On the morning of June 26th, we had to wake up ridiculously early to catch a flight to my family reunion in Illinois. It was the first one we had ever had, so everyone was pretty excited at the prospect of seeing eachother again, and at an event that was neither a wedding nor a funeral to boot. Kailen and I had been "trying" so I decided to take a pregnancy test before we left, since we'd be in Illinois for the next several days and it would be much more convenient to pee on a stick in the comfort of my own bathroom, even though it still was pretty early to get a clear BFP (in the baby-making biz, this stands for Big Fat Positive). So pee on stick I did, and waited the required 3 minutes. Alas, there was no line...or wait a minute...was there? There was the absolute faintest of faint shadows just to the left of the center in the little circle. It was so faint that I was certain I had imagined it out of wishful thinking, and besides it was so early that my eyes were still bleary and could not be counted upon. Mildly disappointed, I threw the test out and hopped into the shower, got dressed and finished my last bit of packing. Then, about 30 minutes later I fished the test out of the garbage out of curiosity to take another look. The shadow was still there, and it was now a teensy bit darker. At this point I was getting really anxious because the line, though still super faint, was definitely there and in the exact same off-center spot that I thought I had seen it before. But since so much time had elapsed by that point, I knew it could have been an evaporation line. But I didn't want to test again until the next morning so that I could use the most concentrated, umm...testing material...available. Problem was, we were about to jump on a flight in a couple of hours. What a conundrum. I woke up Kailen and asked for his opinion. His response? "Huh, trippy." OK dude, thanks for the help!
So off we flew to Illinois, all the while wondering if someone had really taken up residence in my uterus. I figured we'd stop by a drugstore on the way to my aunt and uncle's place so that I could test again in the morning. We arrived in St. Louis and met up with my mom and sisters, who had flown in on various other flights. Since Kailen and I had arrived first, it would have made the most sense to pick up a few more tests before everyone else arrived, but for whatever silly reason we didn't. Because there were so many of us we had to take my sister Marisa in our rental car while my mom, Sage and Madylan drove together in the other car. We had to come clean to Marisa since we were sure she'd wonder why we simply HAD to stop at a drugstore, of all places, on the way there. She was excited at the prospect of becoming an auntie and made me promise she could be in the bathroom with me when I took the test in the morning. However, southern Illinois is remarkably free of just-off-the-freeway drugstores, and we were too tired from traveling all day to go searching too far from the beaten path, so we never did find one.
The next morning Kailen and I were awake with the adults instead of sleeping in along with the rest of the "kids." Now mind you, I had to wait to pee until we made it to a drugstore, bought tests, got back, and woke up Marisa. I tried not to think about how badly I had to go and told my aunt I had forgotten something at home and asked where the nearest drugstore was. At first she tried to offer me whatever it is I might have needed. "A toothbrush? Tampons? Herpes medicine?" Har har. Just tell us where the drugstore is, lady, and make it snappy, because I doubt you have what I really need and boy oh boy do I have to pee! She finally told us and off we sped to the next town, where we picked up several more regular pee sticks and a digital one, just in case. We had neglected to pay attention to where we were going on the way there and we ended up getting lost on the way back. By this time I was about to explode. But somehow we made it back without any accidents, and I went to wake up Marisa. Oopsie, I didn't realize Marisa was already up by that point and I accidentally woke up Madylan instead. I think she could tell by how I was acting that something was up. I probably wasn't being very smooth, but by this point all I could think about was how badly I needed to pee! I finally found the right sister and off we went into the bathroom. I got to relieve myself at long last, and it was a lucky thing that a few drops even managed to find their way onto the pee stick. At this point, Madylan came pounding on the door demanding to be a part of whatever was going on, since something obviously was. We let her in, quickly filled her in on what we were up to, and the three of us waited together for the result. This time, the line was unmistakeable. Still faint, but much less so, and all three of us could see it. The three of us squealed very quietly so that nobody else would hear us and demand to be part of our little bathroom shenanigans club. We did let Sage in on the secret though, so none of the sisters would feel left out.
Even though I knew that "a line is a line, no matter how faint" and that it was pretty likely that I was, in fact, knocked up at this point, I still wasn't 100% convinced. Most people I know have had to take dozens of pregnancy tests before they felt adequately certain that it wasn't just a fluke, even though false positives are extremely rare. But silly me, I just wasn't going to be convinced unless I saw it in big, bold letters on the digital. Somehow I held out on testing again until the following morning, and this popped up, clear as day:
The great thing about finding out that you're pregnant at a family reunion is that you get to tell the whole family at the same time! Though many people choose to wait until after the first trimester to share the happy news, we knew that our family would be a wonderful source of support no matter what. We got to break the news to my mom that she was going to be a grandmother by actually showing her the digital test. What a great photo op!
Here's the family picture we took later that day:
(From left to right) Front row: sister Sage, cousins Drew, Skylar and McKenzie, Uncle Bill, mom Renee. Middle row: Cousin Kurtis, me, great aunt Vi, cousin Robin holding Reese, sister Madylan, cousin Erin holding Chayse, aunt Sandy. Back row: cousin Mike, Kailen, great uncle Med, Robin's man Howard, cousins Gail and Gary, and sister Marisa.
