Rewind to Thursday, October 20. If you're a Northern Californian like me, you might remember it as the day of the dual-Berkeley earthquakes. Though symbolic, the quakes were VERY minor compared to the about-face my life had experienced that morning, peeing on the plastic stick and seeing the most beautiful plus sign.
No double- or triple-testing for me, I knew it was the real deal. My nose had been telling me as much in the few days prior, suddenly smelling the faintest hint of smoke in our new car, and an overwhelming "dog smell" when I'd walk in the house after work. Yes, I definitely knew something was up. And that something just happened to be what Rob and I had been hoping for since early 2009. Nearly three years later, we were finally pregnant!
I ran back to bed and grabbed my laptop to look up the due date (which I originally estimated as June 24, but the doctor later pushed to June 28). With due date calculated, I cruised on to an astrology site to look up the little one's birth sign-to-be. Cancer! A lovely water sign, I could definitely live with that. Then on to the Chinese zodiac chart. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. Our little one would be a Cancer Dragon, a "Sentimental Luminary" according to Suzanne White. Perfection, as far as I'm concerned (yes, in under one hour, I'm already of the opinion that I have the most perfect child in the world!)
The day then crawled by as I shifted between moments of elation and sheer "holy shit" panic, and every emotion in between, waiting to tell Rob in person that we were expecting. Luckily we had our standing Thursday-night dinner date planned (which also happened to be how this whole baby thing started: our October 6 dinner date... but I digress). I couldn't even wait until we got to the restaurant, instead holding out the (now-dry) pregnancy test on the Elmwood sidewalk! He stared at it in disbelief, and then was happier than I've ever seen him.
Not too long after, we decided we needed a nickname for our baby-to-be. I suggested something related to the year of the dragon, and Rob thought of "Puff the Magic Dragon" -- and that's how our little Puff came to be :-)
