#4. It Isn't As Simple As Peeing on a Stick

False positives on pregnancy tests are extremely rare, so I suppose I should have trusted my positive pregnancy test. I might have, if I hadn't taken two negative pregnancy tests already. The tests that work "up to X days" before your missed period just didn't cut it and that rosy plus sign never appeared. How was I supposed to believe the one out of three that yielded the most exciting results? I wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant that easily!

Given that I wasn't sure I could trust the third (or fourth) pregnancy test, I assumed the next step was to schedule an appointment that week with the OB. I was surprised and disappointed to find out that many OBs won't see you right away for a suspected pregnancy--they scheduled me for a "pregnancy confirmation" appointment three weeks after I'd gotten a plus sign on the pee stick.

I wasn't sure I could wait that long. I was desperate for a medical professional to tell me I truly was pregnant. What if, despite all the evidence that I was, indeed, pregnant, I'd made a mistake? I was terrified by the potential disappointment--and embarrassment. I knew I couldn't cope with deflating my family's dreams of grandchildren or my students' joy about my pregnancy! So I told Adam I didn't want to tell anyone about the pregnancy until we knew "for sure."

It's only in retrospect that I realize how damaged my whole perspective on life was. I was still counting on failure--my failure to conceive, or my failure to know we had conceived, or, worst of all, my failure to sustain a pregnancy.

My refusal to joyfully accept the reality of my early pregnancy robbed me of a special moment in my life I can never get back. But I can learn something from it.

I don't want to raise a child crippled by the possibility of failure and disappointment. So I'm going to have to learn to accept that good things can, do, and will happen to me. And I'm going to have to accept that sometimes I'll make mistakes or have truly tragic things happen to me. Good and bad are parts of life. They only become problematic when I become so preoccupied with the future I can't pay attention to today.

But at least I know I wasn't alone in my struggle to excitedly accept my pregnancy.

When I did go in for a pregnancy confirmation appointment with my OB, the nurse asked if I'd taken a positive pregnancy test. "Yes," I said, "Two."

Her response? "Why doesn't anyone ever believe the first one?"