So a few weeks ago, the agency had the first of it’s home-study preparation classes, and we weren’t there.

Back in September, when we were meeting with Dr. Awesome for our diagnostic follow-up, he said that in his 25 years of fertility practice, he has seen one couple with our situation conceive naturally.

Well, apparently now there are two. Internet, I am 11 weeks pregnant.

A couple months ago, after a hard day, I sent Matt to the store for a bottle of wine and a pregnancy test. I had been eyeing my calendar for a week, wondering where my period was, but wasn’t really too concerned since I couldn’t really remember when my last one was. I stopped caring when I found out it was useless. We also never went back on birth control, since there’s no point when you’re infertile! Right?!

Anyway, Matt came home and poured two glasses of wine and I ran downstairs real quick, yelling, “let me just go take this negative pregnancy test!” I peed on the stick for the umpteenth time. But this time, it turned positive. Immediately. I started shaking, walked slowly upstairs, looked Matt in the eye, and said, “It’s never been positive before.” I started crying because I was so mad. It was obviously a false positive.  We sat at dinner in silence and Matt drank both glasses of wine.

The next morning I used the other test. Still positive. I went to the doctor to confirm. The nurse looked at my quizzically. Yes, I said, I was just here for an adoption physical. Today I am here for a pregnancy test. “At least now you don’t have to pay all that money for someone else’s baby!” the nurse said.

I wish I was making this stuff up, people.

I insisted on the blood test, because obviously they did the urine test wrong. Or you know what? I probably just have an hCG-secreting tumor taking up residence in my uterus. One that causes nausea, fatigue, extreme hunger, and tight waistbands. Right?

The doctor told me to go home, make an appointment with an OB and start taking prenatal vitamins (go ahead and judge me now for not taking them three months prior to conception – I’ll wait). I dutifully followed instructions and went about the next several weeks waiting for my period.

The next month of waiting for that OB appointment was brutal. I will admit we were not immediately excited. It’s hard to be excited about something you don’t really believe is true. If this had happened a year ago, maybe even 4 months ago, I would have experienced your typical pregnancy excitement. But we had already gone so far down a different road, we found it difficult to turn around and head in a totally different direction. We had so much time and energy invested in adoption. We were preparing ourselves for being an adoptive, and possibly transracial family.

The first few weeks after discovering the news were like this: We had been stranded on an island for a year and a half. At first, it was awful, as we dealt with sunburn, loneliness, and mango shortages. But then, we slowly learned to adapt to our new life, realizing we would be there for a while. We made peace with our island and grew to love mangos. We even discovered that a short swim away were other people, stranded on other islands. We would occasionally visit their islands, spend the afternoon commiserating about sunburns and mangos, but at the end of the day, we had to go back to our own islands.

Then one day, out of the blue, a ship sails by to take us back to the mainland. To rescue us. But only us. We are of course ecstatic. But once we get to the mainland, we discover it is a place without wine, sushi, deli meat, soft cheese, or motorcycle rides. We miss our friends. And the undeniable truth is that we are different people than we were before getting stranded. Our time on the island has changed us. It was our home. Being on the mainland doesn’t just erase the pain, loneliness, and grief we felt while there.

Once we saw that tiny heartbeat on the ultrasound, once we realized everything was OK and my stomach started popping, it sunk in. We let ourselves be as happy as we wanted to be for the past year and a half. We are totally ecstatic to be pregnant. What has happened is nothing short of a God-sent miracle. It amazes us every day. We are totally baffled why God choose to send us this gift, and our gratitude runs deep. But there are many days when I feel like other people would have been better served by this miracle. We were doing just fine on the island. We had finally come to a place where we had let go of what we wanted and were accepting what we thought God wanted for our lives. And it felt really good. And my excitement now is no greater than if we had gotten a call about a potential birth family match.

So where does that leave this blog? I am not really sure. Making this a place to post baby bump photos and whine about pregnancy symptoms seems sort of weird. And truthfully, our feelings about adoption haven’t changed. We actually felt a bit of loss when we had to temporarily close the adoption door. I was sad when the agency sent back our packet of paperwork. We still hope to adopt one day. We consider the process to be “on hold”.

So I guess just stay tuned while we wait for our little Halloween baby.