The dreaded call
“I’m late,” her voice crackled as she spoke.
“Oh,” I was a bit stunned, “um…how late?”
“Two weeks,” she replied trying to mask her despondency.
A million thoughts shot through my head. Maybe we should’ve used a condom, but she was on birth control and we’d been sleeping together exclusively for two years. Surely if something were to happen it would have happened by now, right? I tried to remember the advice a good friend gave me the first time a condom broke on me: don’t worry about anything until there’s something to worry about. Right. Only this time was different because we had just broken up a few days earlier.
An unexpected pregnancy is no laughing matter for couples, and definitely far more stressful when you’re trying to move on. The breakup was necessary for my sanity but now this girl was going to be in my life longer…possibly for another 18 years. A wave of panic crashed over me. What if I can’t move on because we have a kid together?
“Have you taken a pregnancy test?” I tried to ask in as calm a tone as possible.
“No,” she said, “I’m too scared to take it alone. If it comes back positive…”
“Okay, how about this,” I formulated the plan out loud, “I’m going to go to the pharmacy and get a pregnancy test. Come over and we’ll do this together.”
Sure I wanted to move on from this girl, but this was something we did together. The state of her body was my responsibility as much as it was hers. Real men don’t walk away from this sort of thing, I told myself. No, it was time to man up and do the right thing. And that was to take care of her until we knew what was going on.
“Hi,” she said from my doorway. Her face was drawn and it was clear she was stressed. Her eyes were dim, indicating that she hadn’t slept much the night before.
“Hey,” I replied, “I’d ask how you are but…”
“Yeah,” she brushed by me, shaking slightly. I took a long look at her. How did we end up here? Everything seemed so surreal.
“So, I got this box of EPT. It has two tests in it,” I began opening the box, “I’m afraid I don’t know much about how this works.”
“I got it,” she said, “the doctor said that if the test is positive, then I’m pregnant, but if it’s negative, it’s inconclusive and I have to take the test again in two weeks.”
She turned, walked to the bathroom, and closed the door. A few moments later she emerged, visibly shaken. It was time to wait.
While we were waiting, we got to talking about the great “what if.” What if she is pregnant, then what? I told her that I believed she had the right to do whatever she’d like and I would support her with whatever she decided. My one qualification was if she decided to have the child, then I didn’t want to put it up for adoption. No, if we were going to have a baby, then I wanted to be a dad. I couldn’t bare the thought of giving up my own flesh and blood.
The timer went off. Our conversation stopped short and we just stared at each other.
“Ready?” I asked softly.
“No,” she replied, “but I guess we have to know.”
I grabbed her hand and we took the agonizingly long walk to the bathroom. As we approached the test on the counter, she broke down and cried. She was shaking very hard and having a hard time catching her breath.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“It’s okay, I got it.”
My heart was pounding so hard that I swore it was preparing to explode out of my chest. I took a step towards the counter trying to get an early view of the results. I took a deep breath and then picked the test up.
“Minus,” I announced, “it’s negative.”
She cried some more and buried her head into my chest. I put my arms around her and held her tight.
“It’s okay,” I muttered into the top of her head, “we’re okay.”
We had to repeat the process two weeks later as she still hadn’t had her period. Once again, the test was negative and we were safe. She wouldn’t get her period again until the following month. Our theory was that the stress of the breakup caused the fluctuation in her typically clockwork cycle and we both sighed in relief when she finally started again. It was at that point that we were 100% sure that the ordeal was over and it was truly time to move on.
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