I set the phone down on the cushion beside me and closed my eyes. This was not how I expected my lazy Sunday to go. I knew I needed to get this over and done with.
I didn’t move from the couch.
The rest of Sunday afternoon dragged by as I worked up the nerve to even open the first box. It appeared to be a normal run-of-the-mill pregnancy test with a plus meaning pregnant and a minus meaning hallelujah. Definitely no user error there. I started reading the instructions and a choked laugh escaped me.
Do not insert the test stick in your vagina.
Was that seriously an instruction that needed to be given to someone?
Carefully opening the package, I pulled out the stick and walked into my bathroom. I removed the purple cap as my stomach roiled.
My heart pounded like I was running uphill as I did my thing. The only thought in my head was how I awkward this was. Really. When I was done, I snapped the cap back on and gently placed it on the counter of my sink.
Then I ran from my bathroom, like legit sprinted out of the bathroom.
Pacing the length of my living room, I knew I only needed to wait for two minutes, but two minutes turned into five and five minutes turned into ten. I wasn’t ready. Running my hands through my hair, I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to see this.
But what if there was a little, happy negative sign?
But what if there was a really scary plus sign?
I eyed the remaining unused boxes on the counter and kept wearing a path in the hardwood floors. I’d always been so damn careful in the past. I’d never feared the chance of becoming pregnant, and now that there was a possibility I could be, I didn’t know what to do.
Never in my life did I feel so . . . so helpless.
Actually, that wasn’t true. When I was fifteen and there were two men in pristine, dignified uniforms knocking on our front doors. When I stood on the stairs and the blood had drained from my mother’s face when she saw them, I had felt helpless then.
I loathed that feeling, hated the memories it dredged to the surface. Seconds when our whole entire life changed, never to be the same. Air leaked out of me. Coming to a stop in front of the TV, I realized I could be in the very same position, standing on that very razor-sharp edge of monumental change
Or I could just be freaking out.
A good forty minutes had passed since I placed the test on my sink. I needed to go look at it. Get this over with, like I knew I had to. I wasn’t a coward. I could face this, no matter what. Biting down on my lower lip, I charged down the hall and into the bathroom. My reflection in the mirror told me I looked as out of control as I felt. My hair was now all over the place and my eyes were wide, pupils dilated.
I looked like some psycho in a hockey mask was after me.
Shoulders stiffening, I slowly dragged my gaze away from my reflection to the white and purple tipped pregnancy test.
I saw the result.
I couldn’t un-see the result.
Plain as day, there was a very visible symbol that could only mean one thing. Only. One. Thing.
Maybe I let it sit too long. Or maybe I shouldn’t have put a cap on it. I needed to take another one. I had two more.
Hurrying into the kitchen, I picked up the other box. It was more high-tech. Not only did it give you a yes or no, but if it was a yes, it gave an estimated length of pregnancy. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom, though. Rushing to the cabinet, I grabbed a glass and filled it up, and when I finished with that one, I drank another, and then another, and then I waited.
I wasn’t thinking, hadn’t done anything other than force water down my throat. Less than an hour later I took the second test into the bathroom, did my thing, and then placed it next to the first one.
I didn’t leave the bathroom this time.
With my heart in my throat, I eyeballed the test as my hands clenched and unclenched at my sides until the pregnancy showed me the results once more.
The first thing I noticed was two numbers with a dash between them: 2-3.
And above that one word.
Pregnant.
Chapter 12
Just to start Monday off with a bang, I took the third pregnancy test that morning, and it, too, came back positive. Pregnant. Three tests with the same result, but there was still a tiny part of me that wanted to believe that I had done something wrong, that without a doctor confirming I was pregnant, there was a chance I wasn’t. But I wasn’t dumb nor was I seriously that naive. I knew that when I went to my doctor’s appointment next week, what the three tests had already told me and what I’d been experiencing the last week or so would confirm what I already knew.
And according to the really fancy test, I was two to three weeks past my last ovulation. Meaning I was roughly four to five weeks pregnant. The timing was spot on.
I was actually pregnant.
There was a bun in my oven.
I was knocked up.
Monday and Tuesday at work passed by with me in a numb daze. I don’t even know how I did my job or how I got through Rick’s endless insinuations and leering looks without losing my flipping mind.
My nerves were stretched taut and I felt sick to my stomach when I packed up Tuesday evening. The moment I turned off my computer, my thoughts immediately started swirling around what I was going to do. Should I get in contact with Nick? I hadn’t heard from him since last Wednesday. Should I tell anyone what was happening? Did I need to?
Was I going to go through with this—with this pregnancy? And if so, how would I tell my new boss that in roughly eight months I would be needing maternity leave? Better yet, how could I even raise a child on an income that I lived off comfortably, though that wouldn’t work if I included the cost of caring for a child.