When I Knew

We had decided that there was really no reason to wait, we were married, we had an amazing honeymoon in New Zealand, and we were both ready to start our family. I wasn't expecting anything to happen right away, and I wouldn't say we were really "trying" but we were going to let things happen.

There had been a few false alarms, and slight disappointments (though like I said, I really wasn't expecting anything so soon). For a couple months we played the waiting game with Melissa eager to take the test.

Today, we were going to visit Melanie and Tony in Santa Cruz for a pot luck dinner party. On the drive down, Melissa started to feel very tired, and then very sick. By the time we got there, she was burning a pretty good fever and was almost delirious. We ended up making up a bed for her, and getting her as comfortable as possible. I checked in on her a few times and she semi-incoherently talked about how the night light in the room was making her hallucinate.

I remember laying down on the lawn with Melon and Tony and catching up on what had been going on in our lives. They were pressing me to commit to some plans for camp outs this summer, and I was kind of forced to admit that there was the possibility that Melissa could be pregnant this summer, making plans difficult. All this time, I couldn't help but think that this sudden onset sickness she was having was the start.

I can't be sure, I have tried to do the math and count back on the calendar, but I still think that this was the first day that she was actually pregnant, and I was both very worried about my sick and hallucinating wife, and very excited about the prospect of having a baby on the way.

On a side note, apparently the conversation I had with Melon and Tony become valuable insider's information in a betting pool that formed about when Melissa and I would have our first child. An over-under was set, and Melon failed to mention any of the conversation we had that day, which apparently resulted in Tony winning a very nice dinner.