It was 5:30am. I wanted to surprise him. While he was in the bathroom getting ready for work, I raced downstairs. In the pitch black, I grabbed the first little bag I could find and a notepad. I wrote “An early Valentine.”
“Perfect” I thought.
My heart was racing. I had to hurry. The note was written. The surprise was in the little bag. I placed them both on the kitchen counter and I ran back upstairs and quickly got back into bed. He was going to be so shocked! I couldn’t wait. Under the covers, I was smiling like a little girl awaiting Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait for my hubby to get his early Valentine surprise!
Finally, he opened the bathroom door. I lay perfectly still as he crept over in the dark to kiss me good-bye like he did every morning. He walked quietly out of the bedroom and down the stairs. My heart was pounding so hard, I could feel it in my throat. Any minute now, he would find out…
What seemed like an eternity later, he opened the bedroom door again. I sat up with a huge smile on my face expecting a huge smile on his! There wasn’t…
“Oh sh#&!” he whispers softly not to wake our other two children.
Well, that was not the reaction I was hoping for, but he came over to the bed and we hugged tightly. There were tears of excitement, anxiousness, and a little bit of how-the-heck-are-we-going-to-do-this, but we hugged even tighter. After over four years of infertility to get our first one and lots of anxiety and worry about having to go through it all over again to get our second one, it was a relief to get our third one without a “fight”…without worry or anxiety…without any testing or timing or treatments. This one was a gift. Our bonus baby.
But why was he so shocked? I couldn’t understand why he seemed so stunned. After all, he was “in the know” and more than willingly participating in what it took to make another baby. I couldn’t figure it out! I had to ask…
“So, are you surprised?”
“Yes.” he said. “But next time, can you not put it in a Victoria’s Secret bag?”
Oops!
I can’t believe I just did that to my husband! In my haste to pee on a stick, write a note, put it in a little gift bag, and race back upstairs before he came out of the bathroom–all in the dark, mind you–I had NO idea I had just surprised my husband with a positive pregnancy test in a Victoria’s Secret bag!!! No wonder he was so traumatized. Poor guy.
I was laughing…hysterically! It was absolutely hilarious imagining him reading the note, seeing the Victoria’s Secret bag and thinking, “Oh yeah! I’m going to get some lovin’ tonight!” I could just picture him peering into the bag with high hopes expecting a little something sexy that I was going to be wearing for him on Valentine’s Day only to find a little something that I had peed on that was going to change his life forever and probably ruin his Valentine’s Day.
Instead of getting a gift that meant a night full of romance and lovin’, he got a gift that meant a night full of nausea and will-you-please-rub-my-feet-and-go-get-me-some-ice-cream-no-not-that-kind-can-you-go-back-to-the-store-and-get-the-right-kind-and-by-the-way-quit-touching-me-I’m-going-to-throw-up!
I just about peed my pants from side-splitting laughter, except I had already peed on the stick that was inside the Victoria’s Secret bag.
Once I quit laughing, and once he got past the shock that the secret in the bag was in fact not from Victoria’s Secret, we were able to celebrate and be joyful. We were so grateful to be blessed with two children and now one on the way especially when, at one point in our lives, we didn’t think we would have any children at all.
Even today, we still laugh about it as we recall the early morning four years ago when daddy was surprised with “an early Valentine!”
And by the way, I’m going to surprise him again with “an early Valentine” this year. Only this time in the Victoria’s Secret Bag there is not going to be a positive pregnancy test…or will there…