What you do when you get there.

So, after I worked myself into a place where I wanted to have kids I started planning.  By luck or cosmic design I started having trouble with my IUD and had to have it removed.  This happened while I was still living in Texas.  I did not want to have any kids while living in Texas, so I started charting my cycles.  Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), or Natural Family Planning (NFP) if you're Catholic, is a way of keeping track of your fertile times by measuring your Basal Body Temperature (BBT) and keeping track of your cervical mucus.  It is not the rhythm method.  It requires patience to get enough data to be able to determine your normal baseline temperature and then you can tell when you ovulate by a temperature jump.  You can tell when you're getting closer to ovulation by the consistency of your mucus.  After a few months you can determine your "safe" time with some accuracy.  Then, when you're ready to conceive you can determine your "optimal" time with some accuracy. XD

So about eight months after the IUD was removed I was living in MO and we decided we were going to start actively trying to get pregnant.  We tried for almost a year -- faithfully charting temps and mucus and cervical height and opening -- before we decided that things were really hectic and we should leave off the active trying (but I still charted).  During this time things with Patricia got really crazy and finally hit their boiling point.  So, she went home in June...and I was pregnant by July.  Coincidence or a symptom of lowered stress levels? I don't know.

Since we weren't actively trying to get pregnant, I wasn't watching what I was doing as closely as I could have.  I was drinking at least a 20oz Mt Dew every day and on July 4th I imbibed. :o  Kevin and I were kind of stressed because we were taking part in a musical and it was taking up a lot of time.  I started getting headaches and began taking advil somewhat regularly.

Then, one day while I was entering my BBT into my electronic chart (what? you don't expect me to do math on a daily basis, do you?) I noticed that I was at 30 days on this cycle -- normally I run short and I'd never yet run to 30 days.  The next morning when I got up to go to the bathroom I peed on a stick.  Now, for those of you who've POAS, you know that there's a wick and you can watch the moisture rising up the wick and toward the reading area -- where the lines appear.  Well, I did my thing and watched the moisture rise.  First the control pink line to let you know that you're doing it right.  Then, as soon as the moisture hit the second line it turned pink.  No waiting three minutes and checking to see if it changed...just pink.

"You have got to be kidding me." Yes, I said this out loud to the test.  As though it were going to change back to white a declare the whole thing a joke.  I stared for a moment.   Then I set the test down, picked it back up and gaped then laid it back down.  I washed my hands and went back to lie down.  I snuggled up to Kevin and could tell that he was awake.

.:Flashback:.

 "Kevin, I need you to come look at something for me."

Now, keep in mind that it's 5:00am.

"What is it?"

"Just come look."

*sigh* and we get out of bed.  We go into the bathroom and I warn him that I have to turn on the lights.

"Oh God that's bright!" *pause* "What did you want me to look at?"

*point* and we eye the parallel pink lines for a minute.  "Let's go lie down," says Kevin.

We lie there in silence, arms wrapped, my head snuzzled into his chest.  Later he would tell me that the thought running through his head was "I'm going to be a daddy.  I'm going to be a daddy. I'm going to be a daddy."

"This is going to change everything, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

And we had no idea how right we were.