Sweating the morning of

Last night, I stopped by the local Target to purchase a pregnancy test. It's the third time I've done this since the beginning of my relationship with D., who has been my husband for six months. Because the other two scares hadn't panned out, I was positive that this test, also, would come back negative. I just needed to be sure, because I was getting mixed signals from my body.

So I wake up today, groggy, as always, looking at the clock radio in my usual disoriented state, all the more so for the past weekend's time change to daylight savings. I'm too clever for myself: I've set the test where I can't miss it, right on top of the clock radio. Resignedly, I grab it and make for the bathroom to -- ahem. Pee on a stick.

I can already see the cross forming before I pick it up, so what do I do? Pee on it some more. Just in case only the first part of my pee is pregnant and I can cancel it out with the rest of my pee. I am such a dork.

Colors start swirling into my field of vision: a jewel-toned palette of roses and indigos that wash over my vision like thinned-out watercolors. My mouth is agape, I know. The instructions say to wait two minutes, but I'm pretty sure that's to make sure I don't actually stand up. My heart leaps into my chest. Not now, I'm thinking. I wanted this so badly even just a couple of years ago, but not now.

I'm torn between wanting to cry with joy and wanting to hide in shame. The colors are still swirling and I understand them to be my emotions, the rose being from the happy and the indigo being from the sad. I feel the colors, more than I do the emotions. I can't see for how much they stain everything, and I realize I'm in for a very confusing roller coaster torn between ups of dreams coming true and downs of plans crashing out of existence. I have to re-evaluate everything, and I'm terrified.

But today is the first day.

Today is the first day.