In the beginning....

Today was a day of unbelievable emotions.  I must have emptied out the pregnancy test shelves at the stores by now.  (My girlfriend, Vanessa, told me that the pregnancy tests at the dollar stores were just as good as the ones in the drug stores.  So I became so good at going to the dollar store, pretending I needed a dollar worth of canned goods and then wiping out the pregnancy kit shelf!)  I missed my period over a week and I was eager to take another test.  Todd, who didn't want me to feel the sense of disappointment yet again, was hesitant but told me to go ahead, still half asleep at 5 in the morning.  

I couldn't believe it.  There was no mistaking it.  The surge of emotions was just overwhelming.  I came out of the bathroom crying and shaking.  He was in complete shock.  To my amusement, he said, "Go back!  Take another one!"  The second test was just as clear.  I looked at these simple tests now sitting on my bathroom counter and looked at it bewilderingly.  How could something so easy have been so difficult for us for the past year?  So many times I'd stare at the stick, trying to see it from various angles, just to see if I could read a different result from different lightening - when this whole time, it was as easy as night and day.

The night before, we had a terrible argument.  I was asking why he wouldn't change his bad habits and how he would ever set an example for our children if he wasn't willing to change for the better.  Out of frustration, he exclaimed that it was pointless to talk about children we didn't even have.  All of a sudden that morning, his comment hit him very hard and he just broke down.  He already felt like he failed our child by neglecting its existence.  I never saw him break down like that but loved him more.  

That morning, we both changed for the better.  We knew we had to help each other and there was no room for us to be at each other's throats.  All of a sudden, we felt like parents for the first time.