The iced tea incident.
The iced tea incident is still a joke in my family. The iced tea incident  caused quite the stir (pun intended) at the OBGYN’s office. And not just because members of the office staff bombarded my OB when he came back into work, post-incident, on Monday morning, to make sure I hadn’t been poisoned.
But, I’ve gotten ahead of myself.
Pregnancy cravings are a funny thing. There is some intoxicating mix of hormones and the ability to say “What? I’m pregnant. What baby wants, baby gets”, that makes pregnancy cravings more than mere myths of late night runs for pickles and ice cream.
My cravings were not what I’d expected. No binging on baked goods. No sardine sandwiches.
All I wanted was something to drink. Drinks, drinks and more drinks. I was THIRSTY, and only the coldest, most refreshing, just gathered from a glacier, overflowing with thirst-quenching goodness drinks would do.
I fantasized about beverages. Ice-cold lemonade. Water by the gallon. Sports drinks. Fruit juice. It was all about the drinks.
But, the holy grail of drinks, for me, was none other than the elusive iced tea.
You see, you could call me a cautious person, especially when it came pregnancy. No caffeine for me. No strange herbs that could put me into early labor. Or give my baby green skin. Or any of the other scary things that my many frantic google searches would warn me about (No to roasted chicory? Black cohosh, only after 38 weeks?  Seriously?)

My dream was to find a non-herbal, non-caffeinated, ice-cold (of course) tea beverage.
And, one glorious March day, the prayers of this very pregnant lady were answered in the form of a case of decaffeinated mint tea from a local distributor.
I couldn’t even wait to get home, and so I ripped open the plastic casing, popped open the bottle, and chugged down half of the glorious, tea-filled bottled.
Only, it wasn’t so glorious.
It tasted a little off.

Not exactly my dream come true, but I’d live.
Or so I thought.
As I studied the bottle in my hand, I noticed that the packaging looked different than what I had seen recently in the stores. The case looked a little…dusty.
Hmmmm, interesting.
I decided to do some research.
I scoured the internet.
To my horror, I found that this flavor had been discontinued. Several years ago.
And that is where that intoxicating mix of pregnancy hormones and sheer craziness led me to contact the heads of the company.
Imagine how that poor woman at the tea company felt.
5pm on a warm spring Friday.
Finishing up her long day after a long week.
She innocently answers her last call of the day, expecting some sweet, adoring natural tea drinker to speak her ear off about all of the merits of their lovely tea company. Probably expecting said fan to order a lifetime supply of tea, paid for, in advance, in full, with a  little tip.
But, no.
She got an anxiety ridden, shaky, 37 week pregnant woman, begging to know if the approximately 7.5 ounces of 2 year old tea could possibly harm her or her almost-born child.
So, I bet you’re thinking that this executive laughed with me, managed to calm my fears, offered to send me a free sample of their new flavor and I laughed at myself as I shook my head at the silliness of the whole situation.
Um, not quite.
As she tried to hide her obvious panic, this executive instructed me to look for carbonation or floating pieces in the bottle. Just what I wanted to hear.
So I examined. Under the light, In every different light in the house.
Yes, I said. There were some little bubbles.
Carbonation? Not sure.
Something floating? Well, there’s some tea residue. But isn’t that normal? No, definitely not normal.
At that point, friendly, talkative, happy-to-explain-details-to-me Executive clammed up.
Pregnancy panic mode.
OK, time to call my OBGYN.
However, it was 5:30pm on a Friday.
The only way to contact him was to use the special, only-for-emergencies message service, so that they could track him down at home.
I mean, if this wasn’t a dire emergency, what was?
When the OB finally called me back, he sounded cheery. He thought I was calling to say that my water had broken and that baby was on her way.
Um, not quite.
After explaining the entire situation to him, from the internet research, to the scared tone in the Tea Exec’s voice, my own voice cracking in fear, he said to me the two magic words that he had uttered so many millions of times to me throughout the course of my pregnancy.
“You’re fine”.
That’s it? I’m fine? How does he know. I’m fine. Shouldn’t he bring me in to check me? Should I make myself throw up?
Should they pump m stomach?
FINE?

And so he instructed me to drink an extra glass of water and he’d see me next week, hopefully to delivery baby.

And that was it.
But, it didn’t mean I didn’t chug my body weight in water to “flush” my system.

And so, I never did get my sample of free tea from the Exec.

And when my OB came into his office on Monday morning and his office manager and nurse asked him frantically if I was OK, if I had, in fact, been poisoned,
(they had obviously listened to the message I’d left on the emergency answering service)
it gave him a good laugh.

A case of 2 year expired iced tea from local beverage distributor: $15.97
Giving a popular OBGYN something he actually hasn’t seen before: Priceless