This will be me in a few months...

Maybe I'm insane for saying anything so early, but my pregnancy test came back positive yesterday!

(And no, I don't look like this yet; Jenn and I took this picture at a maternity store using a fake "bump" the day I decided to start trying for kids. What a goofy grin I have on.)

The whole event was not as I imagined it...

First, I was not expecting this to be the month. I don't have any horrible pregnancy symptoms yet, and I kept telling myself it was going to take a while and not to get my hopes up.

So I took the test (do you know how hard it is to aim your pee at a stick and not get it all over your hand? ew.) and killed two minutes before I read it. Hands washed, teeth brushed, Get Fuzzy calendar read... guess I should look at the test. As soon as I spotted that faint little plus sign I freaked out and tossed it onto the counter like it was a poisonous spider. I immediately picked it up and looked again, and proceeded to toss it away. When I could finally hold the damn test, I asked Thom to read it for me.

"What does this say? Is that a plus? Is this for real? I have to talk to Crystal."

Thom barely got a, "It looks like a plus sign to me," out before I started flinging clothes on. I dressed faster than ever before and ran--RAN--to Crystal and Kevin's place. Luckily they were up and one ring on the bell brought the buzzer singing back to me. Before I was even through the threshold, I shoved my pee stick in the poor girl's face and screeched, "What does this say?!"
We determined that the sign was just too faint to reliably start sharing the news (which was my whole intent: get positive evidence and immediately start telling people).

So, back home, where I asked Thom to come to the drugstore with me to pick up a second test. In the fifteen minutes it took to walk to the store, buy the test, return home, and squeeze out my last drops of pee, I contemplated the idea of motherhood.

I didn't have any brilliant flashes, if that's what you're waiting for. I had just spent an insane amount of energy focused on one stupid little plus sign--my brain wasn't exactly in a philosophical mode.

When the test came out positive--"I see a plus, that's definitely a plus!"--we were ecstatic. And confused. And stunned.

"I don't feel pregnant. Shouldn't I feel pregnant?"

"What did you expect? A big belly?"

"No I just don't feel like a mom."

"Well, you've got nine months to work on it."

In spite of some reservation about telling people too soon, I decided this was just too good to wait. We made a round of calls and I tried to feel more pregnant. I felt like a fraud as I was sharing the news, a little voice in the back of my head saying, "You shouldn't be acting all pregnant. What if the test is wrong? Then what will people think?"

Rationally I know that most women must go through some version of this. Unless you have horrible morning sickness or a blood test from a doctor, it's hard to believe you're actually creating life right this minute. It's too huge. It's the biggest thing I've ever tried to do and way beyond my capacity to comprehend.

Still, I'm getting more and more used to the idea. I looked up my progress and the embryo is the size of a sesame seed right now. It's become Our Little Sesame Seed.

The anxiety has already begun--protective maternal instincts and fear that something will go wrong--but I'm trying to not let that rule me. Right now I just want to channel all the love I can muster into this little growing life, and that seems like just what My Little Sesame Seed needs.