Shut Up!

We woke up this morning as if it was any normal Saturday.  On the agenda is yoga, pick up our organic produce basket, studying for me, relaxing for Adam and then a belated girls night out birthday celebration for my 29th birthday.  Adam gets a call from work with distressing news about items not being delivered, and I decide to pee on a stick because I want to know how much "fun" I am going to be able to have on this girls night out.

Since February, every month has been the same routine for us.  We've been planning to start a family for a year now and it's been quite the journey.  Negative test after negative test finally convinced me to start charting my basal body temperature and getting better acquainted with the whole notion of "trying to conceive."  When September rolled around we were under so much stress with school, work and purchasing a new vacation home, we barely had time to celebrate my birthday, let alone focus on TTC.  So we decided September would just be another month and we'd try again in October.  No big deal.

I almost forget to look at the test as I begin to head downstairs to make coffee.  I give a casual glimpse with little to no expectation, and of course, there's the little word staring at me.  PREGNANT.  Just like that.  And of course, I whisper to myself, "Shut up."  The same two words that escaped my mouth when Adam proposed to me on yet another random Saturday almost four years ago.  Apparently, this is how I react to a surprising turn of events.

I take the test down to meet Adam, who is on the phone making calls to different vendors and employees trying to straighten out the mishap at work.  I stand there patiently, clutching the stick, trying to stop saying "shut up, shut up, shut up" in my head because I can barely digest the news.  When Adam finally gets things straightened out he looks frustrated and distracted.  Technically, this would not be the ideal time to say anything.  There should be a tender moment, baked goods, swelling orchestral music--something to mark this significant moment.  But life doesn't always work out that way, so I slide the test across the kitchen island, he takes a look at it, and responds with, "Seriously?"

Me: "That's what it says."
Adam: "Seriously."
Me: "Seriously."
Adam: "This is real?"
Me: "Um, I can't really fake it."
Adam: "Wow."

Despite the way it sounds, we both are overflowing with joy.  It's just we've been through this before, and we lost our first baby 9 weeks in.  It was heartbreaking as every miscarriage is, and after a year of "trying" again, it's hard to believe that we're at this point again.  Every emotion floods you: joy, elation, worry, anticipation, fear, anxiety.  So sometimes all that gets rolled into one simple statement.  Slowly we have to settle into the idea that we're heading down this road again.  And slowly we have to learn to trust God and His answered prayers.

And now I have eight months to prepare myself for a more eloquent reaction to the birth of our child.  Somehow, "Shut up!" just doesn't seem like the best way to respond when they place our baby in my arms.