But What if One Line Is, Like, Really, Really Faint?

Jimmy and I had always had a Five Year Plan. “Five years or five countries,” we’d always say. We decided we’d need five years to grow as a married couple and we insisted on traveling to five (I preferred more) countries before settling down and starting a family.

But, when I was getting persistent migraines and started gaining weight, I decided to sit Jimmy down to discuss going off the pill. Was it okay? Pros and cons?  We know what could happen if I did, but we decided my overall health outweighed the possibility of starting a family earlier than expected. We decided I’d go natural and we’d be extra super careful (cue eye roll).

Truthfully, being off the pill was great. I wasn’t getting headaches like I used to, my body starting feeling normal again.

However, when January 23rd rolled around (and I was a week late) I decided to test. Negative. So, we decided to just chalk it up to being my body’s imbalance in hormones and move on.

During the beginning of February, I was at Target (of course) and passed the family planning isle. Remembering I was still late, and on like day 45 (I kid you not) of my current cycle, I decided to pick up a few more pregnancy tests. Not because I thought I was, but to ease my (and Jimmy’s) growing paranoia.

Then I forgot about them.

I came across the tests again on February 10^th , when Jimmy was already at work, and thought, “Why not? There’s no way I am, but we’ll just check.”

The blood drained quickly out of my cheeks as I sat and stared at two, tiny, faint pink lines. So, I did what anyone else would…I took another. Again, two really faint lines.

At this point, I called upon my good friend Dr. Google to search “What if there are two lines on a pregnancy test, but one line is super faint?” To which my search was answered consistently by: “If there are two lines, you are pregnant.”

I didn’t tell Jimmy about this, and instead took a trip to Walgreens after work. I picked out every brand of pregnancy test: plus signs, digital, name brand, off brand, etc.

Throughout the week of Valentine’s day, I was peeing on sticks in the morning, afternoon and night time to see if I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. All six of those times were positive…

And each time I would see those two lines (or plus signs or digital Pregnant indicators), I’d think how nothing else in this world mattered now. And then my second thought would be how everything mattered now.

We wanted so many other things to be in place before we brought a tiny blessing into this world; the mature thing (right?). We wanted time to be just us. We wanted to see so much more of the world. We wanted to have more money saved than we did. We wanted to own more properties. We wanted Sadie (our 7 month old boxer/pitbull/retriever mix puppy) to be better trained to handle an infant…I mean this girl jumps, barks and steals whole sticks of butter off the kitchen counters (a chick after my own heart). We wanted things to be set up perfectly…

But life isn’t about “We wanted…we wanted…we wanted.” God has other plans. He laughed at our “five year plan” and knew the journey He’d already laid out for Jimmy and me before we had been born ourselves. He said, “You’re ready” when I doubted those six pregnancy tests. He said, “I’ve equipped you,” when I felt inadequate. When I looked at my 24-year-old self and thought, “I’m not ready for this.” God said, “Stop relying on yourself. You’re not meant to carry this alone.” And that’s true. The Lord would be with me ever step of the way. And so would the husband He gave me.

Cue the morning after Valentine’s Day. Jimmy and I decided to do a Valentine’s day-date Saturday the 15^th, since, let’s face it….doing things on a Friday after working all week is hard.

He was gone allllll morning working on my gift, which gave me plenty of time to wrap his (originally some concert tickets, but now included a stuffed animal and a onsie saying Guess What?) and sit alone amongst my crippling nerves and fear about how he’d react when opening his gift.

When he finally came home, my insides were a wreck of anticipation and anxiety. I could NOT carry this news alone anymore. When he opened his card, out came the concert tickets.

“Ah man, these are great, I can’t wait! You did good, babe.” Then he got up and started walking away.

My voice waivered as I said, “Wait, there’s still the bag…”

“What, is it a t-shirt for the concert or something?” Jimmy laughed as he pulled out the stuffed animal wolf cub. He gave me a side eye, voice cracking as he said, “Why is there a wolf….?”

“Keep going…” I said. As you might have guessed, I was already trying to hide that I was a balling puddle of tears on the floor.

Then Jimmy held it up…a tiny onsie with Guess What? written on the front. “Are you serious?” He was also crying now, and I could only nod my head, attempting to salvage what little make up I still had on my face. He pulled me into the biggest hug ever, as my mascara tears rained down on his shirt.

“How long have you known? I mean, are you sure?” he said.

I proceeded to take my abundance of tests out of their hiding spot and pour all of them out on the bed.

We laughed together, comparing how the ones later in the week are much darker than those at the beginning of the week.

“Wow, yeah, you’re pregnant.” Jimmy laughed. Then he pulled me in again, kissed my forehead and said, “I am so excited. I’m in shock, like I really can’t believe it. But I’m so excited.”

Then those silly little doubts, those “we wanted” statements, my feelings of inadequacy kind of evaporated. Jimmy does that…he’s got the power to get me out of my own head and remind me of the joys and blessings in everyday. Where my mind went to doubts, his mind goes to joys and our inevitable success. And that is why he is my complement. The husband God manufactured for me.

And instead of Pinterest-ing ideas for our summer trip to Europe, I began saving ideas for nurseries.