Big Blue Plus Sign

You can’t buy an early pregnancy test at the convience store at the central bus station in Oxford.  But you can buy one at Gatwick Airport in London.  We did.

God had already used Louise’s sickness and incredibly hightened sense of smell and a few other biological hints to let us know we are being blessed with a child.  Boots the Chemist in the Gatwick North Terminal came in and closed the deal.  I dropped the evidence with the blue plus sign facing up on the top of a rubbish bin (if we were at Ohare or JFK I would’ve called it a trash can) outside the ladies room and walked away--peaceful and happy, yet sad, to buy a ticket for Louise to fly back to Ireland.

We’ve been planning for months to be in the US between now and the end of February--traveling around, visiting supporters in churches and friends and family.  But Louise needs to rest.  As much as she wants to see all the folks I’m gonna see, and eat with people and talk with people and pray with people and get to know America and my Americans and her new family better, she needs to rest more.

So I left Louise sitting on her suitcase, waiting to check in to fly to Belfast where she’d be taken to the friends and family she already knows well, and who are eager to share her joy, and happy to help her get the rest she needs. 

One of the hardest things I’ve done in my life is leave her sitting there--ask any of the folks who were standing around if it looked hard.  But we both knew it was the right thing.  And it was confirmed that it was the right thing when my 9 hour flight to Atlanta sat on the runway for an extra hour before taking off, took off, flew 9 hours, landed late and then spilled us all out into a sea of frustrated Americans and visitors bouncing around in the Immigration circus--three hours later I was walking to the car with my bags and Ma and Dad.  Louise would’ve been wrecked after all of that.  Ma and Dad agreed--they were disappointed about not seeing Louise, but thrilled about the reason they weren’t seeing her.

Louise and I know there’s some kind of ettiquette about when you tell and who you tell.  We might’ve tried to follow it, but I’m not gonna travel to the US without her and tell everyone who asks about her, “Louise is in Ireland because she’s sick and the smell of every single thing that exists makes her more sick, except bananas which she’s dying for even though she’d only eaten three or four her whole life until two weeks ago.”

Instead of saying that, I’m saying, “Louise is pregnant.  She stayed in Ireland to rest, and I’m dying to get back over there to help her rest and buy her bananas and make banana splits and banoffee pie and hug her as much as possible.”