Oscar night

With Oscar night approaching, I'm feeling nostalgic. Not because we're big movie buffs but because the Oscars, for the last 2 years, have held special meaning to us. Rewind to Oscar night 2008- I'm eating spaghetti when I feel the twinge, the pang, the stitch. It's only gas, I keep telling Darren. It was my due date for Carys, but I still kept insisting it was gas. The *gas pains* continue- mild at first- and we carry on watching the Oscars. No country for old men won best picture that year. By 11 pm, when I could barely focus on my pains, let alone the television, Darren insists we head to the hospital when I'm screaming in pain, on my knees, with my head in the chair. No, I say. What if it's a false alarm?- Darren said I was being ridiculous and that we were leaving the house immediately. After a furry of running up and down the stairs (him, not me), we leave. Carys was born 5 hours later.

And so, Oscar night 2009, there surely couldn't be another contraction nightmare. I wasn't even pregnant. But. Oh, the big, but. My period had been late. Not unusual because I always had crazy periods. But this was late by many, many days. So as we quietly settle in to watch the Oscars, my mind wanders and I begin to stress about my late period. That's it, Darren says. I'm going to buy a pregnancy test! It was 9:00 p.m. I'll never forget that. I was standing at the kitchen counter when he came in. I was wearing my Gap jeans. I will never forget that, either. He came back with the stick and I immediately went to the bathroom. There was no hesitation. I used the downstairs bathroom. I peed and watched as the plus sign appeared in less than 5 seconds. The sequence of my reactions are debatable, but they happened. I know I cried, I screamed OH MY GOD repeatedly, yelled what are we going to do? and ran to the couch. I was shaking. I was in disbelief. I thought it couldn't possibly be true. I wasn't even back at work yet. Carys was only 11 months old. It had taken us 1.5 years of trying for Carys and one round of fertility pills. It took virtually nothing for this one. I stressed about everything. What would we do? How would we possibly manage? The daycare costs. I wasn't even back to work yet. Would I even qualify for Employment insurance? We continued to watch the Oscars, that night, in a daze. We cried, we laughed- not at the Oscar winners- but at our discovery. Slumdog Millionaire won best picture that night. Fitting. While we were not millionaires by any stretch of the imagination, we felt like we had won something special. A new little baby was growing and waiting to be part of our lives. The shock quickly wore off and we were ecstatic about the new baby whom would make her appearance in October.

With Oscar night looming, I can only wonder what this most significant night has in store for us. Please don't tell me things happen in 3s. Not a chance.

P.S. And to answer those questions I had on that night: we did it, we're managing- well, if you can call it that, yes I qualified for EI, daycare costs will be insane, but it's all good. We wouldn't have it any other way. Our little Paisley was/is the perfect *unexpected* addition to our little family.