Change

December 17th, 2007

I woke up feeling like total crap. I had felt like shit for about a week. Really tired, no appetite and almost too tired to function. The week prior I had accidentally fallen asleep during a staff meeting at work, and was getting to a point where I could barely make it through the day. I was frequently forgetting to do things and getting really upset really easily. Friday night I had passed on going out, choosing instead to sit by myself on Emily’s couch, while she was on a date, eating an entire block of Parmesan cheese and falling asleep while watching TV. Things were a little bizarre. I thought my workload and the season were just getting to me. 

I stayed in bed for a while that Monday morning and debated calling in sick. I remembered the big projects I was trying to complete at work and knew I needed to go in, like it or not. I spent the day frantically trying to complete the holiday related projects being thrown at me left and right, taking a break only to take Emily to the airport midday. I made it through the day and ended up staying until about 8pm. For the last half-hour I was there, I sat at my computer, reading my new obsession: parenting blogs. My co-worker had sent me an email with some links of blogs to check out after I professed my love of everything in the “parenting humor” niche to him at our holiday party a week and a half earlier. How convenient and hilarious of me.

Sometimes, you know something deep down, but it is so deeply buried that you can go about your life pretending like it’s not there. I had known I was pregnant, I think, since the week it happened, truly, probably even the night it happened. But I still went about my life, acting like everything was okay, and not taking care of myself at all. I was sick, I was tired, I was miserable. And things were about to get a lot worse.

Sitting at my computer that night, the idea suddenly popped in my head that perhaps I should take a pregnancy test. My almost week late period suddenly seemed like a big, glaring, obvious sign, and a sudden sense of urgency took over. I left work and instead of going home, I drove to Vancouver to my mom’s house, stopping at Walgreen’s to pick up a pregnancy test. (Why did I go to Vancouver? Good question.) The girl behind the counter said to me, “If you don’t mind me asking, do you want to be pregnant?” I didn’t mind. I answered, “No. Very much no.”

I arrived at my mom’s house and took the test. Positive. Two pink lines. Just like that. Everything was over for me. I stuck the positive test into my purse, and walked to my mom’s bedroom. I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know what to say. “Are you bringing the champagne for Christmas Eve?” she asked me. I just smiled and said yes, and then wandered back to the great room to get on the computer and stare blankly at the screen. I got a text on my phone from Emily. “I arrived safely!” it said. I wrote back, “Awesome. I am pregnant.” She was the first one to get the news.

I couldn’t talk to Emily in any form besides text, since she wasn’t getting very good cell reception in Iowa, so I called Chantelle, Eva and Eryn, and ended up staying up too late over at Eva’s apartment, talking with her about WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO. I woke up in the morning and scheduled an abortion, and went over to the father’s house that night. I proceeded to tell him, some boy I had known for one month and two days, that I was pregnant, that I wasn’t planning on keeping it and that I didn’t expect to ever see or hear from him again. I went to sleep that night and dreamt about Holland, and I dreamt about her the next night too. Thursday night I came home from work and picked up the magazine my Catholic university sends out to alumni every month, opening it right to an article written about what happens to babies who die before they are born. Things I did the next day include, but are not limited to: buying a book on pregnancy, telling my mom, buying pre-natal vitamins, stopping drinking and smoking, and, of course, calling the Lovejoy Clinic to inform them that I wouldn’t be needing that appointment after all.