She was wearing a green nightgown when she told him.

It was a perfect-Minnesota-summer-Wednesday-night in June. It was 1980.  My father was out with his local league playing a game of softball.  My mother didn’t go.  She had been to the doctor earlier that day.  Softball was the last thing on her mind.  Instead, she went home that evening, slipped on her pale green nightgown, sat quietly on their bed, and waited.

Just after 8:00pm, my dad walked in and my mother called to him,

“Sweetheart…”  A name that had started as a joke and they were never able to shake.  To date they are still sweethearts.

He came up the stairs and stood in the bedroom doorway.
She smiled as she said, “Sweetheart, you’re going to be a daddy.”

A smile that only happens the first time a man hears he is going to be a father crossed his face.  His eyes glittered.  The carpet in the bedroom was white, so he took off his cleats, and ran to her.  He kissed her head, kissed her cheeks and then placed his hands on her invisible belly, imagining the baby – his baby – that was at that very moment hiding just below that pale green nightgown.

He couldn’t wait to meet that little one.
They couldn’t wait to meet me.

—

This is the most romantic story I’ve ever heard.  The sweetness of the summer, the wholesomeness of an evening ballgame, the innocence of the hero.  But most of all, I loved the wisdom of the heroine.

My mom.

She had played that hand so well.  It was a classic.

From the moment I heard it, I knew I wanted a story just like that.

I would secretly discover my pregnancy.
I would keep it quiet the whole day; wouldn’t blurt it out in a text or over Gmail chat.
I would patiently wait for my husband to return from some evening event.
As he walked in the door I would call his name.
I would say he’s going to be a daddy.
I would see that coveted smile.
And I would wear a green nightie.

My mom was a great mother from the start.
And I knew being a great mother began there.  With that story.

—

It was a Monday night in August and the heat was starting to get to me.  I was tired, I was crabby, and all I wanted to do was lay on the couch until it was time to go to bed.  But on that particular Monday night we were supposed to go to a Bachelorette party.  Who has a Bachelorette party on a Monday night, you ask?  ABC.  It was the night Ali was going to choose between Chris and Roberto on the hit reality TV show The Bachelorette.  To be honest, I thought she was too young and foolish to be getting engaged to either one but nevertheless, Michael and I picked up dinner and headed to our friends’ house where we would watch it live in their home-theater room.

After two excruciating hours of “I think Chris could really be my husband,” and “I could see Roberto as my husband,” and “I just hope my husband is here somewhere,” the show finally ended with Ali picking, if you can guess, a husband.  The event was immediately followed by another hour long program called “Ali, please tell us how it felt to find a husband.”

Though I am usually one who likes to stay to the end of the party, or at least til the end of a show, I simply could not do it.  I didn’t know if it was the nauseating faux-love story, or the gorgeous home theater that for some reason didn’t seem to drop below 110 degrees, or the glass of wine that just didn’t taste quite right.  Whatever it was, we bailed early – leaving our friends in shock and leaving us in utter suspense about how “in love”Ali was with her new husband-to-be.  Sort of.

On the way home I had a thought.

What if I was pregnant.  It was possible.  We had been pretty “irresponsible” the past month.

Now, I knew myself pretty well.  Once I got that idea in my head, there was no getting it out.  Since the day we got married, anytime I felt a little under-the-weather, I was convinced I was pregnant.  Cough?  Pregnant.  Leg cramp?  Pregnant.  Gas?  Pregnant.  I would walk around for weeks whispering to Michael – “What if I’m pregnant?”  Google-ing “How do I know if I’m pregnant?”  And calling my formerly pregnant friends, recounting my symptoms to see if they matched – they never did, but I never lost hope.

Despite Michael’s assurance that our protection strategy was sound, I wouldn’t be satisfied until A: My period arrived (and even then I was skeptical because I had heard about those women who kept getting their period and then gave birth in a toilet), or B: I took a pregnancy test.  Unfortunately, the latter was difficult since Michael was opposed to pregnancy tests – he thought they were too expensive. Once we were watching the scene in Knocked Up where Katherine Heigel goes to the pharmacy and buys 50 pregnancy tests and Michael yelled at the TV, “I hope you plan on taking out a second mortgage on your home.”

That night in August I assumed I wasn’t pregnant, as usual, but knew I needed proof in order to get on with my life.  I asked Michael to stop at Walgreens on the way home.  He was hesitant.   Nevertheless, I begged and promised to buy the cheapest test they had – besides, you can’t put a price on sanity.  He agreed.

We walked out of Walgreens that night with a box of two pregnancy tests (with a bonus ovulation stick), a bargain two pack of generic Windex, and six cans of Miller Lite.  Even the late night check out woman judged us.

When we got home Michael settled on the couch, opened a beer, turned on the remainder of the Bachelorette, and pulled out the ovulation stick.  Ever since I had gone off the pill a couple months earlier, he was fascinated by the timing of it all.  I should have known when he stopped calling sex ‘Doing it,’ or ‘The thing,’ or ‘Sexy time – (in a Borat voice),’ and started calling it ‘Seeding’ (as in, “I think it’s time for a seeding.”), that I was in trouble.

Meanwhile, I slipped away into the bathroom to prove to myself I wasn’t pregnant, take some NyQuil, and wake up feeling better in the morning.  I played tetris on my phone while I waited for the stick to dry and after about two minutes, and three levels, I paused the game to check.

Two lines.

Unfortunately when you buy the cheapest pregnancy test, even when it gives you an answer you’re still not sure what the answer is.  I pulled the directions out and apparently TWO lines means “pregnant” in pregnancy-test-language.

I gasped.

Two lines.  Pregnant.

There was a long pause in my head.  Then it was filled with noise.

Did I kill my baby with that glass of white wine?  Aw man, I had just lost five pounds.  Maybe that’s why I had a dream the other night that I peed on the Wii Fit Balance Board and it told me I was pregnant.  Weird that Ali found her husband on the same night I found my baby.  Should I take the second test – I mean, is it worth the eight dollars?  I knew I should have eaten more sushi this weekend.

And finally, Shit.  I don’t have a pale green nightgown.

As I stood in our tiny bathroom, now strangely crowded by the two pink lines, I realized I had a bit of a problem.  My this-is-where good-mothers-begin story was in serious jeopardy. Michael was sitting in the other room.  He wasn’t away at a nighttime activity.  My test-taking wasn’t secret, he knew I was doing it right then.  I couldn’t just run into the bedroom and wait there, that would just look stupid. And plus, I didn’t have the nightgown. My story was going terribly wrong from the start.  Stupid, stupid heroine.

I stood there, my hands on the sink, my gaze set clearly on the woman in the mirror in front of me. I took a deep breath.

Was she really going to be a mom?…

I made up my mind right there.

For the sake of the story, I would lie.
When he asked how the test turned out I would say ‘negative as usual’ and he would never know.  At least not until I got my story figured out.

A moment later I abandoned the stick and entered the living room.  Ali was on the television gushing about starting a family with the man she met three months ago and Michael was still completely engrossed in the ins-and-outs of ovulation – information that was more or less irrelevant now.  I sat nervously on edge of the other couch, pretending to care about Ali and Roberto’s plans to move to San Diego together (and trying not to notice how poorly her dress fit her), when Michael asked:

“How’d the test go?”

I looked at him.  I rehearsed what I was supposed to say in my head, “I’m not pregnant again.”

Before I could get the words out he said, “You’re not pregnant again are you?”  He gave me a nod that said – ‘We both saw that coming, sorry honey.’  … A nod that triggered something in me.  Hey now, I thought, I’m not a nutcase… I was right this time.  I AM pregnant.

“I AM pregnant.”  I said defiantly.  Shoot.  That was not what I was supposed to say.

Michael looked at me.  Shocked.  Then a little hurt with a dash of scolding he replied, “You can’t joke about that.”

“I’m not joking.”  Dammit.  Why did I keep telling the truth?  I was ruining the story for all eternity.

We both stood at the same time.  We both marched into the bathroom.  We both hovered over the bathroom counter and stared at the two pink lines – my hands on my hips, his behind his back.  Michael pointed out that it didn’t say anything – it didn’t say YES, it didn’t say PREGNANT.  I pointed out that’s what happens when you buy the cheap-o tests that come with a free ovulation stick.  Michael was quiet.  The innocent hero grabbed the box and read the instructions.  He peered from around the box to verify the two lines.  He put the box down.  He spoke.

“Holy shit.  That was fast.”

Worst. Story. Ever.

He left the bathroom and walked to the kitchen.  I followed.  He walked through the kitchen and back into the living room.  I followed.  He circled back into the kitchen.  We walked around the house like that for several minutes until we stopped, on opposite sides of the living room, facing each other, and looking at the other like we had never seen them before.  Strangers.

Then I spoke.  A line I had been practicing my whole life.

“You’re going to be a daddy.”

It didn’t sound as sweet as when I heard my mother say it, and it certainly wasn’t as well timed.  But at that moment I thought I saw the glimpse of a new father smile and the faintest glitter in his eye.  That would have to be good enough.

That night we crawled in bed – well, I crawled in, he lay on top of the covers.  We left the bedside lights on and stared at the ceiling.  I felt lost somewhere between the reality of my big event and the rehearsed-reality of Ali and her new love Roberto.  As I drifted off to sleep, the two events mixed together until I wasn’t sure if anything that night had really happened at all.  Michael waited until my breathing was steady and calm then went back into the living room. He drank the rest of his beer, researched the life insurance he would purchase in the morning, contemplated his life as a dad, and at 2am came to bed with the woman who had never looked more beautiful.

—

I know I have many years ahead of wanting to be as good a mother to my babies as my mother was to me.  I know that in many ways, I will fall short.  My stories will lack her grace and wisdom.  They will not have her impeccable timing or the same wardrobe.  But as daughter becomes mother, son becomes dad, we write new stories, our own stories  of becoming great parents.

I am thrilled to say Goal #40: Be Pregnant, is complete.  We will welcome Baby Hall on or around April 14th.  I am also thrilled to say this means we have finished the first trimester and I am hopeful that the vomiting will stop soon and that my creative energy will return. There are many more stories to come.

Finally, to the little plum…  we can’t wait to meet you.