STRANGER THAN FICTION: AND BABY MAKES THREE...MAYBE LATER

It's so neat to see pregnant people who want to be pregnant -- those people who prayed and planned and took their temperatures and counted their days.

My fellow columnist Mark Bliss and his wife just had a baby girl, but expect more on that in HIS column. I remember several months ago when Joni first excitedly whispered the news of her pregnancy to her friends, who did all the hugging and congratulating women do when their friend gets pregnant after lots of trying.

People like The Other Half and me look at pregnancy a lot differently.

Thanks to a healthy sense of paranoia, I've hovered over more than my fair share of home pregnancy tests. After all, nothing is 100 percent sure but celibacy, right?

I remember calling my friend Lynn after completing a test.

"What does it mean when you get a minus but only half of it shows up?" I asked.

"Three words for you, Heidi," she said. "Clear Blue Easy."

At age 25 (26 in just over a week) with a husband at age 25, you look at pregnancy a lot differently. You're working at a couple of not-so-profitable jobs that allow you a nice apartment, two cars and the occasional dinner out, but probably wouldn't allow for diapers, cribs and formula.

Sure, I've had what I call "maternity flashes." They happen when a fit mother dressed in a spit-up-free outfit walks by with an angelic-looking, spit-up-free child. It's so easy to forget the midnight feedings, the colic and the croup.

Those moms and babies make me think about motherhood. I think about The Other Half's perfect smile and great complexion and my blue-green eyes and height. I see a perfect little piece of both of us, with all our great qualities and none of our lousy ones -- no big butt, no baldness, no crooked teeth.

But then harsh reality sets in. As the oldest of five children, I'm no stranger to motherhood. I've changed the dirty diapers (yeesh!), warmed the formula, sang the lullabies and seen the results of a good burping. No, Virginia, the Poopy Fairy doesn't wash all those cloth diapers you use to save money -- you do.

So I'm a little scared of being a mother right now. The Other Half feels the same about fatherhood, and I've not so much as let him watch to see if the stick turns blue.

Until Thursday.

It was time for him to realize that responsibility for pregnancy or lack of it isn't mine just because I happen to have the uterus. I bought a Fact Plus Test (as the television ad says, plus if you're pregnant, minus if you aren't) and headed home with it.

The look on Mr. Half's face was priceless when I pulled that pink box out of the bag. He followed me into the bathroom.

"What's that?" he asked.

"You read the box," I said.

"So, you think you're ..."

"Pregnant."

He actually flinched.

It takes about five minutes for the test to be complete. I can't watch -- I always go into the other room and read a magazine. Mr. Half, on the other hand, hovered about a foot over it even after I repeatedly warned him that male breath on a pregnancy test can affect the result.

"It's negative!" he yelled out of the bathroom. "Let's go out to dinner!"

Oh yes. The she's-not-pregnant-after-all dinner out.

But the experience opened our first serious discussion about having children. There's so much to think about. Do you spank them? Whose church do they attend? Do you try to turn them into geniuses or let them learn at their own pace?

We don't know yet. Until we do, I predict a few more nervous moments hovering over a little minus sign.

~Heidi Nieland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.