How I got the news

How do you imagine you'd learn you're pregnant?

I had always envisioned this scenario: some 6 weeks after my last period, in the privacy of my bathroom, with a store bought test. I figured the anxiety of having to wait those 3 minutes, exchanging looks with my husband and speaking aloud the what if's that would cross my mind, and then maybe celebrating the positive result with a hug and a kiss.

Needless to say it didn't happen that way.

I hadn't had the chance to miss the missing period when I started feeling odd, on Christmas day last year. It was like a bubble on my left side which I hoped it would just go. It didn't go but got worse and when I couldn't move any longer (including deep breath or filling my stomach), I gave up and let my husband take me (haul me) to the emergency room. Given the fact it was cold - we were in Minnesota and last time I had experienced a similar symptom it was a mega kidney infection in the making, it just made sense.

Like every other time I went to the ER I got tested for a slew of conditions including pregnancy, and unlike every other time they made us wait like for two hours in those dirty seats, looking either at an aquarium with monster sized fish or a TV with awful programming.

It seemed forever but they finally called my name and we were taken to one examination room, where two people in a row asked exactly the same questions I had been asked already. One senior female nurse asked me repeatedly if I thought I might be pregnant and if there were chances of it, and how would I take it, and then broke the news.

I was stunned. I didn't celebrate, I didn't kiss or hug. I didn't do or say anything, maybe said, oh.

Then, they started trying to find out what was causing that bubble thing. They ran a lot of tests I don't remember, except for the sonogram to see if the embyro was nested in the right place. It was hardly noticeable, just two weeks old, and yes, it was in the right place. We didn't have to wait the 3 minutes to see if the test gave positive, but those seconds searching for the tiny spot were stressful. Later that night I was discharged with a "come back in 24 hours if you don't get well", which I did because I didn't get well. There, 36 hours after the first sonogram, I had a second one done... the difference was remarkable.

Amazing.

I'll never know what was wrong with me. After a painkiller's effect wore off I got a little woozy (as been told), threw up and got well. Miraculously.

A belated Christmas present if I ever got one.