal to us whether our life was about to change forever.

Following our grocery trip, where we somehow remained surprisingly calm, we hurried home, unpacked the groceries and I decided to take a little cat nap until I felt the urge to go. When I awoke, Chuck sent me straight to the bathroom again to try for Round #2. I remembered reading that testing in the morning is your best bet for accurate results because your pee is more concentrated. So I wasn't expecting the same results in the afternoon with my watered down stuff. Sure enough, I sat on the toilet and Chuck and I watched as the digital hourglass slowly changed to the word "Pregnant."

It was for real this time. We were seriously pregnant.

I promptly texted my sister, because hello, I had to tell somebody and this was the picture that accompanied the text:

I had just woken up from an afternoon nap- hello, pregnancy fatigue.

> > >

Today, we are 15 weeks pregnant. And yes, we are still wearing those faces.