I cried

After reading
Redbloodedboys's post where his life flashed before his eyes and he said a silent little prayer peppered with the phrase, “Dear God, please, please, please, please, don’t let this be true.” (Okay, those are my words, not his.) About having the, “Honey, I’m late,” talk. It got me thinking and wondering something that I’ve thought and wondered before.

Does a man want to know? Know about the, “Honey, I’m late?” Before the girl has taken a pregnancy test? She’s late, but doesn’t know anything for sure, except that she’s late. Would you want to know at that point?

My thinking was always, “why involve the guy when I don’t know anything, yet?” So I haven’t.

Having had two pregnancy scares where the man was unaware and one where the man was well aware. (The condom broke. Third time we had had sex, the condom broke. Third time I had ever had sex and the condom broke. Welcome to my life.) (While I waited to find out he was out cheating on me. Nice.)

The second time I was 21 and had just ended the relationship. I was super stressed, super fit, and worked out probably more than I should have been. I’m pretty sure that was the result of me being late. If memory serves I was only two days late. However, it was still enough to scare me.

The third time was the most terrifying and not to be overly dramatic, changed me a whole lot. A whole, whole lot. It was this past Christmas. Yep, just four little months ago. I, of course, wrote up an essay about it, but haven’t done anything with it. It was more just for me to get all the emotion out.

This isn’t the essay I’ve written. It’s too long. This is a more condensed version and I have some psychic distance from the experience to see it a little more clearly.

I realized on the afternoon of Christmas Eve that I was four days late. Now, I am clock work. Same day, same time each month. No variation. No changes in the clock. Nothing different. Same, each month.
I started to become worried around late-afternoon when I was getting ready to go over to my parent’s house and enjoy the festivities.
Now, worried is a gross understatement.
I was panicked.
I was worried beyond belief.
As some of you may recall I was seeing, The Dick, i.e.: My Accidental Adultery Guy.
It wasn’t his.
He and I had only had oral sex at this point. It would have been the, Out-Of-Towners. I would have been six weeks along. Six weeks. The O-of-T and I weren’t on bad terms, but obviously he and I were in an open relationship and the thought of me having to explain to him that I was in-fact seeing someone new, but it wasn’t the new guy’s, it was his, yeah. How do I prove something like that? What if he doesn’t believe me? What will he think? Six weeks.
Six weeks.
Fuck.

I am Googleing everything I could Google. I have my biology book out looking up facts. I am counting days and times and things over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. All day.
All damn day long, on Christmas Eve. Counting and searching and thinking and counting.
I would be six weeks.
Surely I would know.
I would have signs.
My breasts are aching so very bad. They hurt to look at not to mention touch or have in a bra. They are huge, swollen, and hurt so very, very much. I am bloated and my emotions are a little too emotional.
I don’t normally have PMS. Nothing. Craps, pain, bloating, irritable, nothing. I am just the way I am the other 28 days of the month. Just, normal.
Not today. Not at all.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. What do I do?
Should I buy a pregnancy test? No, silly. We used a condom and I took my pill. We used a condom each time.
But what if the condom broke?
No, he would have told me.
I would have known.
Wouldn’t I?
I took my pill, right?
Yes, of course I did. Never miss.
Right? Yeah. Took it. Double covered. Double. Always.
Six weeks.
I go back to my computer to do more Google searching, looking and counting. All day. All-damn-day-long.
All day.
On Christmas Eve.
Silly to buy a test. I’m being stupid.
I don’t have insurance. I don’t make enough money. I live in a small apartment. I’m not finished with school. Everything, everything would change. I’m not ready for everything to change.

By the time I think, “Fuck it. I’m buying a test.” All the stores are closed. It is Christmas Eve.

I go over to my parent’s house and act like everything is fine.
My mom misunderstands something my brother says about my sister-in-law. She thinks she hears that she is pregnant.
“You’re pregnant!!??!” The shear look of joy, anticipation, and out and out enthusiasm for another grandchild that lights up my mom’s face and heart immediately brings tears to my eyes.
I hide my face.
Throughout the evening I play bartender and drink like a fish and wonder what the hell I am doing drinking like a fish. I’m not planning on keeping it, so what difference does it make, right?
Right?
Still, my inner voice is telling, saying, I am a horrible person for tipping back the martinis a little too frequently and easy. Not to mention the Jager shots I am taking with my brothers.
What if I am pregnant? Should I really be pickling it? How fair is that to the baby?
Baby?
Yeah, baby.
Fuck.
What am I going to do?
I don’t have insurance. I don’t make enough money. I live in a small apartment. I’m not finished with school. Everything, everything would change. I’m not ready for everything to change.

Repeat that all night long.
Add in a lot of, said-out-loud-to-the-big-guy prayers and well, you have my night, morning and afternoon.

Christmas morning and day go about the same as the day before. I can’t buy a test because nothing is open. At this point I am five days late. Other than when I was a fitness fanatic along with working three jobs, going to college full-time and drinking like a no-longer practicing, but a full-blown alcoholic who had no body fat on her, I had never, ever been late. Ever.
Now, I am five days late.
What the fuck am I going to do?
What and when should I tell O-of-T and the New Guy?
What if they’re asses about it?
No, they wouldn’t be asses.
No.
Would they?
What if they are?
Fuck.

I come home early from Christmas with the family and sit and think and think and think and think.
My breasts are killing me. My shirt even hurts them. They are huge.
First sign of pregnancy? Breast changes.

I spend Christmas day pretty sure I am pregnant. Except when I am trying to convince myself that I’m not.
I mean I would be six weeks.
Surely I would know.
Surely.
I mean, wouldn’t I?
At the same time I’m thinking, five days late. I’m never late. Five days late.
I can’t be pregnant. I can’t be.
I can’t be.
What will I do?
I will have an abortion. No other way. I’m not ready to be a mom. The O-of-T and I aren’t right for each other and he doesn’t even live in the same state. How exactly would that work?
The New Guy, well, he’s the New Guy. I certainly don’t expect him to stick around.
Fuck.
I don’t have insurance. I don’t make enough money. I live in a small apartment. I’m not finished with school. Everything, everything would change. I’m not ready for everything to change.
Abortion. That’s what I will do.
Fuck.
That means I’ll have to tell the O-of-T because I certainly don’t have several hundred dollars to spare right now.
Fuck.
Merry Christmas.

The next morning I wake up and I know.
I know before my eyes are even open.
My eyes aren’t open but my brain is completely engaged.
I know.
I know and I just lay there in the fetal position.
Under my covers.

I know.

I’ve started my period.
Glorious, wonderful blood.

Everywhere.

I’m not pregnant.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, dear God, thank you.

The next week I spend in emotional roller coater hell. I can’t stop crying. Everything. Every conversation, doesn’t matter the subject, I become choked up. I am just a ball of emotion. A ball of tears. A very, very thankful ball of tears, emotions, cramps, sore breasts and emotion.
Very thankful.
I keep it all inside, all to myself.
Until one snowy, cold afternoon I go off to the movies.
I sit in the last row, right underneath the projector.
I pull my feet up to my chest and I cry.
Within the dark, silent safety of an empty movie theater, I cry.