How it all began

I have always wanted to be a mom. The tiny clothes, the big hugs, the enormous responsibility of shepherding a new little life, knowing someone else that was part of me... plus just the sheer domesticity of it. I eat that kind of thing up. I could not wait to start a family. Then, I met Andrew. When we started dating he was still in undergrad and had plans to go to law school. Sadly, this meant waiting (and waiting... and WAITING...) to start our little family until he was out of school and working. Being just a tad on the impatient side, ahem, I had been doing my studying to give us the best opportunity possible for getting pregnant right away. I did the whole charting thing for months in advance so I'd know exactly what patterns to expect. The insurance from his job didn't kick in for three months and we feared pregnancy would be a pre-existing condition so we waited until October and it was go time. When I didn't get a positive test that first month I was really disappointed. I knew it could take several months but I really hoping that we would be able to surprise our families with the news at Christmas. The weekend after Thanksgiving I saw the very faintest possible second line. It didn't even have any color... it was just sort of a colorless indention. I must've taken 30 tests that weekend. Finally I went and got of the expensive fancy tests that just says PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT on it. I dutifully put it away to wait to take it first thing in the morning as the instructions say but ended up not being able to wait past 3 am... I woke Andrew up, still in shock. He mumbled something about "awesome" then started to doze back off. I laid awake the rest of the night thinking "what the f#(* did we just do?, are we even qualified for this?"