Pregnant

Warning: Female topics ahead, turn back now

It’s been an exciting two weeks around here. For starters, my period was two weeks late. Being 48, and being married to someone who has had a vasectomy, I wasn’t TOO worried about it. If my period took a hike it wouldn’t be the saddest day of my life cause frankly, thirty six years of periods is quite enough, thank you. I’ve done the math, I have now spent over eight thousand dollars on feminine hygiene products in my life, what a rip off! And don’t even get me started on the pain.

So there I was, not worrying very much, when suddenly I realized my boobs were feeling a little tender. This is not a usual feeling for me, and I vividly remember the last time it happened, because I was pregnant.

My sister has been hired as my personal assistant for several weeks now, a whole other story, so to this weeks shopping list I added a pregnancy test.

“Buahahahahaha,” my sister text back, “you did say it would be fun to have another baby.”

I told her all the reasons it was probably menopause. She researched pregnancies after vasectomies and told me my odds were three in a thousand. Suddenly three in a thousand seemed like a lot.

I imagined having to tell my husband I was pregnant. I thought about all the ways that would ruin all my plans.

But I also thought about a cute little baby and about how nice it would be to NOT be a single parent this time around. I decided the baby was going to need to be adaptable, because I was probably going to lug it on all my adventures, versus stop adventuring.

It would be nice, I considered, for my daughter Bunny to have a sibling. A real one who acted like a sibling, and loved like a sibling, who looked up to her as a big sister, who would be around after I kick the bucket , which admittedly was going to be too early in this baby’s life.

I thought about telling my husband and how he was not going to believe it and if I ever left the house he might consider that I’d had an affair, but since I rarely leave the house he’d have to accept that it was meant to be. We decided 13 years ago not to have any more kids, but I knew he would adapt.

Then I started worrying. I mean, if you’ve been pregnant you know, it takes a lot out of you, even when you’re young and strong and healthy. How was my old body going to handle it? And doctors would be a nightmare, since they consider “geriatric pregnancy” to be anyone 35 or older. I’d be on the “watch” list. But, it’s not like I could help it, and I’m pretty resilient.

My mom has a friend who at fifty thought her missed period was menopause, until she got heartburn. She called my mom, sobbing, because menopause turned out to be a baby at fifty. She survived just fine, and baby recently turned 18.

Several hours went by where I worried about being pregnant. I may have uttered a few “please god no”s but then stopped myself because last time I said that BAM, pregnant.

I never expected to be having a pregnancy scare at forty eight. After I had Bunny I was serious about birth control and not having another baby that I knew I couldn’t afford. Zero pregnancy scares for 25 years and now this ridiculousness!

But then, suddenly, I felt a little crampy.

“I HAVE CRAMPS!” I text my sister.

“Well good,” she replied, “or maybe implantation cramps?”

I visited the bathroom every five minutes after that but it was taking forever. And every time there was no period, I thought about how to tell J.

Finally it happened. No baby. Not this time, anyway.

“What would you have said if I’d have told you I was pregnant?” I asked J over dinner.

“I’d have said I guess god really wanted us to have a baby,” he said, “but I did the math, and I would be OLD.”

In another week and a half I’ll be ovulating.

Maybe we can try again. 🙂