“Wait… a plus mark? What does a plus mark mean?” I snapped up the instruction leaflet included with the pregnancy test with quivering hands and frantically gazed at the page, the black lines of text blurring together. I could barely make out the key that told you how to read the pregnancy test.
It was definitely a plus sign, and the plus sign meant positive. Which meant pregnant.
“Wait… I’m pregnant?!”
I sat in the bathroom at work… dumbfounded, shaking, and confused. Me? Pregnant? I couldn’t believe it. My heart was galloping to a weird staccato rhythm, but I didn’t have time to process this titanic news, I was at work!
It was early January in Michigan, and there had been a huge snow storm that prevented milk from getting delivered to the small school where my husband taught. That morning, he had asked me to pick up a few gallons of milk from the local grocery store for the student’s lunchtime. I had gone to the store during my lunch break only to find them fresh out of milk as well! I quickly went to a nearby dollar store to see if they had milk – again, no luck. However, on a whim, as I was turning to leave the store, I walked down the hygiene aisle and eyed the pregnancy tests.
I was about three weeks late, a rarity for me, and had been feeling extremely emotional over the past few weeks. I had chalked it up to the stress and craziness of the holidays, but that vague, “What if I’m pregnant?” thought still gnawed at me. I thought back to Christmas, just a few days before, when I had unexpectedly burst into tears while playing a white elephant game with my family because an apple candle had gotten stolen from me. My mom grabbed my arm, wide-eyed as I laughed and cried at the same time, and exclaimed, “Are you pregnant?!” “No way!” I replied, waving her and the idea away as I wiped my tears.
But now, in the dollar store aisle, I kept hearing my mom’s voice in my head – “Are you pregnant?!” I had never bought a pregnancy test before, and I felt a bit awkward as I decidedly grabbed one off the shelf. Because I didn’t want a conversation with the cashier about the test, I grabbed a box of Fig Newtons and a clearance water bottle to buy as well, sandwiching the test in between those items as if somehow to camouflage it.
Back at work, I felt like the test was burning a hole in my purse. I tried to ignore it and focus on the tasks of the day, but after a few hours, I snatched the test and went to the bathroom. I just had to know.
So there I sat, shocked at the positive and wondering how I was going to go back to work for a couple of hours. It was so difficult to process the emotions I was feeling. A positive test was something I had dreamed about since I was little. I always wanted to be a mother. I had gone to college to be a teacher because I loved kids so much. My husband also loved kids as he was also a teacher. We had been happily married for about a year and a half. We were financially stable. We definitely wanted to have kids, but this was a little sooner than we expected.
All I kept thinking about was, “A mom. A mom. I am going to be someone’s mom?!” I knew that this little test in my hand was telling me my entire life was about to change, but there was no way to know what that change would be like. This positive was wanted, but it was also terrifying.
I kept my emotions somewhat together for the rest of the workday, peeking at the test every half an hour or so {I think I was inexplicably checking to see if it was still positive}. As soon as work was over, I hustled home as fast as I could. The second I was in the safe confines of our house, I burst into tears. Part of me was overjoyed, but I was so scared. Being a mother seemed like such a monumental undertaking, one that I felt woefully unprepared for at 24-years-old. Through my sobs, I remember saying out loud, “I am not ready to be someone’s MOM!”
When my husband came home, I couldn’t find the words to tell him what had happened. He looked at my tears and, after offering a few guesses as to why I was crying, gently asked, “Are you pregnant?” I wetly nodded yes, he gave me a big hug and said, “You are a wonderful woman to have kids with. I love you.”
Now, over four years later, I have two kids and I am amazed at how much they have wonderfully changed my life. I cannot imagine life without them and am so grateful that God blessed me with them when and how He did. As each Mother’s Day rolls around, I always think about that snowy day, that plus sign, the joy and the terror, and how that pregnancy test changed my life. Being a mother is the scariest and hardest thing I have ever done, but it is also the most beautiful, the most joyful, and the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
