My Pregnancy Scare Saga: Part Two

[Read part one HERE]

Finally, I left the store with no pregnancy test and no lack of huffing and stomping. As I drove to the next grocery store, I started to think about what I would do when the test told me I was pregnant.

I had all but assumed that I was, at that point. I had talked about it with my boyfriend, who was enormously supportive, as we tried to figure out how I could be pregnant. We were almost always safe when we had full on sex, but not quite as safe during foreplay. And there was that time we played the pull out game.

I honestly had never really thought about this situation before, because in the almost three years that we had been having sex and playing that game occasionally, nothing like this had ever happened, not even close.

I stood in line at the next grocery store, sandwiched between two harried looking mothers and their brood, and cursed myself for being so stupid. I should have gotten on the pill even though it was expensive and made me fat, I should have used spermicide even though it grosses me out, I should have made my boyfriend wear a condom at all times, even when I was just thinking about sex.

Eventually, I bought the damn pregnancy test. I read the instructions and, in my haste to be done with the damn thing, made the mistake of not peeing on it long enough. I sat on the toilet, staring in fury at the now useless pregnancy test that had taken so much guts and time and money to acquire and threw it across the room. I was mad at the thing, yes, but mostly, I was so mad at myself, that I wanted to cry.

I’ve always been the responsible friend, the knowledgeable friend, the friend that went with my other friends to hold their hands when they got tested or the morning after pill, or even an abortion. Mostly, I was the friend that had preached about safe sex until I was blue in the face and once I had found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and we both got tested, being so strict about it had become less of a priority.

I was too lazy, too wrapped up in everything else going on in my life and too damn sure that nothing so horrible could ever happen to me. To others, yes, but never to me.

I made an appointment with a doctor for a real pregnancy test and another to get a pap and a prescription for the pill if I wasn’t pregnant. And almost immediately afterwards, as if I was in some sort of movie, I felt a twinge of dull pain start in my lower abdomen.

With a hope like almost nothing I’ve felt before, I rushed to the bathroom and checked. I had started my period. I had never been so happy to see the godd*mn thing in my entire life.

I was relieved when it finally came, but I was still disappointed in myself. I had gotten comfortable in my relationship, too comfortable, and barely escaped having to take real responsibility for my utter and complete stupidity. I can see the lesson, alright, I just really, really, hope that I’ve learned it.