Fairytales Do Come True

It’s funny how your entire life changes the moment you see the word pregnant printed clear-as-day on The Most Sophisticated Piece of Technology You’ve Ever Peed On™.

Pregnancy is the one thing in the world on which you can’t change your mind. You can date someone without marrying them. Drive a car without buying it. Travel to a city without moving there. You can’t, however, get pregnant and then change your mind. To a woman who has taken freedom for granted, this is quite the shock.

At first, I paced the floor for a good hour, muttering the same thing over and over again. Uh-oh Uh-oh Uh oh… I walked past the Answer! pregnancy test, but the two pink lines didn’t disappear. I called my best friend Gina and my mother, then I raced to Walmart and purchased three more tests. Half an hour later, one more spoke of the miracle.

I am pregnant.

Wow.

It is so hard to believe that I am here. Married. Pregnant. My life is all I’ve ever dreamed of and, sometimes, it’s hard to wrap your mind that your fantasy actually is your reality. How’s that quote go? You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

Shane and I met on April 6, 2007. I had just moved back to Missouri City, Texas from Atlanta, Georgia and I was searching for some new friends. He had a picture of a motorcycle as his main photo on MySpace, so I messaged him: Nice bike. Is it yours?

He wrote back, explaining that he was at his mother’s, was on his way home, and didn’t have access to the computer there. He left me his e-mail address and phone number. On April 11, I began e-mailing him on and on April 13, I called him. On April 16, he left work early to attend the Jagermeister concert with my cousin and me.

We were friends. Strictly friends. Good friends. We saw each other a second time for my sister’s 31st birthday party on May 12. Still friends. Good friends. The last weekend of June came, and Shane joined me at my brother and sister-in-law’s house for a night of babysitting. I remember that weekend perfectly. I was rocking my nephew Bobby to sleep and Shane came into the nursery. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and watched me. I watched him back, and I thought, I can see this being us. Being our life. Later, he admitted to having thought the same thing.

The next week, I was offered a great job opportunity in Atlanta, Georgia. Shane was the first person I went to for advice, and he encouraged me to take it. I was to move in mid August, so our last hurrah was a Blue October concert on August 4. It was that night that, in the middle of all the noise and chaos, he looked at me and asked, “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”

“Yep,” I responded.

That was Saturday night. Sunday night, we spent the whole night on the telephone talking. 402 straight minutes. We discussed how a relationship between us would work. How a relationship between us couldn’t work. How it was all insane and crazy and it felt so perfect.

Wednesday night (August 8, 2007), we shared a leg-popping, breath-stealing kiss in the parking lot of Starbucks. Friday night, I met his best friend Paul. Saturday night, the two of them met my entire family. Tuesday, August 14th, I realized that I needed to break up with him. We’d been together just a week and I already recognized the signs. He had the ability to break my heart, and a broken heart wasn’t what I wanted.

While surfing the internet, looking at wedding dresses, I e-mailed him at work and asked him to meet up with me. That night, he called my cell phone and asked to speak to my mother. She and I were at Garden Ridge Pottery then. A few minutes later, Mom dropped me off at Starbucks, and Shane was sitting outside at a table for two with a dozen red roses on top.

I have no idea what he said. I don’t remember his words. I don’t know who was watching. Everyone else disappeared the minute his mouth started moving. He got down on one knee and, on August 14, 2007, he proposed.

I moved to Atlanta three days later and, three months after that, Shane followed me. We returned to Texas in early February and were married in League City on February 9, 2008.

If the engagement had been a dream, then the marriage must be a fantasy. A realistic fantasy. We have our ups and downs. We’re both stubborn. We’re both youngest children; we like getting our own way. Shane loves to ride his bike without gear, and I’m a strong believer that leather is mandatory. He’s Church of Christ; I’m Baptist. We’re both devout, faithful Christians. We love our families. We love children. We love the sound of a powerful engine. He likes action movies; I like comedies. I want a large family; he wants a small. He’s a smoker; I’m a severe asthmatic.

It’s a life of compromise. Of learning how to fight. Of learning how not to walk away. Of learning how to hold on tight when everything else is falling apart.

In Atlanta, Shane started his dream job in car sales. In May, I lost my dream job at the new company. It shut down suddenly one day, the owner refusing and/or unable to pay any of the employees. (I had to file my first ever police report, and it was not fun!) I lost my health insurance, and my asthma got even worse. We played with the idea of going back home to Texas. We could go to Austin, where we’ve always talked of one day moving.

And suddenly it was all happening. We found out on Tuesday June 17 that if we wanted to move to Austin, we could do so on July 17. We found out that he can basically transfer to a dealership there – a dealership that is the number one in the state! I got a call for an interview with a job that I really want. (I’m now on the fourth interview!) The next day, we made the decision to take the opportunity, and it the deal was sealed. On July 17, 2008, we’ll be leaving Atlanta for Austin.

Exactly a week later, the next news arrived. Pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

There’s a little life forming inside of me. A dozen cells made up of Shane and me, mapping themselves out to create a little teeny tiny human. It’s making my breasts hurt and its making me wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I’ve started getting crazy pains in my legs, and I hate the mornings since that’s when I’m naseous.

I’m also terrified. There’s a little life forming inside of me, and I have no health insurance to protect it. I don’t like that. I know I have options, and I plan on exercising them, but – for now – I worry. This little being-to-be has only me to depend on right now. I will do right by it.

We’re having a baby!