I woke up that morning with no excitement or anticipation. It just was an ordinary day, or so I thought. Eric and I had decided the month prior to get off birth control, but it wasn't like we had tried super hard to get pregnant and I wasn't counting every day to see when I was suppose to start my period. So I wasn't looking for anything. I wasn't expecting really anything to change.
We had our normal morning routine of coffee, prayer, showers and the like. It wasn't until after he left for work that it dawned on me that I probably should have started my period. I remembered at one point someone telling me that I had 20 days from the day of ovulation to get my period - after those 20 days, you can basically consider yourself pregnant. So, I counted. I didn't know exactly when I had ovulated, so I counted from the last possible day I thought it might be, which was March 13th. I counted and then counted again.
Holy crap, this is the 20th day, I thought. Well, to take a test or not, that was the question. I immediately thought of the test that was under my bathroom sink. I had one on hand from a pack of two that I had bought back in January. I had taken one kinda thinking I was pregnant, but pretty sure I wasn't. It was more of "I kinda want to be pregnant, and I've never taken a test before, so lets go buy one and try" test. I was right - I wasn't. So this one was left over from that time.
"Just do it." I thought. "I'm sure I'm not."
…
"but what if I am?"
I bent down and rummaged under the sink in the basket that held odds and ends in our bathroom until I pulled it out. I stared long and hard at it and thought, "Come on Miller, just do it. It won't be positive." So then I took the few short steps to the toilet, sat down, peed on it and immediately pulled it out to watch the moisture run from the end of the stick into the little circle in the middle of the plastic. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I could hear it.
It was instantaneous. As the moisture ran over that circle, two lines appeared instantly.
"Oh. My. Goodness." I choked out loud as the two lines stared back at me, telling me what I felt was impossible but yet wasn't. Don't ask me why I thought it was impossible. I guess its cause every women has that small fear that maybe, just maybe, she can't get pregnant. And there's no way to prove that you can, until you do. And so here was the impossible, becoming the possible. I could get pregnant. I WAS pregnant.
I somehow managed to pull my pants up and stand up. Only to burst into tears and fall to my knees. Words of praise and astonishment filled my mind and mouth and I really have no recollection of what I actually said to Jesus in that moment, I just remember being so overwhelmed by His goodness and in disbelief that this was actually happening.
I slowly stood up facing the mirror and said out loud. "I'm pregnant. I am having a baby!" multiple times to my shocked face.
Then I thought, "What now?? What do I do now??" My first thought was Eric, but I didn't want to just CALL him and tell him. We hadn't talked about when my period was suppose to come or anything so it wasn't like he was looking for this. And I couldn't call my mom before telling Eric. But I had to tell SOMEONE!
The only person that I could think of telling, that I WANTED to tell, although at this point, I wanted to tell everyone, and was a safe person, was my mentor Ann. She had been discipling me for 2 years and I knew I could trust her to keep a secret.
It was about 7:50am at this point, but she picked up right away.
"Do you have a second to talk?" I asked after she greeted me and asking me if everything was alright, considering I had never called her this early before.
"Of course, I can talk. Whats going on?" she asked.
"I'm pregnant!" I blurted out.
"Oh Anna. Oh my goodness!!! How my!" she exclaimed, followed with laughter and questions. I was a blubbering mess. My brain felt like it was exploding as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I had LIFE inside of me. I was no longer one person but was carrying another. I didn't know how I was suppose to feel, because I knew that my life had changed in the moment, but my body didn't feel any different.
It felt good to share this amazing news with someone, but getting off the phone with her still left me completely flabbergasted that this was happening and DYING to tell Eric. So I called Sam and Lindsay, my two best friends, neither of which picked up. Super lame.
I got ready for work, my head spinning. Even though I was super close with my boss, Rick, I wasn't sure if I was going to tell him when I got to work. But who was I kidding. I lasted a whole 20 minutes before I told him. Yeah, couldn't keep this kind of news in.
It was at work that I realized it was April 1st. April Fools Day. Oh my oh my was I wanting to capitalize on this.
Thats when I decided I HAD to talk to Sam and Linds. I needed their advice and I was dying to hear them scream in excitement. I needed to scream for excitement! I called Sam, who is in LA first. Once she picked up, I pretended that I had another phone call coming in and asked her if I could put her on hold. And then I called Lindsay, who is in VA. I did the same thing to her and as they were both on hold, I merged our calls together, making it a three way conversation without them knowing. All I asked was, "Hey are you there?" as if I was coming back to my call to them. The second after they both answered yes, I blurted out, "I'M PREGNANT!!!" and like clockwork, we all screamed in unison.:) We then brainstormed how I should tell Eric, going from putting a bun in the oven at home and doing a scavenger hunt to find it in the end, to going out to eat and having the waiter bring his drink in a bottle, to just out right telling him. Eric and I have done April Fools jokes in the past, and it was too ideal to FIND OUT I was pregnant on this day - I just didn't know how to incorporate it!
I agonized over it all day. I even had lunch with one of my good girl friends, and sat there at Qdoba with her and her little girl, knowing the whole time I was keeping this big secret! I couldn't wait to get home. Finally at some point during the afternoon I decided what I was going to do. I was going to wrap the pregnancy test in a little gift box, with a card, inside explaining that because I'm lame and couldn't think of any type of joke to play on him, that I just got him a small April Fools day gift to replace it. I KNEW he wouldn't believe me when he opened it and would think it was some joke.
When I got home, I quickly wrapped it up, wrote the card and put it in my closet to hide it. My heart was pounding when I heard the garage go up. "How in the world do I act normal????" I thought.
Eric walked in and I was somehow able to greet him and make small talk for 10 or so minutes without acting weird. And then I said…
"OK, so you know how today is April Fools?"
"Yeah, I totally forgot that it was till earlier this afternoon."
"Yeah me too! I was at work when I realized! So, since I couldn't come up with anything good to do to you, I bought you a little April Fools Day gift."
"Okaayyy." He looked at me doubtly, with a small grin on his face.
I knew exactly what he was thinking. That this was another joke. Perfect. I had him right where I wanted him.
I ran into our bedroom, grabbed the gift and brought it back out to the kitchen and handed it to him. He slowly opened the card, read it and then reached for the gift. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure he'd hear it. As he opened the lid to the box, he kept giving me these little glances with the look like, "Whatever, you're totally trying to pull a prank on me."
He pulled out the tissue paper and at this point apparently thought the joke was that there was no gift, because the test was so light and little that he didn't see it at first. But when he realized there was something among the paper, he said, "What is it?" I just sat there and smiled so big I thought my face would break.
"What is it?" He asked again once he had pulled it out of the box and tissue paper. "Oh! Hahahaha, who's is this? Where did you get this?"
"Its mine babe."
"No, really… Like who did you have pee on this?? Did Gabby do it?" Gabby is a friend of ours who had just told us a couple weeks prior that she was pregnant.
"Hahaha no babe. Thats my pee. I peed on it…. I'm pregnant!!!!"
He had been smiling before, but this smile was different. It was the, I'm-not-sure-youre-telling-the-truth-but-I-want-to-believe-you smile.
"Naw, you're kidding. No way!" He said.
"Really. I'm serious! Thats my pee! We are having a BABY!!!"
He stood there, leaning up against the counter, holding the pregnancy test, looking at me, looking at it, looking back at me. "Really??? Seriously???"
I got up from the table and went to him, wrapped my arms around him, smiled and said, "Yeah. Really."
