Two Pink Lines

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Kat Clark, a stay at home mom living outside Chicago with my husband, Jim, my three cats, Picasso, Scarlett, and Gabi, and the star of my blog - drum roll please - my two and a half year old son, Aiden. Everything else you need to know you will learn over time if you stick with me. I am not going to bore you with my parents' wedding day, their "Oops, oh my God you have got to be kidding me" moment when they found out I would be turning their world upside down nearly fifteen years after the arrival of their first child, Scott. If you want to know about my education I will tell you that I graduated with a degree in clinical psychology, a degree I have yet to use for anything other than completing an unpaid (but nonetheless rewarding) internship, taking a year of graduate classes, and raising a child. I am not saying you need a psychology degree to parent (although it doesn't hurt), but I was kind of a bookish party avoiding geek in college and I would like to think my hard work is paying off somewhere. Here is the paradox about me: I am your boring, average suburban housewife who is more comfortable at story time or parent-child art class than I am at parties or dive bars, but I can also be a bit of a hell raiser, I have been accused of being opinionated, and I sometimes piss people off without meaning to. So if you happen to be one of those people I apologize in advance. But enough about me. This blog is about Aiden and all things parenting, but it is also about what is going on in the world as it pertains to parenting and the impact on future generations. Hey, we stay at home moms can discuss things other than toddler eating habits and Dr. Suess.

Anyway, becoming parents was a surprise for us, but a very pleasant surprise. Like my mom I have Polycystic Ovaries, which basically makes it difficult to ovulate. I was put on birth control at the age of eighteen, not because I was at any risk for pregnancy (I was too busy studying at the time) but because I was still only pretending to need tampons as a senior in high school. This may seem lie a weird thing to fake, but in a queen bee run all girls high school admitting you still hadn't gotten your period (or gotten to second base) by senior year was on par with admitting that you had leprosy. So I carried tampos in my person and randomly interrupted the lunch table conversation about Billy Bob Such and Such being sooooo hot with, "OMG, does anyone have a Tampon?!?! I realize I am still talking about me but I am trying to set a stage. This is just an intro, give me a chance and it will get much more interesting. At twenty-four I got married. I also realized that having a bachelor's degree in psychology was about as effective as smoking grass clippings, so I got a job at a local animal shelter. Granted, I did not expect to be cleaning litter boxes with my hard earned college degree, but such is life. John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans" and I couldn't say it better. Despite the low pay and less than glamorous working conditions, I love animals (particularly cats) and I loved my job. Around this same time I got a new gynecologist due to having moved and subsequently decided that my current gyno was a tool. Anyhow this woman was agast at the fact that I had been on birth control for seven years for reasons other than preventing pregnancy. She immediately took me off the birth control to find out what my cycle would do on its own. This plan was fine with me considering that my drug induced cycle usually liked to hang around for about three weeks out of every month. Another very true quote: "Be careful what you wish for". As she sat the with an ultra sound wand and a stack of files from previous gynecologists, she patted my knee and said, "Well, you won't be able to get pregnant without help, but don't worry, most people with this type of problem do very well on Clomid". Well, I had only been married a year so I wasn't thinking about fertility drugs, although I had always wanted to be a mother. For once I left the doctor's office with less prescription medications. Three months later I was staring at two pink lines on a pregnancy test. It just goes to show you that the experts don't know everything. Only God knows everything. You don't have to worry about getting unsolicited parenting advice here. I am no expert. Parenting is a learn on the job type thing. If you can gain some wisdom from my experience, great. If you conclude that I am a few limes short of a margarita, well at least you will get some laughs. Either way I hope you stick with me because as we all know about those pink lines: that's only the beginning.