“Oh My Gosh, I have never wanted to sit on a toilet this much in my entire life...

While I'm here, I might as well look.

Yep!

Cash, I am pregnant!

WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!!”

These were my exact words upon seeing the positive pregnancy test result in my tiny spare bathroom in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I celebrated by giving him a big hug and a kiss.

This was the moment I had been waiting for all of my life, except it was playing out a little differently than I expected.

See, we had been married for a couple of years and had just started trying to conceive.

I had been in Nashville, Tennessee that week for business and had noticed a few changes in my body and mind.

For instance, the new crisp white Oxford button down I’d purchased days before the trip no longer fit due to my swelling breasts. My stomach, usually flat and toned, as a result of a diet low in carbohydrates and high in cardio, was visibly puffy.

I was uncharacteristically emotional.

And by emotional I mean I ugly cried during a business meeting, because a male colleague remarked that my business casual wrap skirt looked like it could double as a wall tapestry in a hippie’s dorm room.

His name was Bradford, but they called him "B-Dawg".

My roomie for the week excitedly suggested that I take a pregnancy test-there was a CVS around the corner from our hotel-we could know in minutes-but I refused. No offense to April, but I wanted to share that moment- that pee-soaked dipstick- with my one and only.

As a mom she understood my logic.

The first time should be special.

By the time the final meeting was over I had played the reveal scenario in my head about a million times.

I called my husband to let him know that I had BIG NEWS and that I was hitting the road.

The 55 mph speed limit is strictly enforced along the scenic Natchez Trace State Park Highway, so I had four solid hours of time ahead of me.

Thanks to decades of loyal soap opera viewership, my imagination was primed to build the most amazing and romantic scenarios of the moment that was to come.

Somehow, we would take the test together-urination could be romantic, I reasoned and once we saw the positive result my husband would scoop me into his arms and cry tears of joy that a new life was on it’s way.

We would celebrate with a magical, romantic dinner by candlelight. Two dozen roses, a rose for each year of marriage, would be thoughtfully arranged at our round oak pedestal table where I might also find a love letter he had composed.

Now, I know this is very dramatic, but I was running on very little sleep, combined with high amounts of estrogen and progesterone along with thirty years of loyal Days of Our Lives viewership.

My expectations, as usual, were a bit high-which does not always work out for me.

Which brings me back to that moment in my tiny Tupelo water closet.

What I failed to mention was that when I arrived home my husband wasn’t there.

And when I called him there was no answer.

Odd.

Didn’t I tell him I had BIG NEWS? Maybe he had to wait in line for flowers…

So I waited.

For thirty minutes.

I called him again.

Why wasn’t he answering?

What if something was wrong with me and I desperately needed him?

There was something wrong with me.

See, on the route home from Tennessee, I avoided all bio breaks in the name of romance and I took in as much H2O as my body could stand.

I wanted to be ready to take all four pregnancy tests I purchased at the CVS in Nashville.

Now, if you know anything about human anatomy then you know where I’m coming from here.

One cannot do the Pee Pee dance forever.

Desperate and angry, I grabbed a test from the white plastic bag and celebrated with my dog.

Thats right, I spent one of the happiest moments of my life with Cash, my six month old Rottweiler.

My husband showed up about five minutes later with The Brother In Law.

He explained how they had been looking at a “wicked cool” old Bronco and time had gotten away from them.

Are you freaking kidding me?

I was furious.

But I couldn’t show it, because The Brother In Law was right there next to him and he didn’t know I was crazy yet.

So, like a good hostess, I politely offered him a drink and just about fell out on the floor when he accepted.

When I saw he was making himself comfortable on our couch with a copy of an old Tradewinds he took out of his back pocket I knew he wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

I motioned for my husband to follow me to our bedroom.

We had not been married long enough for him to be able to read my facial expressions, specifically the one that says,

“Get your brother out of here or I will cut you”.

So it was there, in front of our unmade bed, in between multiple expletives, accusations, and explanations that I shared the news of my pregnancy.

I will never forget the look on his face.

Shock and awe.

I still don’t know if it was due to the baby or the fact that I seemed to be possessed by Linda Blair.

I guess I never will.

There were no roses for me that night.

And no romantic dinner.

But there was a bit of magic as we dined in with the whimsical clown, Ronald McDonald.

All three of us.

While I listened to the modern day Bo and Luke Duke discuss transmissions and KC lights all I could think about was becoming a Mom.

I was becoming a Mom…with or without flowers, candles, or poems.

And the handsome man that I loved sitting across from me was going to be a Dad.

We didn’t need anything other than us.