Say What?!

After my emergence from pregnancy massage class I felt like a born-again virgin. I had a new relationship with my womanhood. Knowing what my body could do, what my cycle was all about, and exposure to alternative birth options in the area all contributed to this wonderful new me.

In the meantime, Corey graduated from massage school, I started massage school and we moved to the next town over, Sedona. Me starting massage school and us living in our own apartment only bolstered my new found rejuvenation. My depression was just a shadow now, and life looked sunny. In the months following pregnancy massage I decided that I wanted to not renew my birth control when it ran out. I didn't like the idea of putting synthetic hormones into my body. A funny thing happened when we moved that May, I lost my birth control. It got packed and never resurfaced, so I ended my regime of pill popping earlier than expected.

I thought back to pregnancy massage. My body would take around three months to fully get the artificial hormones out of my body and for my cycle to reset itself to its own rhythm. I also remembered what I learned about imprinting during the pregnancy massage class. My body would decided which eggs to release two months before conception. In a movie about the unborn child called, "Cellular Echoes", the narrator tells about how a woman's body reacts to what she is exposed to to determine which eggs she will release up two months before conceiving a child.

Corey and I were not exactly trying, but we were not using protection for a week after my moon was over that May. I was fully confident that I would not conceive because of my recent usage of birth control. On midsummer, 2008, without knowing it, my body decided otherwise.

Two weeks later, my parents visited from Illinois. On the day they were to arrive, I woke up not feeling great. I dismissed it as a bug because even though I felt nauseous, I didn't actually loose my breakfast. Then, Corey and I went to the grocery store. Even though I had been up for only an hour, I felt like my hands and feet were made of lead and my body was completely drained of energy. I said, "I'm sorry, babe, but I can't walk through the store. I need to sit down. I'll wait for you on the bench by the door."

After that, I didn't notice anything unusual about my body, so I didn't think anything of it.

Two days later, we were celebrating Corey's 25th birthday at the Grand Canyon. On the way home, mom, dad, Corey and I were discussing a book we had picked up during massage school. We had a copy of it in the car, and we took turns flipping through it and talking about it. As Corey was telling my parents about part of it, I was reading to myself a chapter I had yet to go through. One of the practices for this chapter was to get in touch with the Diety that you acknowledge.

The part in the back of the chapter that described this exercise went something like this, "Imagine yourself standing before the Deity that you call yours. Now, ask your Deity a question that you don't feel like you have an answer to, something personal. Now, imagine yourself as the Deity being asked the question. What is your response?"

I read the first line and asked the question in my head, "When is a good time to have a baby?" Before I could even finish the question, I knew. I had an answer. It came to me almost as an internal smile. The answer was this,"Anytime is a good time to have a baby." I knew the anwer was right on the money. Remember, I didn't know I was pregnant.

On the last day of my parents' vacation, we went to the four diamond resort on the outskirts of Sedona, secluded from the rest of the town by an alcove of red rocks. All four of us enjoyed an enormous champagne/mimosa brunch. I was fully enjoying the mimosas (again, not knowing I was pregnant) and I paid dearly for it afterwards. I spent ten minutes in the bathroom after we left just sitting there on the toilet, wishing something would happen. My body felt entirely out of whack. Something was up.

I missed my period the next week, but still didn't think anything of it. I had just terminated my birth control usage and chalked it up to my body readjusting to not having hormone regulation. On Monday, the following week, I broke down and bought a pregnancy test at Walgreens on the way home from massage school. Corey was making fried chicken tenders, and homemade mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner that night. I went to the bathroom and peed. Three minutes later, I came and stood in the doorway facing the kitchen and said, "Oh, $hit."

"What?" Corey asked. He knew I had peed on the stick, but I guess in three minutes he had forgotten.

"We're having a baby," I said, my voice laden with disappointment. My entire world changed in an instant. I was soooo not ready to give up coffee, wine, drinking in general, my freedom, my body....Even though I wasn't scared, I was not prepared for pregnancy this soon, I didn't care what my Deity said. I wanted it to be on my terms.

I guess the universe, God, and my baby had other plans for my body and my freedom.

Corey and I ate our fried chicken in near silence. We were both pondering the implications of having a baby so unexpectedly. Our trepidation would be relieved the next day, but we had to actually get through our evening and digest this news before that could happen. The one thing we did decide on, however, was to not tell anyone yet.