He Knew Before I Did

     Ever since I was mature enough to know where babies come from, I have had some sort of expectation or fantasy as to how I would approach certain situations – if I were to become pregnant myself. Remember, I wasn’t always visually impacted. Many of my expectations of life had to change in order to live a productive and “normal” existence. For example, I had expected automobiles to be fully self-automated by this time in my life. However the automobile industry has made significant strides, there are even more significant legalities preventing these self-automated machines to impact the population whom need it the most. You still must obtain a driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle – no matter the innovation behind the machine. So there’s that… We all have challenges and things we just can’t do. You just have to say, “It wasn’t in the cards.” Life just has real arm for curveballs and I myself have a great story to tell you about the time I found out I was pregnant. It definitely is a story that will be passed down for generations to come!

     When my husband and I decided we would try and conceive a child, I had no idea how hard it would be. I figured a good ole night of me drinking wine (my husband doesn’t drink at all) would definitely do the trick, right? However the next month came and it was painfully clear that I needed to do something different. I bought ovulation tests and marked the calendar for “date nights”. Still month after month I failed to get pregnant and it was wearing on me quickly.  However, I still continued the regiment of ovulation test and “date nights.” I had gone through 6 months worth of pregnancy test and now we are in the month of December (2020). I had originally planned to get pregnant in October, so our baby could share a birthday month with both of us (July). It wasn’t in the cards…

     On December 21, 2020 my husband and I went to grab some food and we had planned to spend the rest of the evening parked at the beach to watch The Bethlehem Star. The pandemic was still in full swing and most people were trying to make the most out of their holiday season. We parked and ate with about 50-60 other cars at Surfer’s Point. It was already mostly dark out, so there wasn’t much of the ocean to view while we waited. At about 7 or 8 o’clock Jupiter and Saturn crossed paths, making a big beautiful star. For the next couple of moments my husband and I were silent along with the entire fleet of cars beside us. It was pretty amazing to see such a bright star – twice the size of the Polaris. I rarely ever see stars as they are too far for my eyes to see, but I’m glad to report I was able to spot this one. My husband and I drove home that night talking about what we had just witnessed and how great of a night we just had out – looking at the stars. It was definitely a night we never expected to enjoy, especially due to the restrictions of the pandemic. We crawled into bed, turned on the tv and soon became distracted by “other” things.

     We spent Christmas Eve with my grandparents and mother with a huge feast. My mom had brought smoked prime rib and asparagus, it went very well with my grandmothers homemade mac ‘n cheese and mashed potatoes. For dessert, I had made brownies to go along with my grandmothers annual batch of sugar cookies. It wasn’t until after dinner when I felt the reality of what I had just eaten, but it was Christmas. Tis’ the time to binge! However, I started to feel very uncomfortable and I chalked it up to the pending arrival of “Aunt Flow.” The next few days I was still not feeling well, but there wasn’t any inkling to what was really happening in my body. It wasn’t until January 2, 2021 when I decided I would take another test. My cycle had only been one day late, but I tried anyway – and as always it came back negative, or did it?

     The next afternoon my husband was taking out the trash and he saw the test I discarded the night before.  He calmly walked into the room where I was and asked, “Are you pregnant?” I told him “no” and that seemed to be the end of it. However, for the next couple of days my husband joked about how he “knew” I was pregnant and I just didn’t really think too much into it. Now, I am a week late and after dropping off a late Christmas gift to our neighbors across the street, I decided I would try to test again. While waiting I noticed my husband never did take out the trash and became very annoyed by his behavior from the week prior. “How could he know anything if he never discarded the trash?” “Why was he so annoying with his stupid jokes?” And then I saw it… The test I just took came back with two bright pink vertical lines! Holy hell, he was right! …but how?

     I quickly dug through the bathroom garbage with my bare hands and found what I had been looking for. It was the test I took a week prior. I looked at about 10 minutes that day and was even tearing up by the results. Looking at it now, a week later – I can barely see it, but there is a very faint second pink line! My blind ass didn’t even know that I was pregnant all this time! My husband must have saved the trash knowing I would figure it out sooner or later… And that is how I found out I was pregnant. He knew before I did!