Tiny Boots

---The below excerpt is a chapter from my debut memoir, Temple and Ash---

I cannot focus. I cannot stop checking my phone. I am supposed to be teaching the most devout group of multilingual learners the difference between apostrophes in contractions and apostrophes that show possession, which is arguably one of my favorite topics. But I am floating above myself, waiting for the text message that will change my life.

Why did I even come to work today? Then I remember that of my already sparse Paid Time Off, I have spent five days undergoing and recovering from the egg retrieval and subsequent embryo transfer. 

It has been nine days since the transfer (“9dp5dt,” as we call it in the IVF community) and it is the magic number—the day that has been marked on my calendar for weeks. I drove to Indianapolis again this morning so the lab could run a blood test.

The results will come through any minute now. I will either be elated beyond my wildest dreams or shattered. There is no in between. I really shouldn’t be at work today.

And then it comes. A message from my patient portal. New bloodwork results. 

I leave my students with a worksheet and bolt into the copy room just beyond my classroom door. My fingers are trembling. Wi-Fi has never moved slower. This is it. This is finally it.

HCG: 37.

37? What does that mean? I thought it was going to say “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant”. What the hell is this?!

My fingers tremble as I pull up Google and my Facebook IVF Support Group simultaneously, not sure which one will yield faster and more honest answers. Before I can make sense of any of it, my favorite nurse is on my CallerID. I beat her to the test results, but not by much.

“Congratulations!” she nearly screams. And that’s when I know. 

“I’m pregnant?!” I ask, barely able to hold my composure as I cling to the last shred of my self-preservation instinct.

“You’re pregnant! I had to fight everyone here at the office to be the one who got to tell you, but we are all just over the moon for you!”

That’s when I hear it: the cheering voices of every single person on my care team, even the receptionist. Our biggest advocates, right beside us through every high and every low.

We hadn’t told anyone else about the transfer. Infertility had robbed so much from us; the one thing I wanted to be able to reclaim was the chance to surprise my family with the news, just like other couples got to.

So this. This feels surreal. Like celebrating with family. Just a taste of all the joy to come. 

—

It is a rare occasion that I am grateful that Kris is so terrible with remembering important dates. I had intentionally failed to remind him that I was going in for bloodwork this morning. I’ve been concocting a plan for weeks, anticipating no other possible outcome than good news.

I am buzzing with nerves and anticipation when his Ford F-250 finally rumbles into our gravel driveway. I accomplished approximately zero things the rest of my workday, envisioning nothing but this moment. A moment I never imagined I would get to have. 

I continue cooking the ground beef for our taco bar, trying not to come across too sketchy as I glance out the kitchen window for the twenty-second time. 

Of course he takes his sweet time coming inside, scrolling on his phone and finishing his Monster. When I finally hear the front door lock turn and beep three times as it always does, it is all I can do to maintain a casual voice.

He gives me a long hug and asks how my day was.

“It was great,” I answer quickly. And then, motioning to the balsa wood box on the kitchen island, “I got you something.”

Time slows to sweet, sticky molasses as I watch him open it; watch the gears turn in his head as he pulls out each carefully selected item. A onesie. A pair of tiny cowboy boots. A positive pregnancy test.  

The silence stretches the Grand Canyon and back before he finally says, “You’re pregnant.” A question and a statement. And before I can respond, he is scooping me up, spinning me around, kissing my stomach.

“You’re pregnant,” he says again and again and again. And it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.