Welcome to Adulthood

I’m not exactly sure of the day or even if there was a particular moment in time when I realized, holy smoking balls, I’m an adult. The topic of ‘adultness’ has been weighing on my mind since the fall of this year and I feel compelled to share my thoughts. As a belated apology for my first sentence, forgive me for my foul mouth and sometimes offensive tone. Recognizing you have reached adulthood comes with few exciting realizations, so I try to get my kicks out of being able to say what I please; hence the new blog.

Since I am a teacher, my internal calendar begins in September rather than January. Please note this now because when I speak (and write) I will reference “the beginning of the year” and do
not mean January. Let’s see if you have been paying attention…

At the beginning of the year, I was very excited and hopeful. I made it through my first year of teaching and didn’t end up in jail for assault and would be starting my second year in 5th grade. Things were running very smoothly, as Mike and I had bought our first house just a few months before. Having to pay a mortgage is very liberating, but also scares the snot out of me. This was the first sign of my pending introduction to adulthood.

The second sign follows: since my husband is no spring chicken, we decided in August that I would get off my birth control pill. We had been married two years at the time and felt like it was a good time to “see what happens”. Dr. Godspodnetic, my ob-gyn, told me in June that I could stop taking the pills but that it would take months, even a year before I would probably get pregnant. With this in mind, we (I mean more Mike than me) decided we would just go with the flow and see what happens. I (not we) secretly mapped out conception theories and strategically planned to. the. day. of when we could have sex and what the due date for our baby would be. I had a
specific time period between the last few weeks in September and first week in October to “make it happen” because I wanted my kid to be born at the end of June when I could be home. In the back of my mind, I knew that I was reaching for the stars because the professional told me it would take months. Stay with me…I stopped the pill August 1st. We had sex October 4th.
I conceived. The last week in October, 3 pregnancy tests and one trip to the doctor confirmed that yes, Mike’s sperm and my ovaries were freaking awesome. I was pregnant.

I’m one of the weird people who is very in tuned with their body. I knew the day after my period was supposed to start that I was pregnant. Since I was 15, I have been like clockwork, almost to the exact hour. I waited two days before I took the pregnancy tests even though I knew very strongly what the result would already be. Even though we were scared out of our panties with the news, we could not have been any happier. Let me be very clear, I can write a book about the characteristics of 8-10 year olds. I couldn’t write one sentence about babies. Apparently, the protocol for telling baby news is after you are 3 months along. I waited 3 days because I’m also one of the weird people who can NOT keep a secret. After my family doctor’s office confirmed the
pregnancy, we blabbed. We were on cloud eight hundred and nine. I think my parents and grandparents were more excited about hearing they were going to be grandparents (and great-grandparents) than they would be about winning the Mega Millions. I hounded my ob-gyn’s office and they squeezed me in to do an ultrasound. We were deaf, blind, and dumb to anything outside of the happy bubble we had created.

Lastly, the third sign that I was entering adulthood…

Mike and I go in to meet with Dr. Godspodnetic before he conducts the ultrasound. I have a list of twenty three questions, ranging from ‘what kind of diet should I be on’ to ‘is it safe to use my acne medicine’. Let’s just say, the meeting wasn’t brief. I explained to him that a few days before I had cramping and brown spotting. He assured me that it was very common. We go into the ultrasound room and the nurse asks me to pee in a cup. I was so dang excited, I peed. But forgot the cup on the back of the toilet. Since everything had been sunshine and rainbows, we laughed it
off and she assured me I could try again later. I get awkwardly on the table and we wait. Let’s be honest ladies, there is nothing more awkward than not being able to figure out the robe they make you wear so your kukah is hanging out for all God’s children to see. I mean really, where the hell is it supposed to tie and close? The side? The back? Geez. Put an instructional poster up in the bathroom, medical people. Anyway, Dr. Godspodnetic comes in and begins the ultrasound. Mike and I have already studied the “What Your Baby Looks Like At…” poster like our lives depended on it so we knew what we were looking for on the overhead screen. As soon as the stick went in and my glorious uterus pops up on the screen for the world to see, we knew. There was nothing but static and grayness. Dr. Godspodnetic says “I’m sorry” and our bubble burst in that same room that I thought 3 minutes before couldn’t get any more awkward. I was wrong.

Of course we listened to him drone on and on about it being a fluke and that I probably started miscarrying a few days before and was still in the process. He wanted me to pee in a cup again to see what it said so I go in the bathroom and try. Not a drop. I’m sitting on the toilet, sobbing like my perfect ice cream cone had fallen into the dirt and couldn’t freaking pee. I got another STERILE cup and drank like 10 cups of water. Still nothing. At this point, I was hysterical. I was crying and laughing like a crazy person because even in that one horrific moment, all I could do was laugh at myself for not being able to squeeze a drop out. The past few weeks, I had been going like 10 times a day. I bet I stayed in that bathroom 30 minutes until finally I got a little. It was tested and came back a “weak positive” which meant I was still “emptying”. We left, I barely made it through a 5 second phone call to my mama, and we came home to bed.

I thought having a mortgage and a “real” job and car payments made me an adult. I thought that taking the steps to plan a family and have them turn out so successfully, so quickly, made me a
responsible adult. I can promise you that the greatest sign I’ve had that let me know I’ve entered adulthood is going through something like what Mike and I went through the few weeks following that appointment, what we are still going through now, months later. If I thought I was an adult before that, God slapped me in the forehead with that situation and it has changed me drastically, into an adult.

I swear this isn’t a depressing blog and I’m not going to go on and on about me miscarrying each time I write. I know there are thousands and thousands of women who have had this happen and
were probably much further along than I was. But it still happened to us and I feel like it is a situation that has inspired me enough to share our little adventures that have happened since November. Stick with me. It gets lighter. Welcome to my new world of adulthood.