Thank You, Grandma…

Anyone who knows me well, knows what a big part of my life my Grandma Bonnie was. I was super close to her and shared a special bond with her my whole life. She was born the day after Valentine's Day - February 15th. She passed away on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2007. I was devastated. I grieved for a VERY long time. To some extent, I still grieve and feel that I will always feel a bit empty without her here. Something resonated with me, however, a couple of days before her funeral when someone who was part of my life at the time said to me, "She came into this world around a day of love and she went out on a day of love. She must have been very special." I love that! I wrote it as part of what I said at her funeral. When I talk about her, I still use the words. So, it's no surprise that the words came to me again when Valentine's Day rolled around this year and one of my students asked, "Mrs. Nguyen, do you like Valentine's Day?" I replied, "Yes, I love Valentine's Day. It's a little bittersweet for me, though, because my grandma died on Valentine's Day."

Now, I'm a teacher who talks a lot and shares stories with my students (part of the fun in teaching older kids is that you can have real conversations with them to help connect learning to real life situations), so they know how much my family and especially my grandparents have meant to me in my life. So, I continued in my conversation, and said, "It's a little sad because she died on Valentine's Day, but she was born the day after Valentine's Day, so I remember that she came into this world around a day of love and she passed away on a day of love. So, even though Valentine's Day was once a sad day, now I like to think of it as a special day where I get to be reminded about all of the special memories I have of her."

It was really cool to see the expressions on the faces of my students after this conversation. I love moments like that. It's an impressive thing to witness when students start to see you as a real person who has a personal life and not just as a teacher in a classroom.

One of my students asked me, "Do you feel like she's with you or watching over you?" I said, "Oh yes, very much so. I feel that a lot. I see her in so much of what I do or what I say. Especially on holidays and things like that. She loved holidays. I feel like she's with me today." In that moment, I had no idea just how true that was going to be for Valentine's Day, February 14, 2014.

On my way home from work, I had to stop at the grocery store (totally unplanned, yet very necessary in that moment, which is how I know God had a hand in all of this) and because we had been trying, I thought, "Maybe this is a sign. Maybe I'll just get a pregnancy test while I'm here." Then I thought, "No, I don't feel like I'm pregnant. I was just at the doctor's office a few days ago and said the same thing to her and besides, I'm due any day for my next cycle and then I start fertility treatments." Being a person who so deeply believes in signs from above, however, I thought, "But this COULD be a sign that you have to even go in here and there is a pharmacy in that store with pregnancy tests."

So, after I got what I needed, I decided to go to the store pharmacy and ask the tech for a test (this particular pharmacy keeps them stocked behind the counter so you have to ask them to give it to you). The pharmacy tech was so sweet and so excited. She was like, "Oh my gosh!! Are you going to take the test today?! How cool would that be if you were pregnant?!" I, however, was not as excited as she was. I didn't want to get my hopes up after so many uneventful pregnancy tests in the past. I said, "Yeah, I'm going to take it when I get home. I don't know though. I don't feel pregnant, so we'll see." She just kept going on and on and was so excited. She started telling me her ideas for how I could tell my husband if indeed I was pregnant. I was getting really uncomfortable and wanted to be polite, but also really just wanted to buy the test and get out of there, thinking that I may not even take the dang thing once I got home.

When I did get home, though, I did decide to take the test. I told Dustin I needed to wrap his Valentine's Day gift and not to come to the back of the house where our  master bedroom was. Now, we had plans to meet my parents in Reno. (I had bought concert fix for my mom's birthday and we made plans to stay at The Grand Sierra Resort with my parents over the weekend.) So, our original plan was for me to get home from work, put stuff in the truck real quick, and roll out. That, however, didn't happen, because what I thought was going to be a quick "I'll take a pregnancy test that will probably result in a negative result and then I'll gather my stuff and go" kind of deal, ended up with a situation of: "Oh my gosh, that looks like there are two lines on there!!"

So, after  taking pics and sending them to two of my closest friends, Carrie and Nicole, and starting to freak out, needless to say, it slowed me down a bit…especially since they were both pretty positive that I was PREGNANT!! My nurse friend Nicole, who was working at the time actually went and showed the pic to one of the doctors she was working with that day, who said, "She's pregnant!"

Nicole text me back the information, and upon hearing from a legit doctor that they thought I was pregnant, I stood up, looked in the mirror, saw the reflection of my smile in the mirror, shed a few small tears, and instantly felt changed somehow. I had managed to get pregnant on my own, just in the knick of time, prior to having to start any real fertility treatments!  I said prayers and thanked God for this moment and this baby. Last, but definitely not least, I thought, "Thank you, Grandma. Thank you for being with me for this today."