Walmart, naked in the bathroom, and Olive Garden...

It took us 4 months to get pregnant with Kara.  We planned our lives around that highlighted, starred, glittered, and puff painted weeks on our calendar where the Greek goddess Aphrodite was going to bless me with fertility.  We were that crazy couple who tried 3 times a day minimum during my tracked and mapped out fertile time each month, and of course tried a couple of times on the non fertile days for good measure just in case.  I kept my rump up in the air afterwards to assist gravity in getting those swimmers to their final destination. I drank bottled Walmart water in hopes of having twins.  I only socialized with women who were baby making machines in hopes that their fertility juju would transfer over to me.  I taped a cutout of my face on the TV over the face of the laboring woman on A Baby Story because that should be me, and visualization has a proven success rate. 

By the 3^rd month, trying wasn’t so often wasn’t so fun anymore.  “You ready to go do it?”  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Will we be done before Survivor is on?”

Every month we tried to get pregnant I spent a small fortune on pregnancy tests because even though First Response claims they’re “The ONLY test that tells you 5 days before”, I would take one 6 days before my expected period in hopes that my HCG levels would be just high enough to show me that little pink line a day early.   And then I would take another 6 hours later just in case my HCG numbers decided to suddenly spike. And then another 6 hours later just in case.

Every month that coveted little pink line didn’t appear on that plastic stick, I cried.

The 4^th month of trying came and went.  I took a pregnancy test 6 days before.  No pink line.  I took one 5 days before.  No pink line.  I took one 3 days before.  No pink line.  I resigned myself to the fact that we’d just have to try again next month.  I cried.

My Mom flew into O’Hare in Chicago around 11:30p.m. on the night of April 25^th, 2008.  It was her first time ever coming out to visit us in Iowa since we’d moved there in October 2005 so it was long overdue.  We lived just over 3 hours away from O’Hare so Dean and I drove up there knowing that we wouldn’t be pulling back into our driveway until well after 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.  But we’d done the drive to Chicago no less than a dozen times by that point, we knew every toll on I-80 by heart, and knew the spots cops liked to sit and radar cars. 

Dean and I had a great time talking and laughing on the way up there, and I was beyond excited when I saw my Mom standing on the curb at pickup at the airport just before midnight.  We hugged her, loaded up her suitcase, she took shotgun, and I drove so that I could sit up front and chat it up with her, and Dean, bless his heart, was asleep in the back seat within a half hour because he was so exhausted from a long week at school.  

About an hour into our drive I started to feel this weird dull yet sharp pain in my lower right quadrant by my pelvic floor that I couldn’t ignore.  I’d never felt anything like it before so I was perplexed and a tinge worried about what it could be. It would happen intermittently, but I never said anything out loud to my mom about it because I didn’t want her worrying.  Every time the pain would happen I would not hear a word my Mom was saying because I was so inner-focused on trying to decipher what it could be. 

“Oh my goodness, I probably have a tumor.  Yup, it’s a tumor.  Nothing else would randomly cause pain like that.  Or maybe I have a gas bubble.  Yes, that’s it, a gas bubble.  No, nothing’s coming out so it’s not that.  Ok, I have a collapsed ovary that’s fallen to my pelvic floor and is trying to burrow its’ way out of my body.  Pfffft, stupid ovary.  A lot of good it’s doing me so far, won’t even release 1 stupid egg for me so I can get pregnant.  Go ahead, burrow your way out, I don’t need you anyways.  Ok, no, I do need you.  I’m sorry ovary.  You’ll release an egg next month.  Just give me 1 egg.  An egg?  Wait!  AN EGG!!!!   I’ve read about women having round ligament pain just after the egg implants in their uterus!!  Oh my goodness, maybe that’s what I’m having, round ligament pain!  Maybe I am pregnant!!!!!!!!!!”

Once that thought popped into my head, it completely dominated my thoughts, and my answers to anything my Mom had to say or ask consisted of, “Mmmhmmm.  Yup.  I know.  Really?”  I was in my own pregnancy thoughts dominated world, and if it would have been just Dean and I in the car we would have pulled off to the first gas station we saw and bought a pregnancy test and taken it right then and there in the aisle.  But I had to play it cool and get home first of all, and then find an excuse to go to the store without my Mom the next morning.

I convinced myself that I was pregnant for the rest of the ride home.  That was the only logical explanation for this pain I’d never experienced before.

When I finally pulled into our driveway at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, I levitated up the stairs to our back door, willed it open with my positive thoughts, gave Mom a quick tour around our townhouse, and then we all went to our rooms to go to bed.  The millisecond I shut our bedroom door behind a sleepy Dean, I pounced on him excitedly to tell him what I’d been experiencing and thinking on the drive home while he was sleeping, and of course he was just as excited as I was. We said our prayers, went to bed hopeful, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The next morning we were up by 9 a.m. even though we’d slept less than 5 hours that night.  We went into my Mom’s room trying to play it cool, and chit chatted with her for a little bit.  I told her that we had to run to the store to grab some milk, and for her to just take it easy at the house because we’d be back in 10 minutes.  She protested saying that she could come with, but I managed to convince her to just stay in bed because surely she was still tired.  Normally I wouldn’t have cared if she would have come with, but trying to buy a pregnancy test without her noticing might have been a little difficult.  Absolutely no one in the world knew we were trying to get pregnant.  Nope, sorry Mom, you’re staying home.

Dean and I drove over to Walmart, which was practically in our backyard, raced one another to the pregnancy tests, snatched up a box, and then hurriedly made it to a checkout lane.  One minute later we were $15 dollars poorer, I had a box of 3 pregnancy tests clutched in my fist, and we stood there looking at one another.

I couldn’t take the pregnancy test at home because I was going to cry if it was negative, and I was going to cry if it was positive.  I have a very obvious I’ve-been-crying face because my eyes get insanely red and swell up, and my Mom would ask why I’ve been crying. 

I had to take it at Walmart in the bathroom.

Dean gave me a hug and told me he loved me, and I did the same to him.  I was more nervous to take this test because if it was negative then I needed to figure out what in the world this strange pain was I was having.  I was nervous for it to be negative, but I was also nervous for it to be positive.  So I left Dean standing there outside the woman’s bathroom at the front of Walmart, walked in the bathroom and picked a stall in the middle, closed the door behind me, and opened the box of tests.  Ok, this was going to work.  This was going to be the day.

I took the test, put the cap back on it, and then laid it level on top of the toilet paper dispenser so that it could work its’ magic uninterrupted for the 2 minutes that the box recommended.  I got myself decent and put together and then sat back down on the toilet seat and prayed with my whole heart for at least the 2 minutes that the test ran its’ course, never once opening my eyes until my pleading yet fervent ‘amen’ was said in my head.

Ok, I was nervous but also ready to look.

I saw two lines.  There were two lines!  HOLY CRAP, THERE WERE TWO PINK LINES ON THE SCREEN!!!!! I’d never seen 2 lines before!! Hot diggity dog!!! I immediately started shaking and crying tears of disbelief and joy and relief and excitement.  I snatched up the test, grabbed my purse, and busted out of that stall as fast as I could.  There was a woman washing her hands at the sink and I blew right past her, and I’m sure she thought I was disgusting for not washing my hands before leaving.  Forget you, woman! Newly pregnant women don’t have to wash their hands, sucka!!! 

Dean was standing right outside of the bathroom, and I was crying so hard that all I could do was shake my head in a ‘yes’ motion as I fell into his embrace.  However, Dean in his ever-so-compassionate mindset thought that I was crying so hard and saying ‘yes, it came back negative’ so he just held me and stroked my hair.  “Oh honey, I’m sorry. It’ll be ok.  We’ll eventually get pregnant.”  As soon as he said that I realized that he misinterpreted my head nod and tears. I pulled back to look at him while still sobbing and managed to blubber out the words, “No, we’re pregnant!”  His eyes got huge and his smile lit up the store and he exclaimed, “Honey, you can’t do that to me!” and he started laughing.  “Are you really pregnant?!??  The test is positive???” and I started to laugh while still crying and nodded my head yes and he picked me up with his enormous hug.  I pulled out the test to show him and we were laughing and crying like two giddy little school girls at a sleepover.  I don’t know how long we just stood there and hugged and laughed and exclaimed “I can’t believe it!” over and over, but we eventually made our way over to the double doors to exit, and I still remember everyone at all the checkout stands staring at us with looks of confusion at the girl walking by who was laughing and bawling and her husband with his arm around her that couldn’t stop smiling and laughing.

We went out to our car, said a prayer of thanks together, laughed some more, I kept on crying, and then we took a few pictures with our handy little pocket camera for memories’ sake.  Since I was still crying and the waterworks were flowing, I eventually got my composure under control and we sat there long enough for the redness in my eyes to go away somewhat and we headed back home with no milk to go see my Mom.   

Apparently I didn’t look like I had been crying because she didn’t ask what was the matter.  Win-win!

The next day was my Mom’s birthday, and Dean and I decided that she would be the first one we told, and we would just wrap up the test and give it to her for her birthday.  We went to church, came home, and sat down on the couch together and gave her her present.  She of course started crying which made me start crying and then it was a happy birthday crying fest in the Sheldon household.  She said that was the best birthday present she’d ever gotten.  True that, Mom!  Then we called all of our other family member’s to tell them and they were excited for us, too.  Dean and I were on cloud 9 all the time thinking about our little peanut roasting away in my belly.

See? It’s not all “Crap, my baby’s daddy ain’t gonna be happy I’m knocked up again” pregnancy tests that are taken in a Walmart bathroom.  Sometimes normal hysterical crying people find out they’re pregnant there, too.

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It took us 3 months to get pregnant with Leah.  We got pregnant just 2 weeks after we moved from our teensy slummin’ it townhouse in Sumner to our beautiful view of Lake Tapps townhouse in Bonney Lake.  I probably didn’t get pregnant in Sumner because my ovaries were afraid to release an egg for fear that it would fall out of me and a rat would climb down through the hole in the ceiling in the kitchen and eat it.

I told myself I was going to have some self control this time and not spend a ton on pregnancy tests to take every time a bird chirped or the wind blew.  And I must say, I did ok with my self control.

I also told myself that I was going to surprise Dean this time in some cutesy way and not immediately go and bawl my eyes out with joy to Dean.  Uh huh, riiiiiight.

Thursday, February 4^th, 2010.  Dean was home from work for lunch and he was in the kitchen feeding our little 13 month old Kara, and his Mom was over at our house for some reason that I can’t remember.  I decided I was going to go up to our bathroom in our room and take a shower because I needed one badly.  Let’s be real, there are some days as a mom that you really should shower but it just doesn’t happen.  There may be some days as a mom where your hair is so greasy that it looks wet but it’s not.  There may be some days as a mom where you are fine with wearing the same outfit for the 3^rd day in a row, same underwear included, you’ll just make sure that you don’t see anyone who’s seen you in the outfit in the past 2 days. There may be some days as a mom where your husband sits next to you and while breathing through his mouth says in a loving way, “Umm, honey, I can watch Kara if you want to go shower.”  Message received.

So I headed upstairs, hopped in the shower, scrubbed the baby food out of my hair, the dried snot off my arms, and cranked that streaming shower to boiling hot to singe off any other food/bodily fluids that were on me that I didn’t know about.  I was clean and it felt oh so good to be clean. 

While I was in the shower I thought, “Hmmm, ok chelle, it’s 3 days before you should be starting your period.  You haven’t taken a pregnancy test yet because you don’t have a good track record with taking them 5 days before.  Should you take one today to see?  Yes? No?  Yes!!!!”  For some reason I had a little inkling that I might be pregnant, and it wasn’t just a wishful thinking inkling. 

So I hurriedly rinsed off and hopped out of the shower, gave myself a quick 3 second pat down with a towel, and then grabbed the only pregnancy test that we had under the sink.  I took the test, put the cap back on, set it on the counter, and all of a sudden I got really nervous.  I walked my naked-as-the-day-I-was-born self out into our bedroom, looked at the clock so I would know when 2 minutes was up, and then I said a little naked prayer that it would come back positive.  After I prayed I just sat on our bed waiting.  I waited an extra minute just for good measure, and then I walked my little birthday suit self back in there to look. 

Two lines!!!!  There were two little pink lines!!!!!  Shoot dang I am getting good at this getting pregnant business!!  I immediately got all verklempt, I threw on my dirty pants that I had been wearing for 3 days because they were the closest thing to me, and then I threw on my dirty shirt, sans bra.  I quickly whispered to my Mom, who had already passed on almost a year before, that I was pregnant because Dean and I had said that my Mom would always be the first to know when we were pregnant since she was the first to know when we were pregnant with Kara plus she’s my Mom!  Since Dean’s Mom was downstairs she would pretty much find out at the same time as he found out because heaven forbid that I keep a secret to myself and actually surprise Dean other than crying and shoving a pregnancy test in his face.  So I guess technically my Mom knew before Dean even knew.  Whoops!

So cry I did, from joy, of course, and I took the stairs down 2 at a time and went bawling into the kitchen with the pregnancy test in hand, and Dean was so incredibly excited when he saw what I was holding, and we did our ‘we’re pregnant so let’s hug and laugh and let chelle cry because she’s so excited’ routine.  Dean’s Mom came out of the bathroom where she had been cleaning it (Can I just interject a sidenote? Yes, I can, it’s my blog. I love when people clean my house just because. It doesn’t happen very often, but there is no better way to show me love than to scrub a toilet or mop my floor because you want to.  Heck, I don’t even care if you do it because you think I’m gross and the week old orange juice spill on my kitchen floor is annoying you every time you step on it and your shoe makes that sticky “ffffrrrrrrrt” sound.  Cleaning anything for me is you speaking my love language and I always appreciate it.  Hence why I remember that Dean’s Mom was cleaning our bathroom when I walked downstairs.) and said “Did I hear that you are pregnant?!!”  and we told her yes and she gave us each a big hug.

And of course I had to immediately run to the store to buy another box of 3 tests so that I could take another one just to be positive because this wasn’t the “first pee of the morning” like the box recommends.  I chugged my weight in water between my house, the store, and back to my house to make sure I’d have enough to go, and sure enough the second test screamed back that I was definitely pregnant.  Annnnnnd I may have taken another the next day just to be extra sure.  We were so excited to be having our second little baby!! 

So it just goes to show that you’re more likely to have a positive pregnancy test if you take it while you’re naked.

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It only took us 2 months to get pregnant with Baby Boy Sheldon.  The first month my fertile time was just after Thanksgiving so I don’t even remember if we tried because we were in such a tryptophan induced coma for several days after Thanksgiving dinner.  I remember something about Black Friday, leftovers, and a leprechaun.  So who knows, maybe it only took us 1 month to get pregnant with him.  We weren’t as Nazi-ish with “do it 3 times per day for a week” like we were with Kara, heck, we didn’t have time for that nonsense.  Our second month of trying fell right over Christmastime and we all know that stress levels go up around the holidays, we’re all busy busy busy, I was trying to keep my kids from opening the presents under the tree 80 times per day, and I was stressing over how much money we spent on presents.

But as stressful as the holidays can be, Christmas is still my absolute favorite time of year because of the meaning behind it, and also because of how happy it makes my kids.  Kara was really starting to get into it, Leah was terrified of Santa Claus, and they both nakified the lower half of the tree every day from taking off each ornament and bringing it over to me to tell me how pretty it is or to ask me what it was.  It melted my heart every time, and of course Dean and I wised up and put all the unbreakable ones on the lower half and all the breakable ones up top.  Only 1 ornament was killed by the hand of Leah.      

So baby making time came and went, and then the post-holiday busyness just barged its’ way right in, too.  I was due to start my period on Sunday, January 8^th, 2012 but it didn’t happen, and miraculously I hadn’t taken 1 pregnancy test yet that month.  Dean was so busy with work and seminary and our girls and family in town, and I was so busy with the girls and family in town and trying to keep our house from being condemned because it can get that level of disastrous if I don’t stay on top of cleaning every day.  But on Saturday, January 7^th, a day before my expected period was due, I knew.  My body was having the exact same round ligament pain that it’d had with Kara just on the lower left side of my pelvic floor and I just felt different, pregnant different. 

I still wanted to take a pregnancy test to be 100% sure before I surprised Dean so I was going to wait until Monday to go buy a test, but then stupidity got in the way.  Dean and I got into a stupid disagreement over something ridiculous on Sunday evening, and I, in my logical womanly mind, wasn’t ready to let it go completely just yet.  And I certainly wasn’t going to go buy a pregnancy test, take it, have it be positive like I already knew it would be, and then be one of those wenches who chucks it at her husband and yells, “THERE! LIKE YOU EVEN CARE ANYWAYS!” Of course I knew he cared. If you know my husband then you know he’s the biggest softie in the whole world, and he absolutely lives for me and our children and would have 500 kids if I was game for it. I just wanted there to be no annoyances or contention between us before I took a test, and I wanted there to only be positive memories associated with finding out we were pregnant again. 

So I finally pulled my head out of my butt on Monday evening and completely smoothed things over with him, but I didn’t make it to the store by myself to buy a test until Tuesday evening so I opted to wait until Wednesday morning to take it with my recommended first pee of the day. 

Wednesday morning came, Dean went and taught seminary at 6 a.m., he came home and then we got the girls ready, Dean went to work, and then Leah and I dropped Kara off at preschool.  I was practically seeing the color yellow from how badly I had to go and how long I had been holding it all morning, so I plucked Leah out of the van, ran inside the house, strapped her in her highchair and dumped a box of snacks on her tray, then bounded to the bathroom in our room, grabbing our digital camera off the kitchen counter en route. 

I took the test, set it on the counter, and immediately turned on our video camera and switched it to video mode and pushed record.  I zoomed in on the result screen and watched as the liquid made its’ way across the screen from left to right and within the next 2 seconds a bright bright pinkish maroon line showed up on the left hand side.  Ok, 1 line down, 1 to go.  Then about 30 seconds later another line showed up, much more faint than the other one. 

Two lines again, baby!  I own those pregnancy tests!  I stopped recording, and grabbed the instructions on the box and it said that the line on the left will tell you if you’re definitely pregnant, and by golly, I definitely was pregnant by how bright it was.  None of the other tests I had ever taken with my girls showed up with a line that prominent.  I was an HCG making fiend!  I was so excited that I started tearing up and crying, and I will admit that I stopped myself from calling Dean to tell him, but I knew I only had until the end of the day before I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. 

I wanted to surprise him in some sort of way, and I’d always had this cute little idea in my mind of making a music video with footage of the girls to a song that we love and having them hold a sign at the end telling their daddy that they were both going to be big sisters.  Buuuuuuut that didn’t happen.  That’d take too much time and I would blurt it out to him before I even shot the first scene of it.  But I knew that I wanted to do something cute for him to tell him so I decided that I was going to write him a poem because he likes to write poetry and he likes reading poems that I write so there I had it. 

I wrote him a little poem while he was at work, and then told him I was starving when he got home and that Olive Garden sounded really good.  We don’t go out to eat a lot at all so when I suggest that we do he’s all over it and will never say no. 

We had to go to Olive Garden for my poem to work.  I handed him an envelope with the poem in it, and he read it while Leah was trying to climb on the table and Kara was trying to drink a boat of alfredo sauce.  The look of surprise on his face was priceless and he was so excited and touched that I’d told him like this.  And yes, I cried with joy when he was all done reading it.

For your reading pleasure, here’s the poem that I wrote for him:  

Christmas at Olive Garden?

Christmas Day 2011,

It was a busy day,

Presents, family, candy galore,

We were spoiled we surely can say.

We came home that afternoon,

And started to put Christmas away,

But soon we were done with that,

And went and took a roll in the hay.

You gave me another present that night,

In fact you gave me 200 million little guys.

Those little swimmers are pretty competitive,

And all strive for one common prize.

Well one of them was mighty,

It swam faster than the rest.

It saw a little egg,

And it knew it had to be the best.

It whipped and choked those other swimmers

With its’ mighty tail.

It knew it had to get there first,

And it knew it could not fail.

When all its’ competition was behind it,

And it finally reached the egg,

It took a little breather,

Then it had to run its’ final leg.

It pushed and nudged and squirmed

On that egg to get inside,

SUCCESS! OH YES! IT DID IT!

Now those merged 2 cells started to divide.

So you gave me a Christmas present,

Far better than the rest.

You’re going to be a daddy again

Parents of 3! That’s going to be the best!

I love you very much,

The past 8 years have been beyond great,

Now that you know my big news,

Will you please pass me a pasta plate?

I only have a couple of days

Before I start to feel like crap,

I need to eat all the things I love now

Before I feel like puking and only want to nap.

But now back on a serious note

And all joking is aside,

As I write this and I think of you,

All I feel is overwhelming love and pride.

Pride that you’re our children’s daddy,

And for the remarkable husband that you are.

Pride that around September 17, 2012

You’ll hold our 3^rd perfect little star.

Dean and I were meant to be parents together.  We were meant to have Kara, Leah, and Baby Boy in our home and for us to specifically be THEIR parents.  We can provide them with what they need and want and it is our privilege to do so. 

Maybe next time I get pregnant I’ll find out in an airplane bathroom….