When my husband and I were married, and people asked us – right away, on our wedding day, not even waiting for the raspberry-filled cake to digest – when we planned to have kids, we said we were on the two to five year plan. As the anniversaries passed, the length of time remained two-to-five years, never shortening. We adopted a dog – Angus – who helped us establish that we are responsible enough to keep another living being alive and generally healthy. Around our fourth wedding anniversary, approaching the end of the original five year plan, we decided it was time to go off the birth control.
We tried to prepare, in small ways, for a baby. We started taking steps and doing research and buying books. We traded in one of our cars for a Subaru – it fits the dog and the skis and snowboards and bikes, with a room to spare for a car seat. I’d been taking prenatal vitamins and trying to save money instead of spending it on another new dress or pair of shoes. We’ve thought about childcare and breastfeeding and disposable versus cloth diapers and cribs and car seats, and the countless decisions that we’ll need to make. But can you ever really be prepared?
I did not believe the first stick that I peed on. I held it up to the light, studying the light blue plus sign. The lines looked so pale and watery – too insubstantial and wimpy to be trusted – that I took it to be a maybe. I took the second positive plus-sign test two days later as a maybe as well. I told my man that I might possibly, maybe, be pregnant, and he nodded and smiled, but we didn’t break out the balloons or sparklers for a formal celebration.
The third test – one that said, in clear black letters, “pregnant” – almost convinced me, but I still felt less than positive that it was positive. I don’t know if I’ll believe I’m really, truly pregnant and not just nauseous with sore boobs until my belly pops, or perhaps until the baby’s born and I hear its cries. It all seems so surreal – something’s growing inside of me, sucking out nutrients, like a much cuter leech.
Part of my doubt comes from experience – it was just a short time ago that I had a miscarriage. I’d found out a few days before the miscarriage, from a blood draw at the doctor’s office, that I was pregnant. The at-home pregnancy tests had gone from positive to negative to positive and negative again, and I didn’t know what to believe – hence, the blood test. I had just enough time to call my husband and tell him the good news. Mid-morning not three days later, I started bleeding and cramping; I called the doctor, who laid it all out for me. If the trickle of blood became a river, I should go to the ER; other than that, he’d see me on Monday – and there was a 50/50 chance that things would be okay. I spent the weekend sitting on the couch and watching John Hughes movies on cable, crying each time I went to the bathroom and saw the trickle of blood. On Monday, the ultrasound showed nothing but an empty uterus – I had been six weeks pregnant, and then, two days later, was simply not pregnant. It had been so quick, but I still moped around for days. The doctor told me, since it had been so early and quick, that we could start trying again, and I was pregnant again soon after the miscarriage.
Miscarried is such a funny word – missed implies just a little slip-up, that I was just five minutes too late to catch the bus, that I dropped a bag of groceries on the pavement and lost a rolling avocado down the storm drain. The loss – it was so soon, it felt too small to be a loss, since I didn’t feel like we had anything to lose yet, but the restless emptiness can’t be described as anything else - tempers our excitement over this second pregnancy. We waited to celebrate.
Even after we first decided to start trying, I had felt a bit conflicted. How could we be so foolish as to think we were really ready for to have a baby? Had I forgotten how much I love to sleep? That our house is a little small? That I wouldn’t be able to ski or run long distances for at least nine months? That I couldn’t imagine dealing with teenagers? That our dog is a tad bit overweight and he’s afraid of the sound of pop-top cans and cameras and brooms and often takes three or more reminders to sit and that, perhaps, these things mean that we will have pudgy, nervous children?
Then I would see another cute baby and the urge to procreate would quiet my (sometimes random) concerns.
Weeks ago, while we lay in bed, my husband turned to me and grinned and said, “I’m really excited.”
“About what?” I asked, thinking that there was an upcoming dinner party or movie date I’d forgotten about.
“That you’re knocked up,” he said.
I laughed, delighted to be reminded that, four weeks after the stick came back with the light blue plus sign, I was still pregnant.
I’m nineteen weeks pregnant now, and my excitement still comes and goes, much like the nausea. Having a baby is such a hopeful thing to do. It says, “I’m optimistic about how this world is going. We’ll stop global warming, fix the messed-up education system, end the war in Iraq, forgive our enemies and be forgiven.” There are days that I feel less than optimistic. But can you ever really be ready for something that’s in essence a cold-turkey cannonball in to the unknown?
