Oh, Baby
Now that my slate AND my apartment are sparkling clean, I can move on with my life. Except for one thing – I’m late. You know, LATE.
I have been sexually active for exactly twenty years. (I just sounded like my gynecologist.) And in those twenty years, I have never been late. I am like clockwork – every fourth Wednesday, the second time I pee. Yep, even my period knows I have O.C.D.
Over the years, I’ve often wondered after a few careless moments (and there have been a few), is this the time I’ll get pregnant? Each of those times I was actually head-over-heels in love and figured if it happened, it happened and it would be “meant to be.” But it never happened. Again like clockwork my “oops” baby would disappear, and my childless life would continue on.
So it just figures that after being dumped by probably the most insensitive man on the planet, this is when I’m late. (Stupid shower sex!) Seriously, THIS is who I’m going to have an “oops” baby with??? Great. My baby is going to have his dad’s pasty skin and beady eyes, come out of my womb, look up at me and say, “By the way Mommy, you’re fat.”
I called a girlfriend and asked her to go for a run. That’s right – I was going to jog my period out of me. Hey, in all the old cheesy romance novels they used to go horseback riding and miraculously the forbidden love child would be no more! We didn’t really feel like running, so my friend and I decided to go buy a pregnancy test to find out the fate of my unborn beady-eyed judgmental baby.
Unfortunately between the two of us, we only had our usual Starbucks money for our end-of-run coffees and bananas, which totaled about $12. We stood in the grocery store aisle looking down the row of pregnancy tests. “These are expensive!” she said. “Twenty bucks for two sticks?” And then we saw it. $9.99 with a Club Card would get me the generic version. “Does a plain wrap pregnancy test work as well as a name brand?” I asked. Was I really going to put the fate of my unborn beady-eyed judgmental baby in the hands of an “as good as the name brand” test? Yes, yes I was. We’re in a recession, people.
Fifteen minutes and one grande iced coffee later, I peed on a stick for the very first time in my life. My friend and I peered over it while she set the timer on her iPhone. “Not pregnant!” she exclaimed. I have to say, for a minute I was a little disappointed. I think I had already kind of fallen for my unborn beady-eyed judgmental baby.
That afternoon, I took the other test – negative.
That night I got my period.
Okay, NOW the slate is clean.-
One Response to “Oh, Baby”
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Maybe Next Time, Baby
For the record, it isn’t only women who freak out when a period is late. For every freaked-out female lying awake at night, wrestling with the possible results of a pregnancy test, there also hides a cowardly lion of a man, as scared and clueless as any potential baby mama could ever be.
Not for nothing, but you simply cannot get pregnant right now. You have way too much to do, and we have much to discuss. Besides, the most recent sex you’ve had was with a guy we now label, “Extra-Large Jerk.” He will NEVER deserve to have your baby – and the last thing you ever need is to have his.
That aside, how relieved are you? Please admit to something we already both know – that the last thing you want in your life right this minute is a baby. Under the umbrella of, “no news is good news,” you not being knocked-up might be the best “no news” I’ve heard in a long, long time. The recent El Nino occurrence in the South Pacific is now being directly credited to the sigh of relief you released when you discovered you were not with child.
On the other hand, we both know you want a baby in your life, someday. Not this baby, and maybe not this life, but you must have felt at least a twinge of disappointment at not being pregnant… again… still. I don’t say this to hurt your feelings. I say this because I truly believe that every woman should have at least one child in her life (unless she doesn’t want to, of course), without question or doubt. You’ve always been a slam-dunk to be a great mother; one of these days that greatness will be tapped – and under much better circumstances.
It will be nice if your circumstances include a home, a husband and a happily ever after, but we both know that option simply isn’t as common as it once was. People get divorced all of the time now, no matter how many kids they have. People have children without getting married. Famous women adopt children from other countries, rich women have as many children as the household help can raise and then there’s the women who have children to give themselves an identity or to trap some knucklehead into a lifetime together or both.
All of the above of is unacceptable, but the freedom and options they’ve unleashed is not. EVERY woman who wants a child should have one. (Except you this time because it would mean you’d be sharing your life with an asshole. Not to mention the beady eyes and pasty skin your judgmental baby would have had.)
Whatever the circumstances when your time comes (and it will), the smile on my face will be almost as big as when my own children were born.
One more reason I’m glad I’m a man.
[...] been a year since I even thought about a baby (remember my pregnancy scare from Extra Large Jerk?)… And it was two years before that. It’s not something I think about every day. Until now. Now [...]