Who's that in the mirror?

It was kind of like in the movies. My husband Jesse and I had just returned from a trip to Turkey, where we spent two weeks eating, drinking, and drinking some more. It may be a Muslim country, but Turkey has some fabulous wine. (Emir, anyone?). We were the quintessential newly married, reasonably successful couple, just enjoying our lives and occasionally discussing how we might someday have ourselves a bundle of children. Someday. But not until we had seen -and conquered - the world.

And so we flew back to the states on November 4. Exhausted after a long but sleepless flight, I crawled into bed, ready to sleep for at least a good ten hours.

Instead, however, I found myself waking up every hour or two, desperate for the bathroom. Which was strange because I never had to wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I thought nothing of it because I was just days away from getting my period, and I had already had some cramping, my usual signal that Aunt Flo's arrival is imminent.

A few days passed, and the cramping continued, but with no other indications of PMS, not even a nice little mood swing. I did experience some hot flashes, and I got motion sickness every day riding the Metro to and from work, but these things were not firsts for me.

And then it happened, totally by accident. I stepped out of the shower one morning and just happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It was my face, but it was definitely not my chest. And so I knew immediately there was a baby in my belly.

On Wednesday, November 14, after several days of increasing nausea, I bought a twin pack of pregnancy tests at CVS. When I got home, I went upstairs to confirm what my swollen breasts had already told me. I was pregnant.

If I really wanted to, I'm sure I could have come up with quite a list of reasons why this was not the right time. But in that moment, I knew that there could not possibly be a better time.

That little life inside me, unplanned and announced only by a sudden aversion to peanuts and poultry and by me finally, after 28 years, achieving a B-cup, meant the world to me. And it only took a second.