The Story of Us: Part 1

“Pregnant.” That’s what it said. My entire body seemed to go numb and freeze in time. Then I laughed. Of course, it was wrong. Was I really supposed to believe that my entire future was to be dictated by a stick with a little eight letter word on it? No, it had to be faulty. I had taken pregnancy tests before in the past, more out of curiosity than anything else. I was two days late, but there was nothing unusual about that for me. Zac was deploying to Iraq the next day, so I figured I may as well make sure that everything was normal. I didn’t even tell him that I was taking the test. “Okay, so...I took a pregnancy test, and it says I’m pregnant...but don’t freak out or anything because I’m pretty sure it’s wrong.” Ah, my sweet, unsuspecting husband, so innocently and patiently waiting for me to come back from the bathroom so we could binge watch “The Office” for the third time through. I could see the thoughts in his head all play out in his face like I was watching a movie. Disbelief, confusion, shock, humor, then disbelief again. I had an extra test (because I’m obsessive and always kept a few in the cabinet) and next thing we know I’m laughing historically on the toilet after chugging three giant cups of water while Zac is yelling on the other side of the door for me to hurry up. Of course, I’ve never been able to go on demand, so despite my greatest efforts, the second test came back inconclusive. The next half hour was a blur of rushing to the store, Zac coming out with $40 worth of tests (because he didn’t know which one was the best), going home, realizing that he had gotten a THIRTY pack of OVULATION tests, rushing back to the store ($20 more of tests) back home and ending with both of us sitting on the bathroom floor, holding hands, promising that no matter what happened, everything would be just fine. A baby. A grocery store worth of tests later and we were having a baby. I was shocked, scared and overjoyed at the same time. We could do this. We could raise a baby. I mean, people always said that you would never feel ready...that when it happened everything would just make sense...so I counted on that. It wasn’t until I was FaceTiming my mom that the tears came and I knew that I was overcome with excitement. Zac and I were young and very much in love, and we would be wonderful parents. Besides, all the excitement would make his deployment go by that much quicker. Just like that, our family of two became three. We were having a baby.