Hands shaking, I drove to the
pharmacy, knowing exactly what to purchase.
You see, I've done this before. Three years ago, in fact, I went through almost the exact same experience.
It's dangerous driving when reliving an experience so powerful and so wonderful and so totally frightening. Emotional deja vu is a powerful thing; you lose sight of the present and feel all the power of emotions rising from your heart and spleen and pelvis as a rush to your head. It's overwhelming and confusing.
Getting home, I ran up the stairs, two at a time. I grabbed the handrail with my left hand, lunging desparately as though clinging for my life, so as not to fall back down. I couldn't get up the stairs fast enough, yet had to wait patiently as she unwrapped the package and read the instructions. The second it took to open the two-fold sheet to find the directions written in french seemed like an eternity. I can still feel my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest.
We didn't have to wait long; the result, like three years ago, was far quicker than written on the box. So fast, that it hammers home the message with a brutal, yet comforting certainty:
We're going to have another child.