But I’m not going to be a Discovery or TLC special! I still caught it relatively quick, but reading online “what to expect” type sites make me feel like I’m already behind!

My symptoms: Missed period, extreme nausea, sore breasts, soooo tired, frequent urination, strange food cravings and aversions, and strange abdominal pains.

Sure, sure, hindsight is 20/20 and it all makes sense. But I had very rational explanations for each symptom!

First: I was due for my menstral cycle middle/late March. But I traveled right around when I thought I was going to begin- went to Seattle. When I travel, it’s often thrown my cycle out of wack, so I didn’t think much about it.

When I returned, I felt PMS’y and the breast soreness and abdominal pains fit in perfectly with that.

It’s the beginning of allergy season, which means I’m a bit congested. I keep waking up at night with my mouth open and extremely dry. So I’ve been thirsty and drinking a lot more water. Which would lead to frequent urination naturally.

The tiredness and nausea I billed to getting sick. I started feeling run down and didn’t eat for a few days. Not too abnormal. It was when it lasted for almost two weeks that I finally got suspicious enough to decide to call a doctor. But before going, I figured I should take a test just to have that knowledge walking into an appointment.

The other reason I didn’t think anything was up was because we’ve been trying for so long. Over three years ago, Josh and I looked at each other and said, “What are we waiting for again?”. We had a house, we both had stable jobs we liked and we felt mature enough to handle it.

I knew it wouldn’t happen right away- the women in my family aren’t overly fertile, but after about a year I decided to try for real. We got out calendars- tracked fertile periods. I stopped eating soy. I read… a lot. Another year and I realize I’ll probably have to start talking with a fertility specialist and need to get checked. But I put it off and put it off because part of me is afraid of what they’ll say.

Holidays ‘08 we decided to stop trying. We wanted to work on our relationship and get settled and in a year or so we’d pick it back up.

4 months later… tada!

The first test that was positive showed two little pink lines immediately. But I put it down, figuring it hadn’t had time to brew and walked away for 3 minutes. Upon return to the two pink lines still staring at me, I brought the stick to Josh, who knew I was testing just to be sure I wasn’t and handed it to him.

He stared at it for a few seconds and at first I thought he understood the results and was disappointed.

After too-long-for-a-smart-guy he literally jumped back in his seat as if I had handed him an exposed electrical wire, but with Wiley Coyote timing, and shouted, “Are you pregnant!?” (The interobang is my favorite punctuation mark).

I cried. He jumped up and down. I disbelieved.

The next day, I took another test- this on the most expensive one at the drug store. I wanted to be sure. Forget the extra test in the box I had bought the day before, I wanted to eliminate variables.

No pink lines on this one- just the word “pregnant” staring up at me in confirmation.

I think one of my first thoughts was, “I’m glad I’m not sick!” All of the symptoms fell into place. I started reading online and found that even my nightly vivid dreams may be attributed to this new growth in my uterus.

My little, dependant growth for which every thought now revolves. My own little parasite.