Pregnancy

When We Found Out

bostonOn May 5, 2016, aka Cinco De Mayo, Nick and I found out that we (or rather, I) were pregnant. We were visiting Nick’s family in Cape Cod. It was a blustery week, but a warm one because of all the company and family time. Before we left, my dad had made me a cocktail for before the plane, to celebrate the end of a school year — a tequila sunrise. I remembered him handing it to me, and thinking that the smell was overpowering. I could smell corners of grenadine and orange juice and tequila that I had never noticed before. And it was a little bit of a turn off. A few days before this, on the last day of my semester, I had put on a pot of coffee, and the aroma surprised me too. It was too much. Things smelled in ways I had never known.

Little did I know that a heightened sense of smell was an early sign of pregnancy.

In Boston, we enjoyed watching the Red Sox play at Fenway, along with an authentic Italian dinner in Boston’s Little Italy. And as the week went on, I felt that something was off. I bought a couple pregnancy tests a few days before my missed period, but was so nervous, half of them turned out unreadable. Literally, once fancy electronic one just said “Error.” The rare “successful” ones showed only one pink line (two lines mean you had a baby cookin’!). I was also taking the tests at night, when everyone was asleep, the opposite of when you were supposed to take them (bright and early in the morning). Maybe I was afraid that I would get two pink lines, and our entire world would change.

me-finding-outBecause, the one time I did the test in the morning, when I was supposed to, was on the day of my missed period. And there they were. Two parallel pink lines. Undeniably positive.

I remembered scurrying from the bathroom at Nick’s parents house, up the stairs to the bedroom we were staying in. I didn’t say anything to him. I knew he would come in, eventually. I told him I was going to be doing some writing.

I took the stick and threw it in a tissue and placed it on the dresser. When he came in, I awkwardly took out my phone  to begin filming him and said, “Go look over there.”

It was raining outside, and he walked over to the dresser and saw it. “Are you nick-finding-outserious?” he asked. His smile stretched long, across his face.

When big moments happen, the ones that excite me and change me, I am so filled to the brim with emotions, that I am often left mute, speechless. Where Nick can fill in the empty space with words, I can only listen and hope he continues talking.

This was that moment. We were both shocked and ecstatic — we had tried once. We were told that getting pregnant could take months and years and it could cause a lot of friction and pain in a marriage. But, with luck and gratitude, we were able to start off our journey positively.

So the rest of the evening, we found creative ways to tell his family. Nick and I were cooking everyone a taco feast, in celebration of Cinco De Mayo, and for our new news — we were going to be parents.

…To Be Continued.