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.

This was my first week back to work and I freaking LOVED IT. My old plan of staying at home with my baby? HA! Three days a week of work? Give me seven days. I wanted to be there on my days OFF. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed working. I don’t do well with unstructured time (in case you haven’t noticed.) I love being back at work and I LOVE my new position there. It’s definitely weird…being gone for three months and then coming back. Everything is different. My job is different, the company is different, the setup is different…even the people are different. But I love being there, and being myself again. I walk around downtown and I am not pregnant and I don’t have a baby with me. I go to lunch, I run some errands, I get a diet coke, and at no time do I have a crying baby or a carseat or diapers or anything. I am just Alexia, walking around, back where I belong. It is so nice to finally have my identity back. And being back downtown, back where I belong, during the fall…tonight I left work and thought that maybe I wouldn’t go home. I wanted to go out for drinks with my friends, out to have fun and stay out late and not have any responsibility besides getting myself home by two or three AM and then back to work by eight again. I didn’t want to get on the bus to Vancouver, I wanted to get on the bus back to one year ago, and do what I was doing then, before I was pregnant, before I had a baby and before I had no money and before I had all the problems in the world. I talked to Emily on the phone when I was on the bus on the way home about all the fun things we did last fall and thought about how much I would like to have fun again someday.

Then I got home and saw my baby, and listened to my mom tell me what the daycare told her when she picked her up, and I was jealous that I can’t pick her up, and frustrated that she DOESN’T ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS of them, and I never know exactly what I want to know. She has a mark on her face! Where did that come from? Why is she dressed in a different outfit than the one I dropped her off in??? She is making different noises now than she was yesterday and I have no idea what she did all day. She seems so different tonight than she did this morning. Ugh. I am a total failure.

Nothing is more frustrating than having two sides to your life and not being able to fully live either of them.

10/13/07

3:14pm

Best Inside Joke of the Week

Current Mood: Productive

alexia: you smile a lot. like a baby.

jen: LOL – wtf?

alexia: your head is vacant. lol.

jen: ahhh, you’re so sweet.

alexia: just smile. i know.

jen: you should write greeting cards.

alexia: Outside: I know why you smile. Inside: Your head is vacant like a baby. Happy Birthday!

Tuesday night:

I dreamt I was at a staff meeting in our big downstairs conference room. The only thing weird was that the bottom of the floor had about a foot of water in it, like it was a giant communal bathtub. We all had special places on the conference table to put our shampoo and other shower supplies. I discovered my shampoo had run out, and had to use some of the person sitting next to me. I remember wondering how to wash the shampoo out of my hair without drawing attention to myself, and thinking, “wow, is it always this awkward to bathe? I don’t remember it being like this before.” The dream ended with my co-worker and I winning some big poetry contest and going to the national poetry contest competition.

Wednesday night:

Emily gave birth to a litter of kittens. They all looked like Basil, and ranged in size from really tiny to bigger. I was supposed to be taking care of them, but they were running around everywhere and I kept losing them. They slept inside this mechanical bed, and it kept catching on fire. I was very relieved to wake up.