[NOTE: parts of this post appeared on my personal non-baby blog. For those who read both, it may sound familiar!]
Yes, it technically was an accident.
Accidental Father and I have been married for almost 6 years, and we're both in our early 30s. Although we knew that we didnt have all the time in the world (especially since we have some family history--his side--suggesting that waiting until we were much older might be risky), we felt pretty good about stalling on the whole kid thing for a while. Truthfully, we'd never really reached a conclusion on the "kids or no kids" question. Before we were married, we both wanted several, but as time went on, we grew more and more ambivalent. Our major hangups? (a) kids are disruptive, and we enjoy our life of travel and pseudo-luxury, (b) Accidental Father travels a LOT (as you know) and that would make me essentially a working single mom for about 50% of my life. About nine months ago I started to think about my age... and about how long it takes to have a couple of kids, and I felt like we should decide one way or the other fairly soon. We actually scheduled a date one night in November to talk about it seriously. The conversation yielded a confession from Accidental Father that he still really DID want kids, but didnt want anything to jeopardize our marriage--and he feared that I would grow to resent him because he would be gone so often for work. I remember we were at dinner and I started to cry--in public (something I forbid myself to do). This was the first time in years that I'd heard him say that he really did want children. And, I started to cry because it was the first time I felt like it was OK to tell him that I was pretty sure that I did, too. At that time, we agreed that we wouldnt actively pursue it, but we'd "see what happened."
I suppose we should have known it would happen eventually. We were taking precautions, but I havent been on BCPs in about 3 years (migraines). And so, about two months ago we noticed that something was wrong. I am usually pretty careful about keeping track of what my body is doing, but somehow I missed the signs. I thought I had the FLU until I realized that I'd also had had PMS for about a month.
After stalling for a bit and waiting for my monthly visitor to arrive led to more and more stress, we finally bought a couple of tests. We tried to wait a few more days, but once the test was in the house, it was too much.
When we took the first set of tests, I confessed to Accidental Father that I wasn't sure what I wanted them to say. He sort of freaked out, saying that he thought I was nuts... that this was bad timing... that we didnt want to deal with a baby right now. The 2 minutes they took to process seemed to last forever. And when we did go in to look, they were inconclusive. They looked NOTHING like the pictures on the box. We had one dark line and one faint line. DAMMIT!!
I went out and bought another test the next day--at 20 bucks a pop this was getting ridiculous-- and we tried again. This time, I bought one with a digital readout. It didnt even take 2 minutes to process. By the time I finished washing my hands, I saw the results.
I went into the bedroom to wait with Accidental Father anway. I was SO NERVOUS about his reaction. I came back out and said, "Pregnant." I didnt know what else to say... the look on his face said so much... he was clearly not happy about this.
"So," I said, "What are you thinking?"
"I dont know," he replied. "I'm thinking lots of things, not all bad, I guess. I think I need some time for this to sink in before we talk about it."
We didnt really speak to each other for about 3 days. I did call my mom, though; I needed support and it was too early to tell anyone else. I went out and bought a book and some vitamins. I waited for Accidental Father to come around.
Around day 5, he came to me and said that he was ready to talk. He told me that at first he was not only shocked, but scared and even a little upset because of the timing ["What about our summer vacation? What about Europe next summer?"]. But, as the conversation went on, I realized that he was trying to tell me that he'd changed his thinking since that first set of thoughts. He told me that he loved me--more than anything--and that he really did want this with me. He said that he couldnt stop thinking about what it would be like to be a Father, and that even though this wasnt the best timing, it was happening now. And we'd better learn to be happy about it.
I laughed at him. I thought that I'd be the one telling him these things.
Over the next few weeks we slowly worked our way up to longer and longer conversations about our situation. We talked about how important it is to make sure that our marriage is as strong as possible before the baby comes--babies cause tremendous stress and we want to be insulated against that. We also talked about how much work we would have to do to get ready for a baby! We dont even have a ROOM for a kid yet in this house (more on this later)!
So, we're preparing psychologically, emotionally, and pragmatically. I dont know that we'll actually ever feel
ready but at least we have a while to figure this all out!
