Stop Treating Your Pee Stick Like A Damn Family Heirloom
It’s true that the time you have with your children flies by way too fast. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to go by fast enough. But even I, jaded mofo that I am, will sometimes look at pictures of my daughter when she was a baby and then feel the unmistakable twinge of my ovaries crying as I get a serious case of the sads.
Fortunately, now that every electronic device comes equipped with a camera and a ton of products dedicated to memorializing your child’s youth in every horrifying conceivable way, you never have to let go. I don’t judge you for hanging on to boxes of baby clothes or wallpapering your house with pictures. I don’t think it’s weird to have handprints or footprints in paint or clay or plaster of Paris hanging about. But one thing grosses me out beyond belief, and that is the used pregnancy test keepsake.
I have little to remind me of my pregnancy. Just as I was getting adorable I went in for a haircut and came out with a Carol Brady mullet, so there are really no pictures of me from then. My husband held on to our sonogram, but its whereabouts are unknown. I’m okay with that, because the alternative looks something like this:
Nice shadowbox. ‘Dorbz sonogram. Here’s the problem: you pissed on that. You peed on it. There is urine on that stick that you framed. Wee-wee.
Listen. I am of the belief that once it comes off or out of your body, it needs to go away, whether it’s used for a purpose (like breast milk) or it’s your gross, months-old urine.
No breastmilk jewelry, no teeth necklaces, no dolls stuffed with your baby’s hair, and for the love of all things sweet and holy and good in the world, no peed-on pregnancy tests. I have been in people’s homes where they have their pee test on display. Because I am a visual person, and because I’ve taken more than my fair share of these tests, I can’t help but summon up an image of that person: sitting on a toilet, hand jammed between their thighs and trying not to pee all over themselves before ultimately failing.
Now, I know how exciting it can be to get a positive pregnancy test after months or even years of negatives, but let’s all try to restrain ourselves. After all, every time I get a negative pregnancy test I’m super duper excited, but you don’t see me shadowboxing those with a tasteful diamond-cut double mat board.
The fact is, I’m not even going to judge you if you do decide to keep your positive pregnancy test, only if you frame it for posterity and hang it in your breakfast nook. If you must keep it, why not jam it into a drawer somewhere to take out and look at later. Does it have to be hanging over the love seat?
(Image: Alliance/Shutterstock)
