The Phone Call

Here is a synopsis of our conversation, keeping in mind that they *knew* I was planning to take a home pregnancy test, but not until a few days later. Not until right before the blood test, in fact:

Me: “Hi, have I caught you at a bad time?”

Her: (gracious as always) “No, this is fine. We’re just sitting here at the restaurant having dinner with our family.”

Me: “Oh, family?” (trying to play coy) “Who all is there?”

Her: “My father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister and brothers-in-law, etc.”

Me: “And it’s your in-laws anniversary?”

Her: “Yes” (probably wondering why I think it’s any of my business)

Me: “So, what sort of anniversary presents did you get them?”

Her: “Well, they’re adults, so we just bought flowers and are having a nice dinner.”

Me: “Weee-eee-llllll, would you like a nice gift to give them?”

Her: (sight pause) “What do you mean?”

Me: “Are you sitting down?”

Her: “Yes” (at this point, I could tell she knew something was up, but was either too afraid, or too hopeful, to put it in words)

Me: “I took a home test ……” pause

Her: “No!”

Me: “YES! It was positive!”

Her: “Oh my gosh! Are you serious?!?!”

And at that exact moment, in the perfect timing that is my life, our cell phone connection started breaking up!

She called me back a few minutes later and filled me in on what happened next, which was touching, and funny, and wonderful. She was trying desperately to hang on to the cell phone connection, so she got up from the table, without a word of explanation to anyone, and ran out in the parking lot, hoping for a clearer signal. She said hearing the news completely took her breath away, and her husband saw this. He thought she was choking, and ran after her! So there the two of them were in the parking lot, jumping up and down, crying, laughing, and trying to get me back on the phone. I would have given a million dollars to have witnessed this personally, and to have seen how excited and happy they were. When she called me back, she was ecstatic, and kept saying, “Are you sure???” I told her as sure as we could be, with two positive home tests.

It was hands down, the happiest, most gratifying phone call I have ever made in my life. I felt like the Publisher’s Clearing House Prize Patrol guy, who people are always thrilled to see. It also felt a little voyueristic, honing in on their happiness in this way for myself, but I was simply thrilled to hear the excitement in their voices, and was so excited myself for what was happening for all of us.

Apparently they went back into the restaurant to make the announcement to the entire family, and it turned into quite the celebration. She called me the next day to tell me how thrilled everyone was, and even hearing it second hand made me happy.

Anyway, a few days passed and it was time for our “official” blood test, which confirmed I was indeed pregnant. Thank goodness, my biggest fear had become that all the home tests (Because yeah, you know I took another one the next day) were defective and the lab would tell me I wasn’t actually pregnant.

I got to make another wonderful call to tell my IM the good news. “Are you sitting down?” became our kind of trademark question. At this point, we knew we had to wait about two weeks before the first ultrasound, which would let us know whether one, or both, of the embryos had implanted. My initial beta hcg was a 633, which indicated a good, strong pregnancy, but didn’t necessarily mean twins. The higher the number, sometimes, the more likely it is a multiple pregnancy. Or not. It’s really a crapshoot. The numbers game, which is played a lot by excited new moms and excited new surrogates in IVF pregnancies, can be pretty vague, but it was still fun to wonder which it would be. I think, deep down, we were all hoping for twins. That week was my birthday, I found out I was pregnant ……. Really, how much better could things be??