Life Finds a Way!

Setting: Friday afternoon in the summer, both home early from work, doing odd and end things around the house until I break the silence.
Me: "Honey, can we talk about something for a minute. It's been on my mind for a while."
Honey: "Sure, what is it?"
Me: "Well, I know we've talked in the past about having a second child around this time, but how would you feel waiting another year or two, or possibly just having one. . .?"
Honey: "Honestly, I'm happy right now. If you wanted to have another one now that'd be great, I could wait, or just have our girl. I'm not against having one. But I am content with how things are now." ::smiles at me::
Me: "Phew! It feels good to hear you say that. I'm just not as ready as I thought I'd feel, and after three years I feel like we finally have some normalcy. And it's nice to finally have a plan; I have work aspirations for the first time since teaching, and I'm also happy with where we're at."
::hugs, kisses, smiles, and genuine content ensues, without a clue about what "the Plans" actually have in store for us::

Next scene: Wednesday, 3 am, unable to sleep, and wanting to put something else to rest so I can sleep soundly.

I was sure I wasn't pregnant again. "Maybe it's just a bad cycle coming up," I reasoned. Since my daughter had stopped nursing, my monthly symptoms had gotten progressively worse and always seemed a lot like a baby on the way as opposed to just Mother Nature doing her usual thing. "Just wait to take a test," my husband reassured me that week. "No need to waste a test, it'll be fine." Of course it would be fine, but when I'm as regular as the dawn each day I couldn't shake the "What if's" in my head. I needed to know ASAP. And at this point, I would. Plus I was dying for a Corona, and just wanted some reassurance before I kicked back and squeezed the lime.

I'll never forget the feelings before and after I found out that early Wednesday morning. And, just like with my eldest daughter, I wanted to be the first to find out, on my own. I remember the feeling of worry, questions, and plans already swirling through my head, and the "What am I going to do?" thoughts. When I watched the test turn positive in a record 0.00034 seconds, I had nothing but awe in my head and a huge smile on my face; almost involuntarily, it seemed like. I felt as if I were dreaming. I was laughing, and almost excited, even after that 0.00034 seconds beforehand when I was thinking I would potentially see bad news. There really is something amazing about finding out you're pregnant; in that moment, something just clicks. Of course there will come the worry, frustration, panic-stricken thoughts, and "Oh god I had a six-pack last week!" but motherhood seems to blanket those thoughts, and comfort you when you need it most. Probably so you don't faint.

Me: "Wake up, Hun, I have something to show you."
Honey: "Huh, what?"
Me: "I have something to show you, hurry." (Afraid it was going to disappear faster than a fart in a fan factory)
Honey: "Here I come," sleepwalking to our bathroom.
I show him the fortune-telling pee stick, hoping his exhaustion doesn't mask the reaction I'm yearning for.
Honey: "Wow, babe. . ." ::his best hug ensues::
Me: "I can't believe it! I'm sorry to wake you up but I couldn't sleep and I really didn't think it would be true and I just had to find out. . ."
Honey: "Well this is great babe. And funny because my sister had her baby last night, and I couldn't sleep after the news, and then I was woken up with this news. . ."
Me: "Sorry. . ." (not sorry)
Honey: "It's okay. But let's head back to bed and we can talk more later."

We say our goodnight's and I love you's, briefly aweing at the Universe's alternative plans for us, and my brain, once again, decides to go haywire. Among my first words, which I physically could not help, where things like: "Should we talk about you having a vasectomy?" "I need to e-mail HR in the morning, what if I lose my job?!" "How will our first adjust to a sibling after this long?" "Should we sell the guest bed, or open a storage unit? There's a place down the street." "Do you want to have milk and cookies?" "Will we ever sleep again?" I'd like to say it stopped there, but after my husband kindly, for the millionth time hinted that he needed more than an hour's sleep, I shut my mouth. I can't speak for my thoughts, but I did allow him to get more than an hour that night.

I remember a lot of emotions in the first week, very different from my first pregnancy. I remember my husband actually commending me that particular month because I had taken every one of my contraceptive pills on time. We hadn't done anything differently than we normally do. We had a pretty clear idea of what our "plans" were. As opposed to our very intentional first pregnancy, I was just plain shocked with number two. I walked around the first week almost zombie-like (in part because of those awful first-trimester symptoms), frozen from all of the changes to our Plan I knew were coming. Worse yet, my husband and I didn't get that chance to be alone and talk about it later like I had been promised. Not really being able to tell anyone, already not fitting into my skinny jeans, and unable to unload all of my thoughts, joys, and panics out to my husband really made the first few weeks feel less than angelic.

Flashback - two weeks prior to conversation in opening scene:
My husband and I had this amazing opportunity to travel to Japan, and while traipsing about the local town we headed to a shrine nearby that supplied mass-produced fortunes. We washed our hands, bowed, approached the shrine, and grabbed our tiny, folded up, paper Fate. While we were eagerly awaiting Google to roughly translate our fortune, a Japanese couple noticed our obvious tourism and offered to help. Overall the fortune was a good one, and so I was to keep it. Bad fortunes (or I guess we could call them "Unfortunates," ha!) are to be hanged on the trees surrounding the shrine. The husband who was helping translate got stuck on a word and looked to his wife for help. They both giggled, not at all sure of the precise word. Several seconds later his wife looked up at me and made a gesture of a round belly - becoming pregnant. That was one of the moments I laughed hardest on the trip. That's impossible, is literally what I thought. I had actually been taking the fortune quite seriously up to that point, and after we all had a good laugh I accepted the fact that it really was a general, mass-produced fortune. Oh well, I reasoned. It's like when you open a Chinese fortune cookie and hope for some real wisdom or guidance but, instead, just add the words "in bed" at the end because it's nothing applicable to your life and you might as well get a good laugh out of it.

Once the first several weeks of shock, uncertainty, and awful flatulence passed (quite literally for one of them), I began to experience moments that really started to cement this new path for us, and help me accept and enjoy the adventure to come. One of those moments was our daughter going through my husband's night stand (which is basically a glorified junk drawer), taking out things like old pictures, puzzles, and what seemed to be a million pocket-sized flashlights. I noticed a small white unfolded paper with red Japanese writing on it, and while she pretended to read the words on it (we couldn't even tell you if it was upside down), I jumped from the bed in surprise.

Me: "Justin - do you know what that is?"
Honey: "Yeah, I remember," he replies lovingly but obliviously.
Me: "Do you remember what mine said, what the woman translated on it? She told us I was going to get pregnant. And we did, just a couple weeks later. Heck, it might have even been that night for all we know!"
Needless to say, I was on Amazon about five minutes later looking up everything cherry blossom to decorate the nursery in.

Ending scene:
Eventually, the shock wore off. We realized how truly fortunate we were to be bringing another little person into our home, and a lifelong friend for our daughter. A miracle happened. I used to tell people she was a "surprise," or "unplanned," but someone once said to me: "Well you didn't plan not to do what you did, now did ya?" Valid point, I thought, which is why I usually leave those adjectives out now. But was it really unplanned? I think we've all learned a valuable lesson that we should take Asian fortunates more seriously, but my husband and I are firm believers that, whatever happens, the Universe - and the goings on in that Universe - does not make mistakes. We didn't go to Japan with the intent on bringing back a human souvenir, but here we are. I will end with this Japanese saying:

見ぬが花

It means, "Not seeing is a flower." What has happened outside of our Plan is, indeed, much sweeter and more fantastic than we could have imagined. We didn't see it coming, but it is a flower, nonetheless.

Tags: surprise, unexpected, unplanned, embrace, gift, fortune, fortunate (add/remove)