The Eleventh Hour
by LaDawna Streiff
The Eleventh Hour
The day could best be described as just another hot August summer evening in Central California’s San Joaquin Valley. The temperature was well over 100 degrees with air so thick you could see and taste it with each breath. With the work day done, I used the fifteen minute drive home to recount the day’s activities and make mental lists for the next work day. I pulled my truck into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and just set there looking at the house and property and was comforted by what I saw.
Dean, my husband, and I had spent years planning the design of our front yard landscaping and with a lot of sweat and muscle it turned out beautifully. We had blended the majesty of the Sierra redwoods with a whisper of the Italian countryside. Our 1950’s ranch style home had been transformed into a Tuscany retreat that honored the true workmanship of the tile, stone, and masonry artists that had been commissioned to build the house decades earlier. Each time I walked through the front door I entered a safe place that allowed me to shut out the world, exhale out the stress of work, and breathe in the love of my husband, and the life we had built together. Looking back now I can see that this was not just another hot August evening, it was in fact a day that would change my life forever.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim lights I could make out Dean sitting at the dinning room table. I had never come home to him sitting at the dinning room table before; sitting in the living room, typing away at the computer in the office, or working on a project in the garage, yes, but just sitting at the dinning room table, never. As I crossed the living room to kiss him hello I asked, are you okay? With sad eyes and sloping shoulders he says he’s okay, but I don’t believe him. A wife quickly learns early in married life, that when your husband changes his routine something is up, and that you better pay attention and get to the bottom of it straight away. So I say are you feeling okay, are you sick? No, he replies, just sad. Alarmed I say why are you sad? Did something happen at work? No, he begins; I just got sad driving home from work today after I passed a white four door truck on the highway. Oh, I interrupt, you want a new truck! Don’t be sad, we can run through the numbers and see what we can afford. No, he sighs; it wasn’t the truck that made me sad it was what was inside. Oh, now I am getting it, so I think, he wants a motorcycle or an ATV or something similar, but I sit quietly waiting for him to surprise me with what is at the bottom of this interchange. He continues; when I got next to the truck I could see two car seats in the back seat, the father driving, the mom in the passenger seat, and the family dog sitting between them on the front seat.
I continued to sit quietly waiting for him to describe what it was that made him sad but he had stopped talking. After a moment of silence I asked, what? What did you see that made you sad? He gently shook his head, I don’t know, just seeing the dad with his two kids made me feel weird. I could feel the skin of my forehead wrinkle while my eyebrows grew closer together in deep concentration. So many pictures were racing through my mind and I was trying to understand this scene Dean had just described to me; white truck, mom, dad, and kids. He said he didn’t want a new truck, nor did he say anything about wanting a new motorized toy; so what was he saying? I was trying very hard to get my mind around this conversation.
The edges of the room suddenly became very crisp as my mind reached the only logical conclusion left. I raised my head to look directly into his eyes and barely breathed the words are you telling me you want to have kids? His expression remained the same, confused with a little bit of fear sprinkled in. I don’t know exactly he said, I just know that when I saw them I wished that was us. WOW, was all I was hearing in my head, WOW, WOW, and more WOW. We sat in silence, I don’t know for how long, trying to let the word take shape; KIDS. In a low whisper I said, wow, talk about waiting until the eleventh hour.
Dean and I had met in Visalia, when I was 19 and he was 22 years old. I had just moved to the Central Valley with my family a few months earlier and didn’t know too many people. So when Cindy, a new friend, asked if I wanted to go to her boyfriend’s house warming party, I said yes. We arrived at the simple gathering and joined about twenty people inside. I moved from room to room making small talk and finally settled on the sofa in the front room. Sitting off to my left where a couple of guys joking and cutting up, and among them was Dean. Everyone was getting along well and the evening was pleasant but uneventful. A couple of weeks went by and I ran into Dean again at a wedding that Cindy had taken me to. Truthfully, I can’t remember exactly how it all happened but Dean and I became a couple that night and married six months later.
During our courtship we talked about everything two young people in love talk about; wedding plans, work, friends, family members, and the future. One thing that I told him right up front was that I did not see myself having my own children. I related to him how at the tender age of twelve I announced to my friends during a slumber party how I was not going to have any babies; instead I was going to adopt three or four children from different races. I didn’t understand why there were so many unloved and uncared for children around the world and I wanted to do something about it. He laughed and said no problem; he didn’t want any kids either. Because I was so young and so many people had told me that I was silly for saying that I didn’t want any kids, I decided to add a disclaimer to my no kids’ statement. So I clarified my position and told Dean that I didn’t want any children but if he ever decided he did he would have to let me know before I turned 40.
Fast forward eighteen years and it brings us to that hot August evening sitting at our dinner room table; I am now 37 and Dean is 40 years old. He had in fact waited until the eleventh hour, just a couple of years shy of my 40th birthday, to announce he was ready to have children. I stood up and walked to him, putting my arms around him and pressing his back into my chest. He raised his arms and crossed them over mine so we were both squeezing his chest, leaving no space between us. I leaned over and kissed the top of his head and said that we would go to the book store that weekend so I could get some books on how to get pregnant. There was a lot I had to learn about the reproductive system of a woman. I mean come on! I had been on birth control pills for the better part of seventeen years so I didn’t even remember how a women’s body was suppose to feel when not being manipulated by hormones.
The following Saturday we made our way to Barnes and Noble. I began wandering around the front display tables that had stacks of discounted books to see what I could find. I stumbled onto a book entitled, Eating Right 4 Your Baby, by Dr. Peter D’Adamo. It looked interesting so I tucked it under my arm and sauntered my way toward the bookshelves that were clearly labeled pregnancy. A friend of mine, who had been trying to get pregnant the year earlier, had told me about a book that was enormously helpful to her. It explained in simple terms how the female body works and how to improve your chances of getting pregnant. So I went on the hunt for, Taking Charge of your Fertility, by Toni Weschler, and upon finding it stacked it on top of the other book and headed to the register.
I began reading with the same intellectual enthusiasm I have when taking on a new business project. I made changes to my diet as described in Dr. D’Adamo’s book and started keeping a journal as described in Weschler’s book. The books state that it can take a minimum of six months or even years after a woman stops taking birth control pills before she becomes pregnant. The problem is that I am not a patient woman and wanted to be pregnant sooner than later. So after only six months of keeping a journal of my reproductive system I became monumentally stressed out. During those six months I had been watching what I ate, listening to advice from well intentioned friends, announcing to Dean that we are having sex NOW because I am ovulating, and than propping up my rear end with pillows after having sex so his little soldiers could swim faster with the help of gravity. I was tired of worrying about getting pregnant and wasn’t sure if it was all worth it. I explained to Dean that we needed to resign ourselves to the possibility that we may not be able to get pregnant, stating that too many years on birth control and my age were stacked against us. I had done all my homework, filled my head with all the facts and figures, understood the process, and yet, I was so tense that I could be sabotaging the process.
So we agreed to begin the spring season with a renewed attitude. We were going to focus on getting on with our life together, just the two of us, and if we get pregnant, than great and if not that’s okay too. With the self imposed pressure of getting pregnant lifted from our lives we looked ahead to our Caribbean vacation. We had a marvelous time and when we returned home we fell back into our routine. The weeks passed quickly and my younger brother’s graduation from High School was upon us. His graduation was scheduled for the last Saturday of May and we were all looking forward to it.
The graduation was beautiful, and we had a small gathering back at our house to celebrate his special day. I was working in the kitchen with my mom, telling her that I wasn’t feeling well and that I was extra tired since returning from our vacation. She began laughing and looked up from her task saying that I was probably pregnant, and we both laughed. But the truth was that my period was late and maybe my mom, who had four children, knew something I didn’t so I decided I would take a pregnancy test the following morning.
I woke before Dean and got up very quietly and went into the bathroom. I opened the linen cabinet and removed one of the home pregnancy tests that I had purchased five months earlier; I wanted to be prepared with the right tools just in case an occasion like this presented it self. I opened the box, read the instructions, and proceeded to pee on the stick. I sat on the seat and waited for the allotted time to pass and than picked up the stick. I can’t remember how long I sat there looking at the results but eventually I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. Two pink lines had appeared in the window on the stick and in a quiet voice I told my reflection in the mirror that I was going to be a mother.
Dean was still asleep so I gently patted his arm and told him to wake up because I needed to show him something. He rolled over and rubbed his eyes. I was holding the stick out in front of me and with his sleepy eyes he tried to focus. Are we pregnant, he asked? In a low voice, as if someone might hear me even though we are alone in the house, I wiggled the stick, and said yes we are. We laughed, hugged and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. And with the stick still in my hand I quickly sobered up. I told him we shouldn’t tell anyone for a few months because a miscarriage is highly probable with this being my first pregnancy and because of my age. With a smile that covered his entire face he nodded in agreement.
I went off to work that morning knowing I had a secret that would blow everyone’s mind. I have always been the hard working woman that wasn’t going to have kids and here I was carrying a tiny life inside me but on the outside looked unchanged. I rushed through the day wanting to get home to Dean so we could talk about our secret. When we finally get to see each other we were silly with happiness; but Dean had that grin on his face that I immediately recognized as “I have done something naughty and want you to catch me”. He never could keep a secret from me so I ask him, what’s up? He grins even larger and says he lasted only twenty minutes at work before he told his coworkers that we were pregnant. In that moment I remembered just how wonderful Dean was. We had been married eighteen years and had grown up together, and yet, he never lost his enthusiasm and boyish charm.
So approximately nine months after Dean surprised me with the desire to start a family we were pregnant. Wow! The doctor told us our little boy would be born in February of the following year. That year I would turn 39 years old; talk about taking it to the eleventh hour.