It happened one afternoon

I was a few days late. I looked up the app on my phone to confirm. Could it be? A voice niggled at the back of my head. I counted again. Seven days late. I had never been that late. Hmm! I voiced my concern to Saathi. He dismissed it. Infertility does that to you. The morning passed with me trying to ignore the voice in my head. By 4:00 PM, it was burning a hole in my head. Leaving the kids sleeping upstairs and Saathi watching television, I slipped out to the nearby $ store and came back home with one test.

I waited with bated breath, convincing myself I had been foolish to run out. It happened then. A ghost of a line appeared. I stared at it almost wishing it away, I set the timer on my phone for an additional two minutes and sat down. My legs trembled. “Could it be?”

After eight years of infertility, adopting twins and getting on with life with nary a thought to my fertility, this happens? I shook my head as if that will set my world right again. The timer went off and there it was. Two pink lines.

I had visualized this moment in the past in so many different ways. The reality was so different. The dominant emotion was disbelief. I walked to the balcony rails and summoned Saathi from where he was. He appeared irritated to be disturbed. He caught the note in my tone and walked up. His face was emotionless. He walked up to the test and looked at it for a while. “It is something” were the only words he uttered. He agreed we needed to test again and with that put the whole thing behind him.

I set the test inside a closet where the kids would not play and got ready for dinner with family. A part of my mind spun with the consequences of what I had seen. My world as I had known it changed forever.

The next morning, I had Saathi buy a digital test.

Same thing. This time Saathi and I exchanged a quick hug and went our ways. Twin toddlers and my mom at home did not make for a very emotional experience of what could easily be termed the moment of our lives.

Denial.

The next few days rolled past. We were in denial. I scouted for and found a local Ob Gyn. They ran blood work and confirmed my hCg levels were doubling. I started spotting. I was convinced it was an ectopic.

Another week rolled past. I still pretended nothing had changed. Each bathroom trip had me convinced the end was here.

Then we went for the scan. 6 weeks 6 days. One sac. One embryo. One beating heart at 133 bpm.

This was for real.

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