viewfrommars Baby, it was a life-changing trip
By Ryan Brand June 2009. The final arrangements for our trip to San Francisco to attend my cousin Kelsey’s wedding were in place, and what a trip it was shaping up to be. Both a Christian and a Hindu ceremony, a trip to wine country, an afternoon among the giant sequoias and a chance to catch up with family and old friends. It was going to be seven days in the city by the bay, and no one could have predicted how this trip was going to end. My parents made reservations to rent a house for the week, and 10 family members joined us in the Presidio. It was a busy place. We had a full itinerary, and coordinating things in our house with the rest of the family and members of the wedding party was difficult to say the least. First item on the schedule was the wine tasting in Sonoma. Fifteen of us on a party bus sampling the finest Sonoma had to offer. The afternoon before the trip, Gretchen pulled me aside to tell me that she hadn’t been feeling well since we arrived in San Francisco. She said she felt “pregnant.” Now considering that I had visited a physician to prevent the pitter patter of additional tiny feet in our household 14 months prior, I attributed her condition to dinner from the night before or the stress of travel with our two daughters. Regardless of my assurances that all she needed was some rest, she couldn’t shake the feeling. There was a drug store just a few blocks away, and along with antacids she decided that a pregnancy test would put her mind at ease before a day of drinking wine with family and friends. Thirty minutes later I arrived back at the house with a bottle of Tums and the first pregnancy test I could find. Gretchen disappeared to the bathroom and 15 minutes later called me back to our bedroom. Now, I had picked up one of the tests that use strange hieroglyphics to depict a positive or negative result. P a g e 46
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