I found out I was pregnant shortly after arriving in N. America to visit my family and help my sister with the twins. I was expecting my period to start the day I left and of course it never came. That was a Thursday. Brad thought it was too soon to take a pregnancy test so I promised him I'd wait until the weekend had passed before getting my hopes up.

Both of us were a bit skeptical that I could be pregnant because we'd only started trying a short time earlier. I'd been begging Brad for months to let us start trying prior to my 30th birthday and as an early birthday present, he consented. We both were under the impression that at my age *wink, wink* it should typically take a few months for a couple to get pregnant so we thought there was no harm in trying a bit earlier than we'd planned.

So there I was Monday morning lying in bed in the guest room of my sister knowing that there were two pregnancy tests waiting for me in the bathroom just across the hall. The agreement was that I'd call him Monday afternoon (with the time change, he'd be home from work in the Netherlands) and take the test while we were on the phone together. This was, of course, if my period hadn't started by Monday morning.

And of course it hadn't. So then I was in a difficult position and had to make a decision. It clearly says on the box that the results of this test would be most accurate if I completed the test first thing in the morning. I was worried that if I took it later in the day when I called Brad, it might not work. Then I'd really be wondering since my period is never late.

So I did what any woman in my position would do - I took a pregnancy test ALONE without phoning my husband. What other choice did I have? Boy was I nervous! My hand was shaking the whole time. It seemed like it took forever for the little "pregnant" message to pop up on the screen but as you can see in the photo above, it eventually did. As you can imagine, it was NOT exactly how I'd envisioned finding out I was pregnant with our first child. In hindsight, I could have taken a test before I left, but I didn't really expect to get pregnant so soon after we started trying.

Then, of course, I had to pretend that everything was normal and hang out with my family as if I didn't have any exciting news to share. They all knew that I was waiting until the afternoon to take the test so they didn't suspect a thing. Brad, however, was a different story.

When I called him and took the test again, he suspected right away that I knew since I didn't react to the news the way he thought I would. I'm not sure exactly what he was expecting, but it obviously wasn't the right reaction. Funny thing was, I was just as nervous the second time taking it since I half expected it to be negative. He was more than a little bit disappointed that I took the test "without" him, and at the same time was freaked out trying to absorb the new reality that we were actually pregnant. With all those emotions, it was hard to tell if he was even remotely excited.

Thankfully, Brad's forgiven me and gotten more used to the idea of having a baby. As the weeks pass and my belly gets bigger, I can tell that he's getting more excited. The subsiding nausea has definitely made it a lot easier for both of us to adjust to the changes in our life, but I think Brad's still a little freaked out about the reality of "the one-way street" (as he calls it) that we've embarked on.