Bombshell

A few months ago, I started gaining weight. I'd never had regular periods, and had been told by a doctor when I was a teenager that I'd have a hard time having kids, but I was still curious enough about the weight gain to take a home pregnancy test. March 23, it came back negative. When my period still hadn't arrived a month later, I made an appointment at the doctor, and April 29, I went to the OBGYN to get the ball rolling on figuring out what's wrong with my female plumbing system. Since you have to be trying for a year to be declared reproductively challenged, I didn't think the midwife (I'm a member of Kaiser, so it's rare to see a doctor) would do much for me, but thought it was the first step that would help me and my husband, Mike, start down the road of starting a family someday.

Imagine my surprise when we started and ended the appointment with a pregnancy test. The test was positive. I was shocked. It was the last thing I was expecting (for a number of reasons, including the negative pregnancy test the month before).

The process of finding out as a comedy of errors.

The nurse told me to pee in a cup, but I'd just gone to the bathroom, so I didn't have to go. We argued about that for a minute and agreed that as a compromise, I would drink a cup of water and then see if I could squeeze out a few drops. "We don't need much," she said.

I peed in the cup, the nurse used an eye dropper to put the urine on the test. One line showed up right away. There was a faint light gray line next to it. She showed it to me and expected me to be excited. I, of course, had no idea what I was looking at. Apparently I didn't look impressed because she then explained the test to me. Two lines = pregnant, one line = not.

She said she couldn't tell if the test was positive or not, and took it to confer with another nurse. Meanwhile, I was in the exam room freaking out. "What does this mean? How is this possible? Is this a joke? Are you kidding me? Should I call Mike? Text him? This must be some sort of mistake."

Meanwhile, I heard the other nurse say, "just tell her it's positive." So nice, so caring. The first nurse comes back in and proceeds to tell me how exciting this is and how great the news is and to go on and on and on.

Now-- this is GREAT news. I'm very excited. Very happy. I just think it's inappropriate for this woman to, without knowing my circumstances, make such a fuss. What if I'd been raped, or didn't want the baby for some other reason? I told her I was happy and she left, then I waited for the midwife I was scheduled to see.

She gave me a run down of some info (eat small meals, don't think you really have to "eat for two," stay away from raw fish, take prenatal vitamins, etc.) and asked me if I had any questions. I told her I was sure I'd have lots of questions later, but that at that point, I was mostly in shock. You know, because I'd gone into the doctor expecting to be told I'm barren and left having been told I'm expecting.

After leaving the doctor's office, I texted Mike to see if he wanted to meet me for lunch. I didn't want to tell him over the phone, so that seemed like a good plan. But he'd eaten just a little bit before and wasn't hungry, so when he asked how the appointment went, I was vague. I planned to tell him in he evening when he was home from work, but Kaiser threw a wrench into those plans.

Each of us has our medical stuff set up so that when one of us goes to the doctor, the other one is notified of the test results. That's why Mike got an email shortly after my appointment that said "Diagnosis: Pregnancy." And that's why he called me a few minutes after that and asked, "Are you pregnant?!?!?" So I ended up telling him over the phone after all.