Confirmation!!!

Bill and I started trying at the end of August. We decided we were just going to stop ... doing all those things you do when you're trying not to get pregnant (for the first time ever) and I went off the Pill (for the first time since I was about 18). It was scary, to say the least. Were we actually going to do this? Were we going to make a baby? Even scarier, were we going to HAVE a baby? What the hell would we do with a baby?

But it was time, and we both wanted kids, and we wanted them sooner rather than later. So we decided to give it a go.

There was some question there about whether we were going to wait until after the trip we had planned to California wine country (Santa Barbara) -- did it make sense to be pregnant there? But in the end we (I, more than Bill, obviously) decided that it didn't matter. I'm not a big drinker as it is, and why put off something we were so looking forward to just for a couple of days of drinking wine? And further, what if we couldn't get pregnant? What if it took us years? We decided that waiting would have been a bad way to start off and so we got right to work.

I'll spare the details, because I'm sure no one wants them, but I'm pretty OCD about certain things, so I do have a detailed schedule, in case anybody ever needs it for anything. Like what, I can't imagine, but I've got it.

I got my period on Oct. 21, our two-year wedding anniversary. Of course. After two months of sexing up my husband and praying not to get my period, I got it on our wedding anniversary. Just my luck, right? I complained to Bill, "Well, I guess we're not going to find out that we're having a baby as an anniversary gift!" Bill, of course, told me to relax and that it would all work out the way it was supposed to. "OK, right, whatever." (Anyone who's heard the story of our engagement knows that also was how I voiced my concern about us never getting engaged just a few minutes before Bill proposed.)

So we celebrated our anniversary as two non-pregnant, non-parents would do -- with dinner and wine. Then there was Halloween and we partied it up with friends. Then Election Day, where we celebrated Obama's victory with alcohol. Add in some random dinners out (which always include de-stress drinks, and weeknight dinners are no exception). Then we got to our Santa Barbara trip with the DeViteris, where we spent five days tasting various local wines. And enjoying enormous hot dogs at Pink's during our stop in Los Angeles. And relaxing in the hot tub at the hotel. We vacationed and we did it right.

By the time our flight landed in Newark, I still hadn't gotten my period, but I was sure that meant nothing. My period has been anything but regular since that first day I got it, and I knew better than to expect a positive pregnancy test after two months of negatives. So we got to my parents' house and crashed, and woke up the next morning and went to work. After work, Bill stayed at my parents' (because it was easier for him) and I slept alone at our house for one night before driving back up for the weekend. We knew that we wanted to test, but I also knew I couldn't handle that negative result on my own. I told Bill that it was his turn to face the bad news.

After work on Friday night (Nov. 21), we had dinner with Mama Z and Ashley, and then Bill ran to the store for ... whatever excuse he made up ... but really to buy a pregnancy test. We went upstairs away from my mom and sister, and he waited while I peed on the stick. Then I told him he had to wait the designated three minutes before we were supposed to get the result -- because I knew it was going to be negative anyway -- but he snuck a peek anyway. I looked at him, and he looked back at me. And I looked at him. And he looked at me. And I said, "I know what it says. Just tell me the bad news." And he looked at me. Then I looked at the stick.

It was positive! We both were floored. What?? Positive?? For real?!

Yes, it was real.

We hugged and I jumped up and down and I think I shrieked. Bill might have teared a little.

Then I started shaking when I realized that we had to tell everyone. For someone who loves talking so much, I had no idea what I was going to say. I cleaned up the test stick, stuck the cap on it and dragged Bill downstairs with the stick up inside my sleeve. I went into the kitchen and looked around -- I need something to look casual. A cookie. My mom had made chocolate chip cookies for my sister's Thanksgiving break, so I grabbed one and took a bite. I casually walked into the living room and threw the test at my mother and sister, who were sitting next to each other on the couch. My mother said, "Who has a fever?" (because she wasn't paying attention and thought I was showing her a thermometer?) and Ashley screamed and jumped on top of me, knocking my pregnant body onto the other couch. Then my mother figured it out. My father came home from work a few hours later and I asked him if he wanted to be called Grandpa or Pop; he got my drift right away.

Bill called both of his brothers, and they were excited, but their parents were actually in the air on their way to see the Giants play in Arizona, so he waited until they called to say they had landed. Their conversation went a little like this:

Bill: So you guys have something else to celebrate while you're out there.
Mama Pav: Yeah, hopefully the Giants will win the game.
Bill: No, something else. You're going to be grandparents.

Then Bill's mom proceeded to yell to everyone on the plane that she was going to be a grandmother. Everyone was very excited for her.

By Thanksgiving (the following Wednesday) we had started telling other family members (the Sytkos and Hickey Grandparents, who came to Thanksgiving at our house) and then moved on to close friends. We posted it to Facebook on Jan. 22 after our first ultrasound/first trimester.

And that's the whole story up until now. It is fitting that the official date the OB counts from to determine due date is the first day of the last period, which was Oct. 21 -- as I said, our wedding anniversary. And we got the positive test exactly one month later, on Nov. 21. Bill has always said that everything has happened to us at 25 -- we got married, got Maeberry and bought our first house at age 25. And we found out that we're going to be parents exactly 25 months after we got married.

I still can't believe it's happening. But I'm ridiculously excited for the adventure!

PS -- I've dated this for Nov. 21, even though I obviously wrote it much more recently. I just like to keep things in chronological order because, as I mentioned earlier, I'm totally anal. It gives me a sense of calm in a world full of chaos. (Any time is the right time for a Clueless quote!)