The Story of How We Became Six (Part Seven)

In mid December of 2003, we attended a court hearing for our daughter. The hearing was to formally terminate the parental rights of her biological parents and set in motion the process of adoption.

I was in heaven. I was finally a mother and our daughter was growing and thriving. Other than being a picky eater, she was doing great and with the support of occupational therapy and public health nursing, she was overcoming the effects of being addicted to ice.

The court hearing went great and the Judge was so kind to us. He even told us that he looked forward to seeing us for the adoption hearing, which is his favorite part of being a judge. The judge set the adoption hearing for 6 months from that hearing. We were excited.

Meanwhile, we celebrated our first Christmas as a family of 3. It was so much fun! Since we now had a child, there were people who normally didn't buy us gifts that were coming to visit or scheduling time with us. Pure joy!

One such friend was Cheryl. Cheryl and I worked at the law firm together and we had become really good friends. Cheryl and I met up for lunch the Saturday after Christmas. She wanted to spend some time together and she wanted to play with Bell. While at lunch, my nose started to drain. It was as if it was stuffed, yet I was not feeling sick at all.

I mentioned this to Cheryl (that my nose was stuffed but I wasn't sick) and she said, "Are you pregnant?" Hahaha...what a comedian you are Cheryl! "Uh, not that I know of," I replied. Truthfully, there was no reason for me to even think I would be pregnant. Remember, I was told that there was no chance of getting pregnant without technology, and, with technology, I didn't get pregnant.

The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went to the store and got a pregnancy test without telling my husband. I did the test and it was positive. When he got home, I told him and he told me not to get my hopes up. The next day (Monday), I took another test (which was positive again) and called my OBGYN to schedule a test.

Prior to going to the doctors, my husband kept telling me not to get my hopes up. What hopes? I didn't need to get pregnant anymore. I was already a mommy.

The nurse called us in after I gave my urine sample. She was an older Asian nurse who had no personality. I sat at the blood pressure/weighing station and she matter of factly told me "It's positive." Oh my goodness, I thought. My husband's first response... he asked the nurse "How accurate is your test." (Okay, go ahead and laugh.) Without hesitation, the nurse said, "It's accurate," as if to say, "That's a stupid male question." Then, she proceeded to ask us questions such as what we wanted to do, keep or terminate, when my last cycle was (which I had given up keeping track of since there was no need to really worry about it), what pregnancy is this, etc. The best question was about the kid we had with us, our Bell who was 6 months old. "Are you babysitting?" Uh, no, this is our daughter. And then of course we had to explain that I had not given birth before and that she was a foster child that we are planning to adopt. "Wow, you gonna have your hands full," she told us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't burst my bubble before it is fully inflated, I thought.

We were both in complete shock. Of course, we couldn't keep it a secret to our families so we told them immediately. I'll never forget how we told my in-laws. A couple weeks prior, my husband's older brother told his mom that she would need to make another Christmas stocking because they were expecting a baby. So, my husband said to his mom, "I need to ask you to make another stocking." Her initial reaction was, "What, why, what do you mean?" So we told her and she started to cry.

The funny thing is that about a month later, my husband's younger brother also needed to have a stocking made. Three sister-in-laws pregnant at the same time. Each 5 weeks apart from each other. And the order of pregnancy followed the birth order of the brothers. Pretty darn cool!