The Day I Found out I would be a New Mom

It was a few days before my period, and I was searching the internet for “early pregnancy symptoms” and “how early can I take a pregnancy test.” My breasts did seem a little sore, I had a slight headache, and my basal body temp was still high -- so those seemed like good signs. I told myself I had to wait until Halloween morning to take a pregnancy test, which would be five days before my period -- still very early.  

On Halloween eve, we had a massive storm as part of the Hurricane Sandy fallout. Trees were coming down all over town, including the 60-foot pine in our back yard! Most of the houses in our area lost power, and our house was no exception. However, all I could think about was taking a pregnancy test in the morning.

In the middle of the night, my husband and I were startled out of sleep by the sound of chainsaws. The city sent in emergency crews to saw our pine tree that was now lying across the street behind our house blocking traffic. I laid in bed listening to the sounds of the wind, the rain, and the chainsaws, and I kept wondering if I was pregnant or not; I wanted to be a new mom so badly. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning waiting for the hours to tick by until it’s time to open the presents.

When my alarm went off at around 5:30 a.m., I jumped out of bed to take the test. The only problem was that the power was still out! Determined to get my results, I grabbed a flashlight and headed into the bathroom. I took the test and then stared at it waiting for the second line to appear -- which it did fairly quickly! I was both stunned and excited! With flashlight and test strip in hand, I triumphantly headed into the bedroom to wake up my husband and tell him the results. He was still half asleep, grabbing his glasses from the bedside table, and squinting at the test results in the dim light provided by the flashlight. Finally, with a smile, he confirmed the good news of our growing family!

Photo by Viviana Rishe on Unsplash