We had been working on it for months without any promising results and L was getting more & more frustrated. She had this routine when taking the tests. She would leave the cover on it as it sat on the counter in the bathroom and when it was time to take a look she would take off the cover, not see the result she wanted, then angrily throw it in the trash. This took place probably 12 to 15 times over the course of time.
On June 8th, on a whim, she bought a test on the way home from work. This time the routine was interrupted by what looked to be a different result, but was it really? Maybe she was just imagining seeing something else or her eager, overanxious mind was creating a mirage to satisfy what she had been yearning for. Trying keep her feelings at bay, she waited till I came home and showed me,
"Am I seeing things? Or am I trying to force myself to see something different than the usual result?"
"No, I don't think so. I see exactly what you see," I say - still - with some skepticism because it isn't 100% accurate. To assist her thinking, she sent a photo of the test to a co-worker for her opinion. The co-worker called her right back and as L answered, I could hear "Oh, my god!" exclaimed from across the room.
The indicator was super faint, but it was there - we weren't making it up....right? After a night of examining what little facts we had regarding L's bodily function the last few weeks, she bought a test on the way home from work the next day, June 9th. As a I sat on the floor recovering from a four mile run in the humid late spring weather, L arrives and says jokingly, "This one actually says yes or no and isn't left up to a line or two (that may or my not be imaginary) for you to decipher." I'm in front of the box fan petting the fat, orange cat Jameson, shirtless and sweaty. Suddenly L jets from the bathroom and slides across the carpeted floor on her knees to me in her best stage performer impression, causing a frightened Jameson to do just the opposite.
She has this giant smile on her face and in her hand is this magic, semi-urine soaked wand that simply reads, "Pregnant". I'm half smiling and half in disbelief. Her mind now in overdrive, L begins rehashing how she has felt the last few weeks and putting together the puzzle pieces. She pauses, "What is the protocol regarding who to tell and when?" Seriously, she's asking me? How in the hell am I to know? "Okay, first of all, I would rather have medical professional confirmation before we start telling people," I say with this weird feeling of how in the world am I the more rational one at the moment.
Excited, and for good reason, she takes a deep breath and agrees. Shortly thereafter, we drive over to Blue Limestone Park (the location of our wedding two summers ago) to take a walk. Thousands of thoughts are running through my head, a few million were sprinting through L's brain. Later that evening I had to ask her to relax as she started to run down a list of things she will not be able to eat, will have to avoid, activities she will have to lessen or stop. I then apologized, but we still didn't have foolproof confirmation. Not that she, or we, couldn't talk about these things, but what I didn't want was to get excited and pumped only to have it wall washed away by a false positive. Yeah, probably me overthinking, but I was trying to be rational....right?....no? Holy crap, did we just reproduce?!??
At work the next day, L drops me a text:
July 15th, 2:00 pm, we have an appointment the first day we are back from vacation (the one we are taking with her brother & parents to the Lower & Upper Michigan Peninsula)
. Along with it is a link titled:
How Big Is My Baby This week? Here's Your Baby Fruit Size Chart, which is led by a photo of a pregnant woman weirdly smiling and holding a quarter of a watermelon at a farmer's market.
"If you want to read about what's happening...truly bizarre and amazing...", L's follow up text states.
The first paragraph, "Your due date is calculated from the first day of your last menstrual period. Conception occurs about two weeks from this day, and that's when you're truly considered pregnant. In just 40 short weeks, your baby will grow from the size of a tiny seed to the size of a plump watermelon." I'm still confused as to why the woman in the picture is holding a quartered watermelon and not a plump watermelon? Are they making assumptions about my 45 year-old genes?? Hopefully, the fruit of our labor will get L's giant brain - that should dispel this stupid article's perceived crass presumptions.
The fun part was about to begin: my brother & sister-in-law are coming in to visit the family from Texas in about two weeks, which is then immediately followed by the Michigan vacation with L's family. How do we stick to our guns, waiting for professional confirmation, when we will be mingling with both sides of our immediate families in consecutive weeks leading up to said confirmation date. Would our secret be detected? Would we be figured out before we told them? Would our eventual news be subdued by the smart women who notice things and simply keep their mouth shut to not let the cat out of the bag and burst our balloon? Or would we lose patience and just tell them?
Maybe all of the above, but we wanted to try.
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Post race pic and wearing
the custom singlets I designed
during the pandemic. The COVID
boredom did have some benefits |
And off course, we broke protocol, but it made sense. On Father's Day, we spent the afternoon with L's family and gave the fun news. From here we decided only immediate family - for the time being - would be given the details we knew. Though L was starting to feel her body adapt to the pregnancy, she was till able to join me in running the
Plain City Four Mile Run on June 26th. I took fourth overall and she finished 24th, even with the added burden of working through a cold passed on to her by her students at work. As a result, I'm not sure I can ever really complain about not feeling well during a race ever again.
When my brother and sister-in-law visited, we broke the news and the following night at my sister's house - with all the immediate family - we did the same. There was excitement, of course, but this was also the next logical step, so it didn't come as too much of a surprise. It was satisfying to make the announcement with everyone at the same time, and in person.
That weekend we made our annual camping trip to
East Harbor State Park to enjoy the Independence Day holiday. A year ago, I jokingly asked L,
"Is this the last time we come up here with just the two of of us?" Well, technically, that did happen to be the case - just not in the out-of-the-womb sense. To add to the weekend, we ran the
Boy with the Boot 5k that Sunday morning in nearby Sandusky. A hot, muggy morning along the Lake Erie shore was our running location and it was fun to pick up a victory, despite it not being the most competitive event in the world. Even L pulled out a second place for her age group. All in all, it added to the fishing, swimming, open fire cooking and fireworks over the Great Lake.
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Funny story, as we climbed atop the Grand Sable Dunes over looking Grand Sable Lake, three women approached us as they were backpacking along the
North Country Trail. We were gawking at the surrounding landscape, but thought we overheard them mention Ohio on their way to us. Once there, we exchanged friendly pleasantries and asked where they were from.
"We're from Akron, Ohio," they shared as we delightedly relayed we, too, were from the Buckeye State and that I had worked in Akron for several years. Too funny, the bigger the world seems, the smaller it gets.
A whirlwind vacation it was, not to mention exhausting having visited four of the five Great Lakes over a week and a half.
Once we returned, we had the doctor's appointment the next day. Both of us were excited with L maybe a bit more nervous than I as we were entering a phase neither one of us were familiar with. Within minutes after answering some basic questions and completing some paperwork, this image was brought to our attention:
Despite wearing a mask, I couldn't close my mouth as I starred in awe. This tiny thing was about 63 days old and working on an arrival date slated for February as we watched it squirm. We don't know the sex at this point, but we have been tossing around various fun combinations of male & female names. This was a neat little respite before returning to the real world.
My first day back to work was that Saturday, two days later. A slow day it was, but I did help a female patron figure out how to print screenshots of text messages she gathered from her significant other's phone to prove to him she had caught him cheating. How many screenshots you ask? She spent just short of $10.00 on printing, at $0.10 per page. Yup, just a standard day in public library land.
Though, from this point on,
our forthcoming year will not be so standard. Rather it will most likely be unconventional, unorthodox, atypical, strange and peculiar...so...yeah...basically, a standard at
The Fermented Firefly...
Stars, they got nothing on us
I don't think you understand
Let's go out and do something we'd never do
'Cause I feel like I can do anything when
My head is spinning and my feet off the ground
And I can't stop dancing like no one's around
And yeah, I think we were born to shine
'Cause the stars are dull when they're compared to you and I
And if people don't like it, then they can close their eyes
'Cause we're not the same and we don't have to try
'Cause we're brighter than fireflies
We're gonna light the sky
Ooooh oh oh
Ooooh oh oh oh
Ooooh oh oh
Ooooh oh oh oh
Light the sky
You and me, we stand out of the crowd
'Cause we aren't afraid to let our light out
So trust in me and just have no doubt
'Cause we will be tearing through the clouds
'Cause my head is spinning and my feet off the ground
And I can't stop dancing like no one's around
And yeah, I think we were born to shine
'Cause the stars are dull when they're compared to you and I
And if people don't like it, then they can close their eyes
'Cause we're not the same and we don't have to try
'Cause we're brighter than fireflies
We're gonna light the sky
Ooh woah oh
Ooh woah oh oh
Ooh woah oh
Ooh woah oh oh
Light the sky
You and me
Me and you
We will shine through
You and me-e-e and you
We will shine
'Cause my head is spinning and my feet off the ground
And I can't stop dancing like no one's around
And yeah, I think we were born to shine
'Cause the stars are dull when they're compared to you and I
And if people don't like it, then they can close their eyes
'Cause we're not the same and we don't have to try
'Cause we're brighter than fireflies
We're gonna light the sky
