By Jeana Lee Tahnk
I love hearing those adorable stories about the super inventive ways
in which women tell their husbands they are pregnant. You know, the ones
in which someone cooks an entire meal of "baby" items such as baby back
ribs, baby carrots and baby pearl onions. Or those that involve
intricate presents or cakes or scavenger hunts. So creative and
thoughtful. The way I told my husband was ... actually nothing like
that.
There was such an element of surprise to each pregnancy (even though
we tried for all three) that my first reaction was to rush into
whichever room he was in and just blurt it out. There were no coy hints,
no handcrafted notes and definitely no baby carrots.
I found out I was pregnant with my third child on New Year's Eve. We
had been trying for a few months and it had become a routine to wait,
wait, test and wait. You know how it is when you're in "trying" mode -
you're either waiting to try or waiting to see if what you tried worked.
Very early that morning, I walked to the bathroom with pregnancy test
stick in hand, thinking it probably would be negative, but of course
hoping it wasn't. When that very faint positive line showed up, I
couldn't believe my eyes. My first instinct was to run into the bedroom
and say, "It's positive!"
Never mind that it was 6:30 in the morning and my husband was asleep.
His, "Wha ... huh?" reaction was definitely warranted, but a few more
shakes of the stick in his face and my, "It's positive!" exclamations
definitely aroused him from his slumber.
We shared hugs, laughs, tears and then of course, flashes of reality: Whoa, we're going to have THREE kids. It was a great way to end the year and an even greater way to begin a new one.
So even though I didn't plan out something elaborate - or anything at
all, for that matter - I will always remember that moment with all
three pregnancies, seeing that line on the stick and rushing in to break
the news. In those moments, nothing else mattered but my husband and
me, and the beautiful family we were creating.