It was exactly two years ago today. Two years ago. Holy shit. How can it already have been two full years since I discovered I had a potential life growing within me?! Sometimes I still can't believe I'm even a grown-up, let alone a wife and mother of two functioning, walking, talking, healthy, happy human beings.
I made sure to do it in the morning, as they say that's when your hCG levels are at their highest. So I got up early (probably around 9AM; funny how definitions change, huh?) and, after "holding it" for several hours overnight, really had to go. I figured waking Joe up would be way too much of a formality; I thought, "Screw it! It's not like it'll be positive." Really, I was just "seeing how they worked" as I had just purchased an economy-sized pack of test strips online; for what we thought would be the long journey ahead of us.
I peed, dipped, set my phone timer, and went into the kitchen to start breakfast. It must've been about 5 minutes. I walked back to the bathroom, took out the test, and saw the faintest of pink lines. Here's a photo of the first several tests (yeah I'm the weirdo that saves positive pregnancy tests), see if you can detect the line from the top test:
It's there. I swear.
I decided, since this experience had been far less momentous than I had envisioned it my entire life up until that point, that I would try to make it a bit more of an eventful, albeit very unexpected, surprise for Joe. I grabbed a dry-erase marker and drew this on the bathroom mirror:
Don't judge the horrible caricature. Anyway, I woke him up, awkwardly asked him if he had to go the bathroom (I couldn't be patient and let him just go on his own now could I?!), then watched with a shit-eating grin on my face as he read what was on the mirror. He smiled a super groggy smile, gave me a huge hug, then asked to see the test ;)
That was the day I found out I was going to be a mother. January 12, 2013. I wanted to remember what the day looked like, so on my walk down to the store I took this with my phone:
Later that day I met my friend, Hannah, for lunch. Then that night, Joe and I went to dinner with our buddies Eric and Hannah. I wanted to tell them so badly. I almost felt like in some way I had changed already and everyone knew anyway; like you could see it in my face, my walk, my mannerisms, my voice, everything: I was making a human! (At the time we only thought one). But, alas, our little secret stayed with us for several more weeks.
Every day I watch these two little girls flourish before my eyes. They giggle at us and one another, flip through books, clap their hands to their favorite songs, whine out of frustration as toddlers do, give loving, but sloppy, kisses to their daddy and me, and with energy and curiosity, precociously explore the world around them. I see all this and I truly have to pinch myself as I feel so incredibly fortunate to have the privilege of calling myself their mother.
Amazing to think that our journey together, the very start of our relationship really, began with that faint pink line on that sunny January morning exactly two years ago.
