May 10, 2005 was a very, very big day for me. It was the day, exactly ten years ago, that I became a mom. I’ve written about that day so many times, but it never gets old. It’s a day in my life, in our lives, that began a whole new journey for us. To go from just a high school student to all of a sudden having the responsibility of another life was a very pivotal and emotional time in my life. Sure, it wasn’t an overnight thing, I knew right away that I was pregnant when every home pregnancy test I took came up positive. I knew right then and there that my life was changing.
Since then, we have added two more children to our family. Just writing that out is hard to believe! Man, so much has happened!
It took us a long time to conceive Gavin, our second. We knew we wanted to have another child, so we thought that getting pregnant would be easy. Month after month, test after test, and everything was coming up with a BFN (aka: Big Fat Negative). I can’t imagine now, looking back at how long it took us to finally conceive, just how many tests we purchased and used. Hundreds? I was an obsessive tester, testing as early as what I calculated to be 10 DPO (days past ovulation, funny how I still remember all of the lingo and abbreviations!).
Even with all of those tests, I remember the positives.
As soon as you sit that test down on the edge of the sink, your mind starts going crazy. You’re anxious, you’re nervous, you’re excited, you’re worried. You start pacing, you obsessively start watching the seconds tick by. Two minutes is a VERY long time to wait. I would often cover the test with a piece of toilet paper to avoid the temptation to look early.
Seeing that first glimpse of a positive, after five years of trying, the entire world just stops. I’m serious. You want to cry, but nothing happens. You want to scream and nothing comes out. You blink and it’s still there. It’s in that moment that everything syncs back up and you start crying.
Seeing that first positive EVER, with Brenden, was the exact same way. There’s was more fear, though, being only 17.
With Gavin there was just a huge feeling of relief immediately followed by worry.
With Haley, our third, it was all shock. Her and Gavin are only 12.5 months apart, so we conceived not too long after Gavin was born. I was DEFINITELY not expecting that – not after having it take FIVE years to conceive previously! What?!
So this Mother’s Day, which is also Brenden’s 10th birthday, I’m easily overcome with emotion. Ten years ago, I became a mom. We also celebrate that little boy on the same day with his birthday – how special of a day this is! I might have been a scared 17 year old then, but I do not regret a thing about my life choices. I wouldn’t have become the mother that I am today. I wouldn’t have this special boy (or my other children even) in my life. Thank you Brenden, for letting me be your momma!
When we were trying to conceive, Clearblue home pregnancy tests were my top choice for my testing needs. The digital pregnancy test was my favorite, with no second-guessing of “Is that a line?!”, it clearly tells you “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant” right on the screen. I trusted them many times during our journey, and if we ever venture down that path again, you’ll find me at the store with a cart full of Clearblue!
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.