Our Story: Surprise, You're Pregnant!

I woke up around 8am and couldn’t get myself back to sleep. My husband was also awake. He went upstairs to eat breakfast and do some dishes. I stayed downstairs in our room and decided to take that final pregnancy test. My hands shook because I just wasn’t sure. I started to wonder why the doctor’s office had only done a urine test and not a blood test. Maybe I really was pregnant. I read the directions again, just to make sure I wasn’t missing a step. Sounded simple enough. I dipped the stick, replaced the cap, put it on the level surface of the countertop by the sink and started to wait. I turned to flush the toilet. I looked back at the stick. I knew it had been less than 30 seconds, but I was just curious.

Two lines. TWO LINES. Um. Two lines. My hands started to shake again almost uncontrollably. It showed pregnant. I was pregnant. Wait. Maybe I wasn’t. I had still been on birth control. And I read somewhere that taking some types of birth control makes your body think you’re pregnant. I had no idea if I was actually pregnant.

I then keyed in to the sounds of dishes clanking: a dishwasher being loaded upstairs. Oh no. How do you tell your husband that you might be pregnant – again? I went upstairs. I took a deep breath as I entered the kitchen. “Honey?” “Yes?” He didn’t look up as he put plates in the bottom rack. “I have still been having some symptoms, so I just took another pregnancy test. It showed positive. But I think that some birth control methods make your body think you’re pregnant, so I might not be.” It was the most gentle and direct way I could say it. Since we weren’t expecting it, I knew we’d both be stressed about it. Better to be somewhat in denial and ease yourself into knowing.

I decided to call the doctor’s office. The next appointment was three days out. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to wait that long to find out for sure. I knew there had to be a way to find out. I called the pharmacy where I filled my birth control. Surely a pharmacist would be able to tell me something useful.

“Home pregnancy tests actually test for a completely different hormone than what birth control is. You need to go to the doctor.” Um, that isn’t the answer I was thinking I’d get. I explained to Ryan what the pharmacist had said.

It took a few hours to accept, but I decided that the pharmacist had ‘diagnosed’ my pregnancy. I was pregnant. Ryan and I didn’t want to cause another ‘scare’ until we knew for sure. We’d keep it to ourselves until a doctor confirmed it. I decided it would be a good idea to stop taking the birth control that I was currently, um, “using” and toss it out. No need to get that refilled for a while. I checked online to make sure that I hadn’t turned my baby into a three-armed freak by using birth control while I was pregnant. No worries: just stop taking the birth control. You don’t need the extra hormones.

On my way to work that afternoon, I stopped by said pharmacy and picked up some generic prenatal vitamins. I didn’t know anything about prenatal vitamins. There were close to ten choices. I figured anything would be better than nothing. I picked the cheapest one.

I did a lot of internet research about early pregnancy in those few days waiting for my doctor appointment. The more I read, the more I realized that I really was pregnant. I looked up “pregnancy symptoms” and found a few articles. There was a “Top 10 Signs You’re Pregnant” article. Click. I went through the list: check, yep, not really, check, definitely that symptom, yes, not yet…. I was 6 out of 10. Um, that’s pretty significant. I’d text Ryan with little pieces of information I found out. We slowly got used to the idea of impending parenthood.

Something I found out that might be of interest: Antibiotics lessen the effectiveness of birth control. The doctor didn’t tell me when issuing that prescription. The pharmacist that fills my birth control and filled those antibiotics didn’t mention anything. And who wants to read through eight pages of pharmaceutical mumbo-jumbo for side effects of a stupid little antibiotic pill? I’d taken them before and wasn’t allergic, it was no big deal. (While on this subject, when I started to tell people about my pregnancy and the antibiotics thing, many of them got a funny look on their faces and squealed, “You didn’t KNOW that?!?” I guess not.)

Three whole excruciating days later at the appointment, I again peed in a little cup. Ryan and I waited in the exam room for a few minutes. The doctor walked in. “Well, I guess you know you’re pregnant and you just want to know when you’re due.” Not really. I did that internet research only a few hours after I found out. According to my LMP (last menstrual period) date, I was due around August 8. The doctor chatted with us for a while about what to expect, when to make our first official obstetrics appointment and who the local OBGYN’s were. We left the appointment with the confirmation that we would soon be parents. It would be months away – plenty of time to prepare. The world as we knew it was gone. A whole new experience was unfolding.