formerly private…

[formerly private entry] I tested positive on a home pregnancy test yesterday. Kevin and I have been trying to get me pregnant for a couple of months now, after much discussion. We didn't come to this easily -- for a long time, Kevin didn't want children, and there was a heart-wrenching time when we broke up, in part over that. We were miserable apart; after a year of that, we couldn't stand it anymore. Then there was a time, after we got back together, when I thought I could be okay with not having kids. My life was very full already, with love and work and family and work and friends and oh yes, more work. We had more than a few friends who weren't planning on having kids, and were clearly perfectly happy with that. Not having kids seemed like an option. But then, in the summer of 2005, I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids, which they told me meant that my fertility might be severely impacted. It would likely be harder to get pregnant, and more likely that I'd miscarry once pregnant. And I don't know if it was that, or heading towards thirty-five, or just because that next academic year was a very hard year, but I was truly miserable from roughly August 2005 to April 2006. Crying all the time, having a very tough time coping with life. Barely managing to get everything done that I had to get done. Spending time with local friends, but mostly in a superficial way -- not really talking to my close friends, near and far. The only person I talked to was Kevin. And a lot of what we talked about was kids. By April, I'd decided that it was important to me to raise a child. I didn't even understand why -- still don't, really. All I knew was that even though other people could clearly live rich, full lives without having children, for me, personally, it felt like there was a huge hole in my life, something incredibly important missing. I started thinking about adopting, and we talked about whether that would mean breaking up, a thought that terrified both of us. In the course of those conversations, somewhere around July, Kevin agreed to try to have a kid. He chose to focus on all the good parts he hoped would come, instead of his persistent fears of how it could all go wrong. For which I love him even more than I ever have. It's not easy, taking a different path in life, for the sake of love. Doing it without resentment, with generosity and grace and even joy -- that requires someone special. I don't know how I got so lucky, finding him. Right now, it's way too early to tell anything. We need to test again in a few days, see whether it might have been a false positive. And then go see the family gynecologist in Roswell, GA, to get a definitive test done. And after that, there's the waiting to see whether I miscarry (with an average miscarriage rate of somwhere between 20-60%, with the combination of my age and the fibroids), and waiting to find out about Downs. So it's going to be a long haul before we know anything for certain. But still. I'm pregnant. In a family way, a delicate condition. With child. Expecting. And even if right now we're trying not to expect anything, not to get our hopes up, it's impossible not to hope a little. To start expecting, and planning, and worrying. That's where we are right, now caught somewhere between fear and hope, between worry and joy. I told Kevin last night that I'd come up with a name for the baby. Crystal Starfall Elfstone. What do you think? Catchy, isn't it?