• I'm not your typical girl when you would think of expecting moms plowing their way through college. I'm not married, I wasn't one of those girls who showed up to class with baby names doodled over their notebooks, and I definitely dreaded every Future Educators meeting with the women and their bulging baby bellies.

    No, I definitely was not one of them.

    Kevin and I had been dating for quite sometime before deciding to dive off the deep end of passion, and ixnay traditional protection. I was smart, I thought. Smarter than the Buddha bellies that intimated the "nonbreeders" of the FEA community. Kevin was smart, too, we thought. Smarter than what many men his age could be. His own home, his own car, and his sense of fiscal responsibility made him so much older than his age--and in a sense, it made us seem invincible against the inevitable.

    So, when I started becoming suspicious that something was inside me, something growing, we didn't think anything of it. It was PMS, an upset tummy, maybe even cancer! But to be sure, and to calm my irrational fears at the time, we brought home a value pack of pregnancy tests. The first one came back inconclusive, and put Kevin's fears to ease. I was convinced, otherwise, however, and snuck the extra test in one morning right after he had gone to work.

    "Kevin?"
    "Yes?"
    "Do you want a pink cigar, or a blue one?"

    So that's the way he found out. My voice was calm, sure, and unlike me. Twenty minutes earlier, however, I was in the bathroom looking at the single blue line indicating "Congratulations! Infertility is not a problem for you!" I put the test down and looked again. I called the information number on the box, convinced that maybe, just maybe, the line was so faint that it was a false positive. I called pregnancy clinics, doctor's clinics, and even a friend who recently had a baby, to try and confirm my belief.

    Nothing. I'm going to be a mom. Kevin, a daddy. The feeling of panic overtook me and I began to freak out. So I called Kevin. Hearing his voice calmed me just enough to tell him.

    So that is what elation feels like? Panic, helplessness, disbelief, and suddenly a rush of calmness and tranquility. So that is what elation feels like? A sense of love for something you can't even see, an overwhelming sense of wanting to protect someone you haven't even met. Someone you know you'll love forever just because of a single blue line.

    That single blue line was my elation. What's yours?