It's positive!

“James stop the car! I need to run into Shopper’s and get something...”

“What do you need?”

“Chips!”

This is the world’s worst lie. We have just rushed out of my hair appointment because of my sudden extreme nausea. You see, my hairdresser and I share an intense love for Dolly Parton-esque do’s and hairspray. Both Dolly and hairspray are usually my norm. Like pate and pickles (Polish thing), they are a regular part of my routine. Yet, on this particular day the smells, the spray, the music, the light, and basically everything around me is nauseating.

I run into the store, beeline towards the pharmacy and have my first of what will soon be many, out-of-body pregnancy-related experience. Is this really me standing in front of the pee stick section? I mean, I know tons of girls who buy these things all the time. I have one friend who is so paranoid that she stocks up every time they go on sale and has them on hand in her bathroom, like tampons. Another just buys them in bulk at Costco because they are too expensive otherwise, and figures that while actively trying and monitoring her flow etc., ( can’t remember what the process was exactly but there were very detailed calendars and times and schedules involved... clearly, I did not have this obstacle ha ha ha...) she may as well get used to taking them regularly. 

Anyways, there I am, buying my first pregnancy test, and of course there are a million options. With my mind already spinning with ‘what if’s’ there is hardly any room to make consecutive decisions about brands. 

Why is there a price range for pregnancy tests?! Does the more expensive one mean it’s more accurate? What brands were my friends using? Should I get two? That seems to be what people do in movies in case one is off.

 Which BTW don’t bother ever doing because the only thing that can in fact make the little window show a + is pregnancy hormone... which I learn later. Also, take nothing related to pregnancy or birth that you see in media seriously. 

I decide that I am not even pregnant anyway and this whole pregnancy test thing is just me being ridiculous. I’m only getting it so I can tell James, who has been convinced all summer that I’m pregnant, that he’s wrong!

 I fly out of the store with my bag of chips and a 50% off clearance pregnancy test. I figure to keep my secret a secret, I should avoid eye contact and conversation in general for the rest of the car ride. Another very    

un-me like thing. 

Upon our arrival home, I immediately lock myself up in the bathroom. I open the box and read the directions about one hundred times, just to be sure. If you haven’t done this, it is very simple:

1. Pee on the stick.
2. Look at the window on the stick.
3. If there is a + in the window on your stick, sit down on your bathroom floor and try not to pass out. 

I follow the steps. And then I look. And then I re-read the directions about a hundred times. I look at the stick again. I look into the toilet to make sure that my pee looks normal, as though that would be the real proof. I look at the photo on the instructions. I turn the stick upside down and sideways just in case I am seeing the + wrong. I am pretty sure I shake it, blow on it, tap it, talk to it, and everything but sing to it. I behave like this for an unknown amount of time.  I believe you could say I am in denial. Yep, if denial and shock had offspring, I would be their baby. 

Next thought; I’ve been in the bathroom for what is starting to feel like a long time and James is like 4 meters away from me in the living room (our apartment is tiny) and is making no noise. Therefor he has heard me opening a box and shuffling papers, peeing a little, then stopping, and then peeing more. Obviously I am taking a pregnancy test. 

I come out of the bathroom and just stand there looking at him. He knows. I know this by the hugeness in his eyes and his body language. 

He sees that I am the offspring of denial + shock and probably at this point is not sure how to approach me. I remember seeing wetness in his eyes and exchanging nervous/excited embraces, but all I kept thinking was ‘stupid choice buying the clearance test... it has obviously malfunctioned, and now you've just gotten him worked up for no reason’. I actually remember giving him the heads up that it was a clearance test and so it was likely wrong! Clearly I am still in denial.

We are at a walk-in within the hour because I decide that that will be the only true way to know for sure. I do another pee test. Nurse leaves the room and James and I make little jokes about how crazy it would be if she came back and said that it was positive. Nurse comes back and hands us a pamphlet about babies and tells us it’s positive.

And so it begins :)