(I asked Agnes to write about the night she found out she was pregnant. This happened back in December. — Bernard)

I was on-call the night I found out I was pregnant. Taking advantage of a brief lull between patients, Bernard and I were chatting on the phone, talking about how I was feeling. I mentioned that I was tired and felt a little bloated and nauseous, but that I thought it was because I should be getting my period “any day now”. The truth was, I was two days late, and Bernard realized that I was probably pregnant. He didn’t say anything though, since he assumes that I know all the “medical stuff”, and if I didn’t think I was pregnant, then that’s that.

It took about half-an-hour after getting off the phone with Bernard for me to realize that I should be taking a pregnancy test. I ran down to the Emergency Department and stole a urine pregnancy test, fondly known in medical circles as the “ICON”. (I believe ICON is the name of the company that makes the enzyme assay for beta-HCG that is bought in bulk in a lot of hospitals. For example, when we’re talking about a patient, we say, “She’s ICON positive”, for “She’s pregnant”.) For those of you used to the fancy, expensive urine tests that they sell in the drug store, the ICON is very no-frills. There’s no urine cup or syringe, just a plastic nondescript plate with a well for urine, a well for the control line, and a well that shows two lines if it’s positive. I had to use a styrofoam cup for the urine and a needle syringe to get the drops into the well.

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised and excited when two lines appeared. When I called Bernard though, his reaction was muted. Later, I found out that he was struggling to keep from saying, “Duh.” I spent the rest of that night in the Emergency Department seeing stroke patients. Everytime the portable x-ray machine came by, I smiled at my patient and said, “I’ll be right back”. Then, I ran away thinking, “I don’t want to irradiate my baby”.