Two Little Lines

Sometimes I try to remember the afternoon Becca told me she was pregnant. I was outside doing yard work waiting for Becca to come outside so we could head to lunch. It must have been a Saturday. She opened the garage door and called me inside.

In the living room she was standing there looking at me. With no build up, out of the blue, she said, "I'm pregnant." All I remember is this light headed floating feeling mixed with disbelief. Time seemed to freeze up. Then we hugged and I could hear David Gray's Tidal Wave playing the background from the iopd. It was such a great and scary moment.  

After that I demanded another test. Becca cried (happy tears) and we talked a lot and headed up to Target, picked up a two pack. Then stright to our favorite old haunt, Jason's Deli. Becca went and sat down and I asked her, "What are you doing? The bathroom is that way... Go take the test!" I needed confirmation, and I needed it immediately. She ended up waiting until we got home. Took the second, and got that life changing second line.

I needed a third. The next morning she hit three for three. Then it happened: I was a believer. I was going to be a dad. I was... scared.

It sort of reminds me of the poem Easter, 1916 by Yeats...

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Of course he wasn't talking about children headed into the world and nothing was terrible about it. But it pops into my head when I think back. It's so hard to remember life back then, that is to say life before Connor. It's hard to remember a time when I didn't love something so much in a way I never could have imagined.

Those two little lines changed everything. In the best way.