Prueba De Embarazo January 2003

Yesterday I learned some new Spanish vocabulary. Namely “prueba de embarazo” or “pregnancy test”.

My fiancé, Anke, and I have been camping on a beach in southern Baja. It is a long time favorite of mine and many of my friends and is our little secret surf spot which we call Gentle Giants. It is a beautiful, romantic spot with a mile long white sandy beach, beautiful blue water like one only finds in the tropics, humpback whales can be seen frolicking off shore daily, and the sunsets are each day like the best you’ve ever seen. Anke and I are often the only people camped here and during our three weeks here so far our biggest decision of the day is usually what to eat next or whether or not we should go surfing or find something else to do on the beach, like read, go for a walk, play bocce, or eat. Totally hang loose care free living. Until Anke’s period was late.

About two months ago Anke decided to go off the birth control pill which she had been on for over 10 years, since she was a teenager. Finally deciding that it wasn’t good for her health to continue we decided to get off the drugs. So we bought a book called “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” by Toni Weschle. The book is written by a doctor and is called the “definitive guide to natural birth control or ...."

So only two months after we take charge of our fertility we find ourselves on a beach in Baja waiting for Anke’s over due period and watching for the accompanying temperature drop by taking her temperature constantly throughout the day and night. The whole time we are reading more and more of the book, learning about the possible reasons her period could be over due. Pregnancy seemed unlikely, actually impossible according to the “dry day rule” from the book. But as we sat by the camp fire and read the book over and over again the passage we read on day 18 of her luteal phase that said “if your luteal phase last longer than 18 days you are most likely pregnant”. This helped make up our minds that we should stop waiting and go into the nearest town the next day and get a pregnancy test.

After breakfast and the usual digging, pushing, and struggling it takes to get our VW bus out of its sandy camp site we were off to town. The drive into Cabo San Lucas is very spectacular with views of rugged mountains on one side and the mighty pacific on the other. Two weeks before, due to a recent rain, everything in sight was green and there were many yellow and red flowers as if spring had hit Baja. This time on our way into town we noticed that the leaves were already turning yellow and falling off. The desert enjoys a very brief spring time and the plants take full advantage of what rain they get when ever they get it.

Cabo isn’t my favorite city in Mexico, in fact it ranks down there among the least favorite. It isn’t such a bad a place to go shopping for supplies (food, water, beer, ice, propane, mouse traps, etc) because you can do everything you need in the local part of town without ever seeing a gringo or hearing a word of English. But on this day we needed to get money from the ATM machines which are located in the tourist part of town. So we found a nice spot for the bus and walked to the bank, passing Cabo Wabo and Burger King on the way. With cash in pockets we went to the farmacia to get a pregnancy test. On the way to town we looked up the words for test, prueba; and pregnancy, embarazo. The pharmacy was full of angry tourists speaking English, which the pharmacists also seemed to speak. But preferring to struggle with the local language I asked for a prueba embarazo and the woman behind the counter produced two to choose from. The woman said they both worked well but the more expensive one was safer. I asked why and even though I couldn’t understand what she said I was convinced. We want to be as sure as possible. Anke told me that sometimes you can get a false negative result but never a false positive. We took our purchase to the little restaurant we saw on the way to the bank which had tortas, liquados, and a TV blasting Mexican pop music videos. After we ate our carne asada tortas and drank our juices Anke took a styrofoam cup into the bathroom, peed, and did the test. The result takes a few minutes so we went shopping in the super market and then checked the test. I looked at the color of our test and looked in the directions which came with the test. Ours looked like figure D which said next to it “Si despues de 4 minutos ha aparedido un color rosa en la ventanilla central grande, usted esta embarazada.” Or ‘if after 4 minutes there appears a pink color in the large central window, you are pregnant.’ Through her tears Anke kept asking if I was sure. She made me go in and ask the lady in the pharmacy. She confirmed what I knew already and congratulated me with an enthusiastic “Felicidades!”. The Mexicans love children and would always ask us if we had any. When we say no, they’d always ask, well when then?

Anke had me go back in to the pharmacy again and ask if the test results were certain. Yes, the woman ensured me, don’t worry, you’re going to be a father!

Wow!!

So we sat outside the super market in Cabo in rod iron chairs, Anke cried, and I reassured her that it was going to be all right as if it was a Bob Marley song, and then we began to worry.

The immediate reaction is to think about all the plans that we had which this will affect. We were planning a big wedding in October and then we were going to travel to Australia and New Zealand to look for a place we might like to move to and someday start a family. Anke has her own business teaching snow boarding and surfing with a friend and they have a full summer of trips and classes planned. We both live in our cars and have little medical insurance. Anke has some travel medical insurance and I have medical coverage in Mexico because I will be working down here for three months this spring.

Wow!!! What a shock.

Little things kept popping into our minds. Anke said at one point “well now you’ll have to drink the whole case of beer we just bought all by yourself”. If I must, I must, that is one fatherly responsibility I looked forward to starting as soon as possible.

We called my mom in California for some motherly advice. My mom is the ultimate source of information. She is super smart and knows a lot of things and what she doesn’t know she finds out quickly using the internet. Want to buy a digital camera, know how to make a thanksgiving turkey, or have a baby, she’s the one to call for advice. Sure enough when we went to the internet cafe to email Anke’s mom and sister there was the first results from my mom’s initial internet search: Anke should eat a well balanced diet including .4mg folic acid, iron, calcium, B6 and B12.

So the last stop in town was another trip to the pharmacy. The women in this pharmacy didn’t seem very happy or helpful. With the dictionary in hand we began asking for the things we need; folic acid; calcium or calcio; iron or herro; etc. I felt like I was in a high school Spanish language book and this chapter was called “At the pharmacy”. My struggle through the vocabulary list produced a counter full of pills, each one a different combination of ingredients, including the ones we wanted and many we didn’t, each pill with different amounts of each. We were totally confused so I told the women behind the counter that Anke was pregnant and they all smiled and went “Ohhhh!”. Suddenly in front of us was a bottle of pills called “Materna, vitaminas Y minerales”. The ingredients included everything we wanted plus things we didn’t know we wanted but apparently we do. Problem solved. After the whole pharmacy chapter I remembered from past experiences that if you just tell the people in the pharmacy what your illness or condition is that they will know exactly what to give you.

The rest of the afternoon was spent talking over all the scenarios (we could go to Germany to have the baby, postpone the wedding, I’ll get a “real” job, etc.), and after reminding ourselves that we can still come camping on the beach and travel around with kids, it all kinda sank in and didn’t seem so bad. Knowing that we had to look at the bright side of life we stopped worrying about how the future was going to be different than we had planned (isn’t it always) and we began to focus on the good things about the future that is now going to be. We are going to be parents earlier than we had planned. Luckily we already know that we want to be with each other forever and that we wanted children someday. And it isn’t like I haven’t had a chance to live life without the burdens which come with fatherhood for I am now 32 years old, I have spent only half of the past 11 years working and have traveled around the world to over 30 different countries. Now it is time to enter a new phase of my life which will lead me to new adventures.

We got back to camp in time to catch a couple waves under a brilliant colorful sky. Actually Anke caught all the waves causing me to observe the power of the pregnant woman, mother to be. On our way to the surf I mentioned that we need to stop worrying about the things that are bad about the situation and focus on the good. Anke reminded me of the quote she had read to me a few days before from the book Illusions by Richard Bach which says “there is not such a thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” We continued our discussion about the subject late into the night and of course it continued the following day. By the 2nd day after receiving the news we had both completely accepted the fact and our thoughts were only positive about the situation. The initial panic and worry has been completely replaced by joy, excitement, and anticipation of the wonderful things to come.