365 days of love

I rolled over and cracked one eye open to peek at the time on DanO’s alarm clock.

5:14am

There could not have been a more in between time. It was Saturday, and any time before 5 would have been absurd, but it was after 5:00. It was within the range of questionably reasonable times to rise (well, maybe not for a Saturday).  What really mattered was that I knew would not be able to sleep anymore, no matter how tightly I closed my eyes.

Not this morning. I emerged from my warm blankets and tip-toed my way to the bathroom. If I wasn’t awake yet, the ice-cold basket-weave granite tiles of our out-dated bathroom surely shocked me to consciousness.

It was November 8th 2008. We had taken sledgehammers to our (pink) bathroom walls the previous weekend, which would begin the great bathroom makeover of 2008 (not to be confused with the great laundry room race of 2009). I crept past the framing where my walls used to be to the toilet. I was on an important mission.

I pulled out the pregnancy tests, hidden in the bottom of the bathroom vanity. At the drugstore the week before I had purchased a 5 pack of the brand that could tell me the soonest. And today was the soonest day. At the soonest hour. I pulled the little purple cap off of that end and scanned the directions one more time for the image I was looking for.

Two lines.

Here goes nothing.

What followed were four of the most palpably anxious  minutes I had ever known. I could feel the significance of that cold, dim morning in my bones, but I tried to play it cool. I leaned on the vanity. I fussed with the shower curtain. I popped a zit as if the path of my life were not being charted by a little plastic wand with my pee on it 20 inches to my right.

I peeked at four minutes, even though the box says that it isn’t reliable until five have passed.

There was a single thick line on the left and next to it, the faintest of pink lines.

Two lines.

I took a moment to myself there in the stillness of a dismantled bathroom to thank God. I don’t know that I actually formed any complete thoughts, but I silently shared the joy that was exploding out of my very core with my Heavenly Father. I felt His smile in return.

I then shuffled back to my bed where I slipped my ice cold feet under the covers and against DanO’s warm legs. He stirred a little. I snuggled up to him and he wrapped his arm around me, half-asleep.

“I love you so much Daniel Olfelt.”

“I love you too” he whispered.

“I took a pregnancy test.”

“And?” He asked, opening his eyes for the first time to look at me.

“I hope they have your eyes.”

He hugged me tightly and we laid there in the quiet, feeling God smiling on us together.