A Simple Test

I’ve been a Bee Gees fan as far back as I can remember.  I’m not talking about the disco-era Bee Gees.  I’m talking about the singer-songwriter Bee Gees who wrote some of my favorites, including Don’t Want to Live Inside Myself, My World and Run To Me.  When I married my true love, my dad made a slide show of memories and chose The Morning of My Life as the soundtrack to photos of me from a baby to my adult years.  My dad loves lyrics and is the reason I appreciate songs about love and life so much.  The Bee Gees wrote about their emotions and if you actually listen to some of their lyrics, it might explain why I’m kind of a quirky person.

On October 30, 2012, my true love came home from work, and together we were about to get some news.  Since I like to have a soundtrack for moments that could be forever etched on the wall of my personal history, I opened iTunes and the first song that caught my eye was the Bee Gee’s, World.  It’s a short song.  It was raining outside.  I pressed play and waited for my true love to reveal what could be a life and identity changing bit of information.

One little circle with a blue plus sign in it.

Together we stood in our dining room gazing at this small plastic stick with a mauve cap, the rain falling outside, World playing in the background.  I looked at the instructions for the small plastic contraption to make sure I had read them properly.  The feeling that swept over me was indescribable when my true love exclaimed, “I’m pregnant!”

That little circle with a plus sign managed to bring my true love to tears.  I remember spending the next few moments hugging her, and then staring at the plastic stick, then looking at her and smiling, and then staring at the plastic stick again.  Suddenly everything in the world seemed so far away and so small.  I wonder if the people that work at the factory that produces those little plastic sticks have any idea how much power they have over people’s emotions.  I remember looking at my true love with wet eyes and thinking, I’m going to be a dad.

We spent the rest of that night under blankets on the sofa with the plastic stick on the sofa’s arm beside us.  The shock of our news had us mostly speechless and numb with happiness.  My true love had been studying the book, What to Expect Before You’re Expecting for a couple months.  She told me that our baby is probably the size of a period right now, a Times New Roman size 12 period.  All I could think about was how that little dot was going to change everything about our life.