"e.p.t. third quarter profits soar!"

Ok, so here's part one of everything "baby story" at the McGowan house. I'll begin at the present. It is December 21st and we are right around 13 1/2 weeks. Yes, we're already through the first trimester and I'm just now posting about how it all came to pass. I hope this is no sign of things to come, although it is my (Aubrey's) M.O. to be a little belated with things.

I guess it all started about 10 weeks ago after arriving home from a trip to Nashvegas. The news had just been revealed by my good buddy Lewis that they were going to have a little one on or around June 3rd-ish. When they told us, Jen and I were in the "I'm not sure if we're pregnant and we weren't planning on it, but we sure did everything wrong if we did not want kids right now" phase. At that, we turned and sheepishly grinned at one another. Upon our return to TXas, struck with the reality that people our age are actually having children, Jen pulled out the one remaining pregnancy test from a three pack purchased during an earlier "phase". That particular time turned out to be a false alarm, but this time seemed a little different. Perhaps because of the faint and barely recognizable plus sign that magically appeared in the result window. Don't you hate it? They give you just enough color to make you think you are pregnant and yet not enough to really confirm. Blasted things!

Well, being the good husband that I am and recognizing the growing anxiousness in my wife's voice, I volunteered to run to wally world and get a real test. You know, one that hadn't been compromised by the extreme elements of a 3 month undersink storage. 13 dollars and 40 minutes later, I had arrived back at the homestead with a surefire "guaranteed within 5 weeks of conception" digital test. This one clearly told us on a "large" LED screen "pregnant" or "NOT pregnant". The definitive answer was fast approaching... the moment for which we (Jen, Riley, and I)had all been waiting. But what did we get? The "large" LED screen guaranteed us that we were indeed "NOT pregnant". Little did I know though, that my wonderful wife had downed a whole nalgene bottle of water so that she would be capable of completing the test. As we read the instructions and result details with the anticipation of an old lady reading Danielle Steele, we realized that there is a reason why they say "don't drink excessive amounts of water before taking this test."

So what do you do? Well, we came to a consensus that neither of the tests was reliable and we should buy more. I picked up the e.p.t. multipack for 7.50. She took all three... in a 36 hour period. Yes, the same faded plus sign every time. At this point, we were pretty sure that we didn't need to take any more tests, so maybe the Dr. could tell us something.


more to come...