My breasts ache, and my lower abdomen feels full like I’m about to get my period. I mean, maybe that’s what’s going on. I should calm down. I’m just letting my imagination get carried away.
I wipe down my face with a wet towel and look at my watery eyes in the mirror. How did this happen?
Well, I know how, obviously. But also…how?
I drift back to those few minutes of lust when I wanted Fitz so badly that I almost didn't insist on using a condom.
His hands on my skin…
His breath on my neck…
How every electron in my body was pairing up with his protons…and how I didn’t want it to end…
At least he had the good sense to stop, but the tiny inkling in my brain persists. What if we didn't get that condom on soon enough?
When I make it back to the car, I do a heroic acting job, smiling and thanking my sisters profusely for putting up with my “tiny bladder” and grit my teeth for the rest of the ride home.
The moment Hannah drops me off at my driveway, however, I go straight to my Jeep and race off to the pharmacy for a coupleof pregnancy tests. Yes, a couple. In case I need to take it again to be sure.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m peeing on a stick and starting a timer.
Then I start pacing. And checking the stopwatch on my phone. I know it’s too soon, but my anxiety ratchets up, and I want the hands of time to speed up.
Forcing myself out of the bathroom, I walk to the kitchen and chug an entire glass of water before checking the time again. Still a minute left.
I take out a nail file, but I can’t focus on such a mundane task, so I toss it aside and sit there watching the timer run down until it gets to zero.
Seconds later, I take a deep breath, hold a hand against my chest, and look at the stick.
And there it is, a little pink plus sign staring back at me.
My chest feels tight, and I struggle to breathe. My pulse must be in the thousands, and I’m sweating bullets. But it’s my brain that’s lagging here, unable to process what I’m seeing.
I’m pregnant.
I look at the other pregnancy test in the bag and contemplate a redo. These things are wrong all the time, right?
Right?!
Blinking at myself in the mirror, I see a woman panicked at the most basic womanly life event because I’m still struggling to understand how this happened. I didn’t plan it. And I plan everything.
A wave of dizziness hits, so I sit on the bathroom floor and experiment with some breathing exercises, focusing on breathing in, holding my breath for three seconds, then exhaling. Finally, my pulse slows a tiny bit, and I feel steady enough to stand.
I’ve spent my whole adult life, and a good part of my youth, for that matter, being a responsible workhorse in the family, thinking of everyone’s needs, putting them before my own. I’ve looked out for my siblings because they’re the only family I’ll ever have.
And with my focus on work and my lackluster experiences with men, I didn’t put great odds on creating a family of my own.
I’m not the kind of person who gets knocked up with a surprise pregnancy.
Then again, I’m not the one who runs off for a one-night stand with a hot cowboy.
Or maybe I am. Maybe I don’t know myself as well as I thought.
And amid the overall feeling of freaking out at the prospect of impending parenthood, a part of me likes the newer version of myself that I’m getting to know. She’s interesting. She goes home with the cowboy. She gets excited about legal cases. She offers to renovate a decrepit ranch when she has no idea how to do that.
Oh, and she’s pregnant with a cowboy’s baby.
Don’t all send your congratulations at once.