November 2. 2014. Greensboro.
Greensboro is a small town in North Carolina named after General Nathanael Greene who led the American forces at the battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781. We moved there in August 2011.
We went to our community garden to check on our plants as previous night was the first frosting night of the year. It was our first year of gardening. That community garden was free for everyone. The owner even divided the land into small plots so that everyone has their own bed. Those plots were not very big. May be 10 feet by 4 feet? But it was big enough to produce sufficient for our family of two. Our foliage was plentiful to distribute among friends and neighbors.
It was a chilly evening. No one was there except us. We forgot our flashlight. It was dark. One of the street lights were illuminating our vegetable bed. All of our plants were gone from the frosting. We plucked some of the vegetables, mostly beans, that were still edible. We looked into our friends’ plot. Everything was gone. “Next year we will be careful to get everything before frosting” we thought. On our way home I was not feeling well. The empty stomach was causing the nausea, I ignored. When we were close to our home it was unbearable for me. I was six days late to my period. That was …… not typical for me. Huh! I am always a 28 days cycle person. “I am six days late” I looked at my husband. With a confused look, he took few seconds before asking me “do you want to buy a testing kit?” “I don’t know! I am not sure” I was more confused than he was! Also terrified.
Few minutes later, we found ourselves in a departmental store looking for pregnancy testing kit. I was looking for household goods more than the pregnancy kit though! It was a $20-$30 shopping from the store. My nausea hit me again as soon as our car started to move. “Ohh! It’s the empty stomach and the motion sickness causing the nausea” I told myself. I KNOW why despite of being six days late on period, I didn’t want to think about anything else. However I was feeling terrible!
We have recently moved to our new apartment in August. I loved our new place. It was much better than the place we were previously staying in. I was organizing and decorating our apartment by adding up new things with my personal touch. As soon as I entered inside, I was feeling much better. It was warm. It was cozy and welcoming. Moreover, it was clean and organized. Anyone would have loved to come back to a place like that after a long day. I had a glass of cold water and it was all better for me. My heart ached “I knew it; this can’t be happened”.
“Shall we do the test now or you want to wait till morning” my husband broke into my thoughts. My heart began to race faster. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t want to do the test at all. “Let’s do it now; you don’t look good and you are never late…..” he paused for a while, “other than once” he murmured. My heart was racing faster than it was a minute back. We read the instructions together. Carefully. Let’s do it! There were two kits in one box. We unwrapped one of them. My hands were shaking.
I didn’t know what I was expecting. The instruction manual said, there need to be two lines and the wait time shouldn’t be more than a minute. We collected my pee in a cup, dipped the stick into it and placed it on the bathroom floor, the flattest surface to place a stick that was soaked into a cup of pee. I was still sitting on the toilet. I was too nervous to get up. I was not thinking anything. Deep in my mind, I was hoping for two lines. Deep in my mind I was terrified than ever. The first line appeared almost immediately. The second line too. The two lines together made a plus sign. “A Plus Sign indicates it’s positive”, was written in the instruction manual. I was pregnant. The sperm met the egg. They made the embryo. Will they be able to make the heart beat? Will they be able to make the body formed? Will they be able to survive long enough to make it into a full term baby? I looked at my husband who was looking at the stick in teary eyes. I was more terrified than happy. I knew he was too.
In 2012 we lost our first child at the thirteenth weeks of pregnancy. It took us 2.5 years to get pregnant again. The trauma of loosing the first pregnancy made a fear in my mind “what if it happens again!”
From this moment, life has begun is a song by Shania Twain, written by Lange Robert John and Lange Eilleen Regina