08/08/08 5:30am
It's the morning of the Birthday Bash Cruise. Literally, only cruise ships get me up at this hour of the day. We have an early flight out of DFW, bound for Orlando, FL. From there we will rent a car and drive to Port Canaveral to embark on Royal Caribbean's Sovereign of the Seas ship, to spend 3 nights cruising around the Bahamas. We are totally pumped about our stops in Nassau and Cococay, and we're excited about the day we plan to spend at Disney World when we get back.
But let me get back to Friday morning, 5:30am, my bathroom. (I'll try to leave out some of the TMI details.) I have decided that I should take a pregnancy test just to be safe, since things are unfortunately due to start rockin' and rollin' that day, and not just the ship. All I have are a couple of Equate pregnancy tests (read cheap, generic) that I grabbed for occasions such as these. I use one and am thinking, no big deal. Until I notice a faint semblance of a vertical line accompanying the usual single horizontal line. I yell at my peacefully snoozing husband, "Jeremy, get in here!"
He squints at the test for a several seconds and asks, "Are you pregnant?" I respond, "No, I think it's just a cheap, fluky test. I'll take another." I proceed to reenact Juno by consuming lots of orange juice while I finish getting dressed. Jeremy sits on the bed watching me, every couple of minutes repeating, "Are you pregnant?" Eventually he gets dressed and begins teasing me by patting my belly and talking about "the baby." I roll my eyes and laugh and go take the remaining test. It is negative. HA, I say. We leave for the airport, but that fluky test continues to come to mind. I decide that we will stop and purchase some sort of quality pregnancy test on the way to the ship, just to be absolutely sure, since of course there is much alcohol involved in cruising it seems.
(Here we are at the Orlando Airport. Still SO not pregnant!)
We stop at Wal-Mart somewhere in between Orlando and Port Canaveral, where I purchase the motherload of digital Clearblue Easy pregnancy tests. (No fluky vertical lines on these bad boys! They either say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" and simple is what I need at this point.) Of course, Jeremy, Brian, and Stacie are cracking jokes the whole way to the ship and I keep saying, "You guys, I am SO not pregnant!" We get checked in and have just a few minutes to go to our rooms and grab our life vests for that ridiculous "just in case the ship sinks drill." I excuse myself to the bathroom, and for the 3rd time of the day, pee on another stick. I wash my hands and then go back to look at it. I swear I stood there for a good 30 seconds, staring and trying to figure out where the word "NOT" was. In a zombieish state, I tell Jeremy the news, along with Brian & Stacie, who are in ear shot, and we all just stare at each other for a few seconds. Then there is much excitement as we are rushed out the door to the "muster station" for the drill, wearing big orange life vests. (I am still in zombie mode and can't really think of what to say, but all the others are chattering away.)
If you have ever participated in one of these ridiculous drills, you'll understand. They line you all up on the tiny deck like sardines wearing big orange sumo life vests. It was really hot and my traveling buddies seemed to be making incessant comments about my being pregnant. I started feeling a bit claustrophobic, crammed in with all these strangers, who are looking curiously at me and know far too much about my reproductive status. Then I can't breathe. Next, I am pretty sure I am going to throw up over the side of the boat, in front of everyone, and on top of whomever might be below. I tell Jeremy that he needs "to get me out of there." He quickly leads me through the mass, shouting to all the staff that his wife is pregnant and about to get sick, and leads me back inside to the air conditioning. I sit down and my stomach goes back to where it should be.
(Here is me thinking about barfing over the side of the boat.)
Over the next couple of days, I gradually lose the zombie-like state and start to get excited about the whole deal. I did end up taking another test a couple of days later after the first digital one ran out on me, just to re-confirm that the whole thing was real. Yes, that makes a total of 4 tests, if you're counting.
So my blog about this vacation is a little different than those of the past! Here's my review in short: We didn't like Nassau. It was pretty trashy. Cococay, which is Royal Caribbean's private island was pretty cool though. We did some great snorkeling there. And I don't recommend Disney World in August, especially when your insane friends insist on visiting 3 parks in one day, and especially if you are pregnant.
(Ahhh...here's a happy face. No more zombie. Just wait another week and a half until the nausea hits her!)
