So how did she tell me? Funny story.

We did yard work the 2nd week of April. I mean yard WORK. Landscaping, cutting, trimming, gardening, tearing out weeds and pulling vines from trees in our woods – the whole shebang. As a result my poor wine grabbed head, hand, and leg-fulls of poison ivy. For those folks that think that it just grows on the ground, you are oh-so-wrong. Unfortunately we learned this the hard way.

With fibrous roots trailing up the tree and suffocating leaves squeezing all the daylight from the air around our maples and oaks, my wife started cutting and yanking, and as a result…got her very first case of poison ivy.

From what I’ve been told, the first case is always the worst, and though she was lucky to not look like some of the more serious cases you can find on Google Images (just search poison ivy – it ain’t right…), she still got it pretty bad – with hard welts and red rashes coursing up her feet, calves, thighs, bottom, arms, hands and neck; the worst of it on her lower extremities.

Now, my wife is a trooper but this is the first time she had experienced poison ivy and so she went it suffering mode. She’s not typically a whiner/whimperer so the fact that she was doing so was a red flag that this was more than mere mild discomfort. I did my best to help her with calamine lotion, a cold press, bactine, etc., but she was hurting. So, she decided that this was not something she could tough out – it was time to make an appointment for the dermatologist for professional strength-help for her ailment. Our dermatologist – we’ll call him Dr. T – prescribed her some oral corticosteroids and steroid/anti-inflammatory topical medicine.

Heather headed to the pharmacy on her way home.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I was heading out from work. We had plans that night to make something yummy and relax with some alcoholic beverages – something my wife and I enjoy to do to release steam on select days. April 20, 2009 was a particularly crappy Monday, with nice weather but not-so-great days at work for the both of us. We decided tonight that we’d say screw it, sit on the front porch with some finely mixed drinks and imbibe away the stench of the poopy day.

As agreed, I was to hit the grocery, where she would meet me after hitting the pharmacy and the ABC store (package store for you non-Carolinians). I left three messages for her and no answer. After perusing the grocery store and picking up a few select items including mixers for the evening, I set off for home, where I met my wife.

At the same time I was mulling over mixer decisions in the Harris Teeter, she was taking pause to think about her pharmacological purchases. It had been approximately 4 days since the day she should have started her very regular menstruation. Still no sign of the red tide. Being sensible, and better safe than sorry, she thought with such heavy prescriptions that she ought to just pee on a stick just to be sure the prescriptions were safe to take.

We had decided to stop preventing in January, but had decided around March to not actively try. Indeed our pace slowed down to the point that we had intercourse only once in between her last period and the day she stood in the Walgreens pharmacy considering these things. At last she decided that, of course it was impossible, surely she wasn’t pregnant, and just to show how confident she was in that fact, she’d take her floating eyeballs into the Walgreens, relieve her overly full bladder and prove that she was just being silly by confirming the no-pregnant status by peeing on a stick.

She grabbed a pregnancy test, went into the Walgreens bathroom and went potty, dipping the stick in the pee stream while doing so. Fifteen minutes later, a very shocked little lady answered my fourth call and said that I should just go ahead home and she’d meet me there instead of the grocery store.

When I got in she said that she wanted to sit on the front porch. I wasn’t making it easy for her, and had no idea how freaked out she was. In fact, I was protesting that it was both warm outside and that I wanted to change out of my nice(r) work clothes. Nonetheless, she persisted and finally persuaded me to cop a squat on the front porch steps. She then pulled from behind her back a stick.

This was not a conversation that started with, “We’re pregnant!”, but rather “I think it’s lying. The line is too faint. What do you think?” I could tell she was a little bit in shock, but I had heard and later confirmed the near 97% accuracy of the typical pee test, even days after conception and well before a new mother would notice a missed period. I said, “Um, honey, this is saying you are pregnant. I’m pretty sure you are pregnant.”

Several additional pee-sticks later, including a digital one (yes, she incredulously bought out the pregnancy test section of the pharmacy) that very clearly read “YES+”, and she was crying and looking to me for a reaction.

Gentlemen, let me advise you – which I’ve read in several other new father books – choose your reaction wisely. No one expects you to not feel shock, fear, or momentary pause when hearing the news, but you will regret it if you do not start this path with this first initial step of chivalry, support, and love. Regardless of how you feel, you are now a father and supposed to be a supportive birth coach. I took a breath and with the luck of foresight, I responded exactly how I should have. I hugged her, told her she was definitely pregnant, that she was going to be a mommy – the best mommy in the whole of the world, and that I was so happy and excited to be a daddy, and thankful for the blessing.

An hour later as the sun was setting, we set off on our regular route around the neighborhood at fast walking pace to get in a bit of exercise and perspective. Much of the conversation was dominated by silence interspersed with “Holy shit.” By the end of the walk, we had a game plan: pick out and go see an obstetrician, get on some good prenatals, start thinking about baby names, and get some literature to get us up to speed on what in the hell we do now.

It was a start I look back on with a smile. Now, I can’t imagine not having this baby on the way and am dying – just DYING – to hold my baby.

It's positive.

-RookieDad Sean