Emily and Kolby: March 30, 2012

I woke up hungry despite the fact that Kolby had taken me to a late dinner at my favorite restaurant to help me get through the “no food after midnight” rule. You’d think all those chips and queso would have stuck around longer than they did.

I wandered around, not sure what to do at home on a weekday. It was a nice day outside, which helped my mood. My parents would be there by 11, but that still left a few hours to kill. My car registration had been expired since October but it seemed as good a day as any to finally take care of that, so I went to the tax office.

I saw a call come in from Kolby’s mom, but I didn’t really feel like talking.

My parents arrived early as usual and we chatted for a while but the conversation was superficial. There wasn’t much to say.

The time came and I hopped in the backseat of their car like I was a kid again and they drove me to a hospital surgery center that none of us had been to. Dad dropped us off and went across town to run a couple errands since my surgery wouldn’t be for another few hours.

Mom and I filled out the usual paperwork and pretended like things were normal, even making a few jokes here and there like we always do. The receptionist said my doctor wasn’t there yet but that when he gets there he usually moves through patients pretty quickly. I still couldn’t figure out why they made us get there so early.

Next thing I knew a nurse opened the door and called me back. I peed in a cup, confirmed a bunch of stuff on my medical chart, and received my hospital bracelet. My nurse was sweet to me, and it made me realize why people become nurses. She really did make the day easier.

I thought they had told me that after I took care of a few things they’d send me back to the waiting room, but it seemed I was there to say. I asked when my mom would be able to come back.

I changed into a gown, put on the hairnet, and took my place in the reclined chair bed. I was in some type of patient holding area where we were only separated by curtains, but I couldn’t tell how many people were there or where the operating rooms were. My nurse came in and out a few times and at one point mentioned the anesthesiologist would be by shortly. I asked again when my mom would be able to come back.

A lot raced through my mind, but I felt calm. Peaceful. I thought about how saying sayonara to this cyst was the start of the latest phase in our adventure to have a baby. In that sense, it was a good thing. I thought about how I’d never been under general anesthesia before. I remembered being there when an anesthesiologist came in to talk to a friend of mine about her C-section, and how brave she was even though she was scared. But mostly, I just thought about how badly I wanted a baby.

Somewhere nearby I heard the voice of Dr. P, my fertility specialist. He was talking to another patient and I tried to eavesdrop. What was she in for? IVF? Did she have endometriosis too? I was annoyed that the chatter at the nurses’ station was interfering with my inquisition.

But then I turned my attention to what the nurses were saying.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell.”

“What should we do?”

They were whispering, which made me even more curious.

“Should we do it again?”

“Yeah, it’s really close.”

“These things are so hard to read.”

My heart started pounding. I mean, POUNDING. I could literally feel every beat, and my face got hot and tingly. Something about the way they were talking, I just knew they were looking at a pregnancy test.

But even if they were, I’m literally surrounded by women who would give ANYTHING for those nurses to be talking about them.

Still, I had a hunch it was me. Or maybe it was just a hope. So much for the feeling of peace that I had earlier. That flew right out the window and all I could think about was getting to the bottom of this conversation. Chances were that they were actually talking about something totally different, but my mind had already run off with the it’s-a-pregnancy-test story. I got really upset at them for not being more discreet (i.e. letting nosy people like me get their hopes up).

So there I was, with my hands cupped around my ears like an old man, trying to hear better. The conversation was more of the same, but I caught a “Well I’m not, maybe we should test mine and compare.” BINGO. It was definitely a pregnancy test. But WHOSE? And WAS IT STINKIN’ POSITIVE OR NOT?!?! My mind was a whirlwind.

An eternity passed.

Then the moment I will never forget for the rest of my life.

My sweet nurse walked in holding a paper towel across the palms of her hands. I cupped my face. She stepped closer and lowered her hands. There was a pregnancy test laying on it.

I somehow squeezed out, “Am I pregnant?” to which she responded with a memorable, “I don’t know. But I think so.”

I started to cry. Then came one of my favorite parts of the story. My sweet nurse put her hand on my shoulder and told me it’s going to be okay. She had seen my mom bring me in, I didn’t have my rings on, and without makeup or my hair done I look half my age. The poor lady thought she was experiencing a real life “Sixteen and Pregnant” episode. Ha! When I told her, “No, I’m excited, we’ve been trying for years.” she said, “Oh, praise Jesus!” Indeed, girlfriend; indeed.

She was still really wishy-washy about the whole is-it-positive-or-not thing, but to someone who had taken dozens of pregnancy tests, I knew what I was looking for. The line doesn’t have to be dark, it just has to be there.

I won’t even try to put into words what I felt. I was speechless for literally the first time in my life. I didn’t even know what to think. I asked what this meant and my nurse said, “Girl, it means you aren’t having surgery today if there is a chance you are pregnant. You can’t go under anesthesia in your first trimester.”

Trimester. Hearing that word woke me up. A real pregnancy word, spoken about me. I was hit with a flood of emotions. Mostly excitement. Some fear. Disbelief. A lot of hope.

Dr. P walked in and gave me a playful pretend slap on the cheek. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t even supposed to be possible. I asked him what I needed to do, and he said to get dressed immediately and drive to his office to get blood work done. He said that urine tests aren’t reliable and that only a blood test can tell us if I’m really pregnant. He vehemently cautioned me not to get excited yet. (Yeah right.)

I asked if he could have the nurse send my mom back. He asked why, and I said that I needed to tell her what was going on (duh). “I’ve already told her.” Yep, that’s another part of the story I’ll never forget. I’d waited so long to get to announce to my parents that I was pregnant, and a tiny Indian man whom they’d never met scooped me!

I threw my clothes on and walked into the waiting room and straight into my mom’s embrace. We both cried. A box of Kleenex appeared at my shoulder and when I turned my head I saw that it came from the receptionist, who was also crying. Ha!

My dad came screeching up to the hospital pull through and with his window down yelled, “You might be pregnant?!?!” We hopped in, bee-lined it to the doctor’s office, had my blood drawn, swung by Chic-Fil-A for the best food I’ve ever tasted and went home.

By this time it was 4pm, which was when my surgery was scheduled for and when Kolby was getting out of school to head to the hospital. I called him.

“Hello?”

“Hey honey.”

“Hey. How am I talking to you? Aren’t you supposed to be in surgery?”

“I’m not having surgery today because they think I might be pregnant.”

“WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

That “WHAT?!?” had so much hope and excitement in it, I wish I could have bottled up the emotion of his voice.

The rest of the day was kind of a blur. We sent my parents away so we could wait for the results of the blood test alone together. It was the longest evening of our lives. We finally got the call from Dr. P around 9pm. The blood test was positive as well, but he cautioned us again not to get excited yet because I’d need another round of blood work in three days to see whether my counts were rising, indicating a viable pregnancy. The call certainly left us with a mix of emotions, but we chose to cling to the excitement of the good part—we were pregnant!

I don’t remember what happened after that, other than at one point Kolby decided he needed to go for a run. He doesn’t run. But I think he had so many emotions going on he just needed to flee the scene and cry and try to process everything. I wasn’t sure what to do myself, but standing alone in the living room wasn’t cutting it so I took Maya and we both sat on the front porch in the cool night air and waited for Kolby to get back.

Then the three of us sat there, still not having any idea what on earth to do with ourselves. We decided to call up our pastor and drop in on him and his wife to share the news (we needed to tell someone but didn’t want to really let the cat out of the bag until we got more blood work done).

They prayed for us and blessed this vulnerable new life inside me. Then our pastor pulled out a collection of cards with my name on them, which had been collected as prayer requests during the Lenten sermon series on healing.

PCOS and endometriosis be damned—nothing is impossible for God.

We went home and crawled into bed, still too overcome with emotion to grasp the day’s events. We probably talked less than we ever had before. There was still so much uncertainty, fear. But boy was there hope—a passionate longing tucked deep in our hearts.

I woke up in the middle of the night and just started bawling. I’ve never been good at processing emotion in the moment. It always seems to creep up on me later on, when I least expect it. I snuggled closer to Kolby and found this peace: God miraculously created this life; it was safe in His arms.

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March 30, 2013: