Note: This is an old post from a long time ago... So, nobody should panic when they read the first line!
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It's really amazing what
one little pink line on a stick can do.
Although I knew it wasn't likely that I was pregnant, I was late. And I'm never that late unless I'm pregnant. I remember taking a home pregnancy test the
day after Seth's third birthday. And let
me mention, here, that home pregnancy tests are terrible!
If you have never taken one, this is the basic
process: You pee on a stick, and then
you set a timer for the exact number of minutes that it is supposed to take to
get a result. This is usually two to
three minutes. Then you leave the
bathroom and close the door, because you've promised yourself that you are not
going to "peek" until the timer goes off. About ninety seconds later, you open the
bathroom door, because you've decided that maybe you should just peek a
little. Then you close the door behind you,
because you are embarrassed; like you're going to get caught doing something
wrong. You proceed to watch the little
stick for the next minute and a half.
And then the timer goes off, startling you. If the result is positive, you keep watching
the stick for another five minutes, just to make sure it doesn't
disappear. When it doesn't disappear,
you wonder if you should take another test, just to be sure. I don't know if this is the process that
everyone goes through, but that's how it works for me.
In this case, the result was positive, so I'll spare you
the details regarding what you do with a negative result. I say that the result was positive, but it
was a very light pink line. I showed it
to Phil, and he wasn't sure he could see it.
But I knew it was there.
A few days later, I started spotting, and suddenly I
wondered if I'd imagined the pink line, after all. I quickly made a doctor appointment. There I was assured that I was, indeed,
pregnant, and that everything looked fine, so I should go home, stop worrying,
and start taking prenatal vitamins.
And my whole outlook on life changed.
The suicidal thoughts completely disappeared. I had wanted a baby. I had prayed for a baby. And there was no way I would even consider
taking my life at that point, because another little person was relying on
me. I had to keep living and breathing
so that this baby could live, too. The
thought process of a recently suicidal, very hormonal, pregnant woman is
probably a little bit messed up, but this new little person became my reason to
wake up in the morning for the next few months.
And eventually, it wasn't just about surviving long enough to give
birth. I began to get really excited
about sharing life with this baby. And I
began to get very excited about sharing life with the rest of my family. And I began to get very excited about just
living life. The sense of hope that had
once abandoned me had returned.
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