STRANGER THAN FICTION: FALSE ALARM GIVES RISE TO STRESS, THOUGHTFULNESS

For the second time in our almost four-year marriage, I spent several stressful moments leaning over a urine-soaked piece of plastic in our bathroom.

It wasn't as strange as it sounds.

Clinging to the hope that I'd automatically drop 50 pounds if I just quit taking the Pill, I swallowed my last one six months ago. Amazingly, no weight loss followed.

Maybe it's time to consider that my problem is related more to pizzas than hormones.

I called my best friend to discuss my decision and new birth control choices.

"Yeah, I hear WISHING you don't get pregnant is really effective, too," she cracked. Her unplanned but much-loved child was making splashing noises in the background.

I turned 29 last Friday, and I finally know what it means to feel a biological clock ticking. It's not just the stuff of stand-up comedy routines. It's having a good job, a good man, a good roof over your head but constantly weighing whether that's enough to consider having a baby.

For example, The Other Half is, at this very moment, watching Extreme Championship Wrestling. He is such a clean freak that I suspect the thought of his own poop disgusts him -- there's no way he's washing out a cloth diaper in the toilet before chunking it into the diaper pail. I have never one time seen him smile at a baby.

Then there's my life. I'm never home from work before 7 p.m. I love cats because you can dump a bunch of Chow in one big bowl, fill another with water and leave the kitties alone for up to three days. I once cut half-inch-deep slits in my palm with my own fingernails because a baby was shrieking in a restaurant.

Mr. Half and I are getting some pressure from the family to reproduce. My cousin in Biloxi, Miss., and his wife are on their third, and they couldn't be more thrilled.

Mr. Half's family exchanged Christmas gifts with us while visiting over Thanksgiving. We all noticed how dull it was not to buy any toys or little clothes.

My sister-in-law and I spent one full day trying to convince each other to get pregnant.

"You already own a home," I said.

"You're older," she said.

"But you live closer to your parents -- instant baby sitting," I said.

"You're older," she said.

Obviously, the conversation was going nowhere but making me more depressed.

But a short time later, all the signs of baby-makes-three were present in my life. I really got scared the day I had to travel 50 miles very early one morning to cover the Florida governor's funeral procession and felt ill.

That Bush-in-Japan feeling washed over me just a few miles from the assignment. I imagined horrible scenes of me interviewing the bystanders.

"How does it feel to be a part of -- YAAARRRFFFF."

I fought the nausea down, wrote the story and went straight to the drugstore.

It's not easy picking a home pregnancy test. There are lines, pluses, one-steps, two-steps, expensive and cheap. With my heart in my throat, I picked out a moderately priced one-step and went to the register.

"So," the cashier said. "How do you want this to turn out?"

I stood there and cried in the check-out line of the E-Z Pharmaceutical and Liquor Store. There are few things that attract more attention than a 6-foot, 3-inch, overweight redhead blubbering next to the chewing gum and magazines.

The bright side: At least I didn't walk up there with hemorrhoid treatment for her to ask about.

Actually, I didn't know how I wanted it to turn out. Maybe it would be easier if I just accidentally got pregnant and then had to deal with it, I reasoned.

Mr. Half wasn't home. I completed the pee-on-a-stick pregnancy test.

Negative.

Mr. Half wasn't as thrilled with the news as I'd expected. I thought there'd at least be an athletic-event-type "YEEESSSSSSSSSS!" shouted out.

Maybe that's because he didn't have that two-week nightmare, week of mental torture and stress-induced morning sickness. He was counting on my uterus not to work right.

So I've come to a conclusion. Maybe the baby thing should wait a few more years.

At least until it would be the baby, not me, crying in check-out lines.

~Heidi Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff member who lives in Pensacola, Fla.