I didn’t start this day thinking I’d be handing over a Dixie cup of my own urine to a woman in lavender scrubs.
“What’s the verdict?” I ask about seven seconds after the nurse dips the stick into the cup on the other side of the exam room.
She is one of those ageless people whose fluffy gray-brown hair could have been that of an unfortunate thirty-five-year-old or a banging hot fifty-five-year-old. Her face gives away nothing as she looks up at me.
“The doctor will be in to discuss your results, Ms. Hatch.”
AKA, I’m not gonna be the one to tell you there’s an egg in your biscuit.
“Call me Eve and, look, you can just tell me. I’m sure you can read the stick as well as the doctor can. I know I’m pregnant anyways. I took three tests on my own. I did the research.” (On the train on the way over here.) “I know that false positives really only happen for women who were just recently pregnant or taking certain fertility meds. There’s no way I’m not pregnant.”
I’m telling her. I’m telling myself. I’m telling the universe, because the facts are grounding me. I’m trying to be realistic here. I refuse to be secretly hoping for either outcome.
The nurse’s face shows zero signs of life. Maybe that’s the secret to her ageless success. If one never, ever moves one’s face, one can look forty in one’s seventies. I make a mental note to start having fewer emotions. Probably a super achievable goal right at the beginning of an unplanned pregnancy, right?
“The doctor will discuss it with you. Now, I just need some basic info from you.” She has me hop on a scale and then takes my blood pressure. I’m shocked when I don’t blow up the machine like a desktop plugged in during a lightning storm. She confirms my family history. And then the fun questions begin.
“Are you sexually active?” she asks the computer screen.
“You know, the term ‘sexually active’ has always been so weird to me. It doesn’t make sense. If I had gone on one run in the last three months and that was it, no one would classify me as being physically active.”
The nurse gives me that blank look as her hands twitch over the keyboard. Obviously, she is waiting for me to answer the damn question.
“But you schtup one bartender…” Apparently, I can’t resist.
Her blank look evolves into a slow blink.
“Anyways,” I continue through a small cough.
“Miss…” the nurse prompts.
“Right. Yes. I had sex about four weeks ago. If that answers your question.”
Her fingers type-type-type away, sealing my fate into the computer. I am now, officially, an irresponsible sex-haver. Add it to my permanent record.
My eyebrows rise as the nurse continues typing. Thirty seconds pass. Another fifteen. I don’t think had sex once four weeks ago should possibly take that long to input. What is she, writing a novel over there? A diary entry? Updating her blog?
Finally, she looks up. “Date of last period?”
“I don’t know. I’m really irregular and I don’t keep much track. Maybe September?”
More novel writing. This woman is obsessed with typing. Her grandfather invented the typewriter. In her family, it’s a rite of passage to learn how to type six thousand words a minute.
She looks up from the computer. I brace for more questions that all seem like they could contain the word vagina but for some reason never do.
“Honey,” the nurse says. “Are you all right?”
I blink at her. That was not the type of question that I expected her to ask me. I hate it significantly more than all the others.
“I’m on my lunch break,” I say to her, as if that explains absolutely anything about my well-being. Stay in your lane, blank-faced nurse. Let’s get this over with.
Apparently, though, it answers her question. She nods briskly and turns back to the computer screen. “I need to ask a few more questions before the doctor comes in.”
“Okay.”
“Are you in a monogamous relationship?”
“Can’t we just talk about my feelings again?”
She slants me a look.
I clear my throat. “No. I’m not. It was a random encounter.”
“Do you have sex with men?”
“I have had sex with men. I’m not currently sleeping with anyone.”
She types, clicks, scrolls, and types and clicks again. Apparently, I answered two questions in one.
“Do you have sex with women?”
“Nope.”
“Do you have vaginal sex?”
“Yes.”
“Oral sex?”
“Yes and yes.” I answer that way because that question can be construed in two ways. I promptly realize I’ve revealed too much when the corner of her mouth lifts for a brief second before she clicks, types, and scrolls.
“Anal sex?”
“Haven’t had the honor.”
More clicking. More scrolling. She turns to me. Her hands are folded. I don’t take it as a good sign.
“We recommend a full panel of STI testing for our patients who are not in monogamous relationships.”
“Okay.” Because what else can I really say? “But I really need to be back at work soon. Can I make a second appointment for that?”
“Yes,” the nurse answers briskly. “They’ll schedule you in for later this week, as it’s important to get it done as soon as possible.”
“Great.”
What a silly word great is. I only said it so she’d know I’m not trying to avoid my STI testing. I should have just said fine and moved on with my life.
She asks about fifteen more invasive questions and then stands up to go get the doctor. I watch the clock tick-tock. I made a New Year’s resolution this year that I won’t aimlessly scroll on my phone when I’m waiting for something. I’ve never wanted to break my rule more than I do right now, but it’s already October and even though I’d love to drown in a round of Technicolor point-and-shoot I’m only a month and a half away from being the only person on the face of the earth who has ever held to their New Year’s resolution for an entire year. This little speed bump shall not be my undoing. Because that’s all an unplanned pregnancy really is, right? A speed bump? A tiny little momentary blip that barely affects your regularly scheduled programming? Someone please confirm that for me.
My parents dealt with an unplanned pregnancy at the whopping age of fifty-two.
The results? Moi.
I spent my childhood having other kids ask me why my mom had gray hair and watching my parents’ necks get red in church while people whispered over raised eyebrows about the fact that after three appropriately spaced older brothers, I, two decades later, must have been an accident.
Maybe accidents are genetic? I got my mom’s pointy nose, my dad’s bony feet, and both of their proclivity towards apparently irresponsible sex. How embarrassing.
They passed away when I was in college, but even if they were still around, this isn’t exactly the kind of thing I’d ask them for advice about.
My thumbs twitch, begging me to open my phone and let me match dancing fruit to other dancing fruit. But nay! A massively unexpected life change will not break me.
The uneaten peanut butter sandwich in my bag just might, though. The seconds of my lunch break are splintering away as I wait for my doctor. At this rate, I will definitely not have time to eat lunch before I get back to work. And it’s not like I can eat at my desk, or even right before I head back into the building. Micah, the junior accountant at Wildlife Fund of America, where I work, sits kitty-corner from me and is deathly allergic to peanuts. I stow a toothbrush in my bag to keep the peanut-related homicide to a minimum. But I won’t have time for that at this point. My sandwich could kill him with one puff of my breath and it would be all this tardy gyno’s fault.
There’s a brisk knock, not enough time for me to answer, and the OB-GYN strides into the office. My former doctor apparently moved practices since the last time I was here, so this is a meet-and-greet as well as the moment I find out I’m officially pregnant.
You know, just to make things easier.
The doctor is a statuesque bottle blonde who looks like a female version of a Ken doll. No, I don’t mean Barbie. This woman is ripped.
Nurse Blank follows in after her. The welcome brigade. Exactly the two people I would have chosen to tell me that my life will never be the same.
The doctor says what I was expecting to hear, but the words wobble upon entry to the atmosphere. I respond somehow. I’m lying on my back with no pants on and the OB-GYN, who I’ve decided must be named Bridget, rolls a condom onto an enormous wand, slathers it up with frankly an absurd amount of lube, and my eyes squeeze tight while she does her internal exam.
There’s a picture on a screen that looks like nothing to me. The doctor pulls the wand away from me, and the only noise in the room is the snap of her gloves as she tosses them in the trash.
“Nurse,” the doctor says. “Where’s the testing tray?”
“She’s coming back in later in the week for her testing.”
The doctor lowers her voice and says something I can’t hear. My feet are still on the stirrups and the nurse leans around me and taps my big toe with her finger. “You can get dressed, honey.” She pulls a curtain around me and they’re on the other side.
“She needs to get back to work. She’ll be in later this week,” I hear her say firmly.
Nurse Blank may not be my cup of tea, but I’m obliged to see that she’s not cowed in the least by Dr. Bridget Muscles.
Then my pants are back on, and I’m work-ready and standing in front of the receptionist, who schedules me in for Friday.
“Oh, good,” I tell her. “I was so worried I wouldn’t have something to look forward to all week.”
Unlike Nurse Blank, she actually gives me a big, radiant smile and a hearty laugh. “Well, we aim to please here at Lower East Side Partners in Obstetrics and Gynecology.”
The fact that she says the entire name makes me laugh too. I wave goodbye and totter out to the street, pulling my phone out, scrolling to my best friend Willa’s name…but I’m not ready for that yet. So I automatically scroll to her mother, Corinne, a lifelong reflex for when things get hard. But no. Corinne’s been gone for over a year now and I slide my phone back into my pocket. One breakdown at a time, please.
I can’t call anyone, but food? Sure. Let’s fix at least one problem, shall we? I pick up a falafel sandwich from a halal cart outside my office building. It’ll stink up the office but it’s better than sending Micah to the ER.
Maybe it’s the power of (absolute, ironclad) suggestion but I’m suddenly feeling really freaking pregnant. Not like there’s-a-golden-little-angel-sleeping-peacefully-in-my-sacred-womb sort of pregnant. But like, sore boobs, gonna be sick, already bloated, can’t-believe-I-just-took-a-pregnancy-test sort of pregnant.
“Hey, Eve,” Christina the receptionist says as I come off the elevator onto our floor. She looks up from solitaire or the GapBody website or whatever memo she’s sending everyone about the out-of-control fridge space issue.
“How was your night?” I stop at her desk. I like Christina. She’s funny and a little loud. We consider it egregious that she is expected to be here half an hour before the office workers so that she can get the enormous vat of subpar coffee percolating.
“Meh,” she says, fully looking up at me for the first time since I came in. The makeup around her eyes looks shellacked on with a paint scraper. Her red hair is braided to the side instead of blown out to perfection. Unusual for her. “Ryan and I got into it again.”
Ryan is Christina’s live-in girlfriend who’d seemed like a reasonably good partner at last year’s holiday party when I’d met her. She’d laughed at Christina’s jokes and refilled a bunch of people’s drinks from the open bar. Lately they’ve been having trouble and it makes me nervous. I’m single, have been for years, and pretty much fine with it, but I can’t help but panic whenever I hear about couples considering breaking up. It awakens the conservative, midwestern upbringing in me. I have to viciously swallow back all the knee-jerk but you’re so good togethers and but it’s almost Christmas, who wants to be alone at Christmas?es and don’t you know that people are supposed to mate for life no matter whats that bubble up without my permission.
“Oh no,” I say. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
She scrunches up her face. “Merp.”
“I’m gonna take that as a…yes?” I guess.
“It’s a yes-ish.”
“Was it the same argument as before?”
Christina sighs and plunks her chin on her palm. “Yah. She wants to get married, like tomorrow. I want…time. She’s ten years older than I am and we have different levels of urgency and blah blah blah.” Christina’s slightly pink eyes slick up to mine and she sighs again.
“I hope you don’t include the blah blah blahs when you’re talking about this with Ryan,” I say dryly.
She laughs, spots the big clock on the wall, and groans. “How is it only noon? Hey, wanna grab lunch?”
I pause. “Can’t today, I already took mine. Had an appointment.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. We’re gonna take Marla out to celebrate. She’s pregnant with number four.”
“Wow.” My hands slip off the strap of my messenger bag and hang listlessly at my sides.
Christina wags four fingers at me and then makes her pinky dance. “She says it was a surprise. And that she’s pretty sure it happened after those happy hour drinks in August? Apparently she and Topher got a bit…creative when they got home.” She waggles her eyebrows and makes her pinky dance again, this time an absurdly suggestive little move that I’m frankly shocked that anyone could perform with just a single pinky.
“Wow,” I say again, hollowly. Just then, two interns from the Events department come bustling in and I take the opportunity to head down the hallway. I swing through the side door that leads to the sad little admin annex where me and three co-workers try not to die from lack of sunlight forty hours a week.
Almost as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to work in conservation. Growing up, of course I had the requisite Nick Lachey poster on my wall. But I also had polar bears. Red pandas. Aerial shots of the shrinking Amazon. I begged my parents to take me to the Gulf so that I could scrub the oil off seabirds with a toothbrush. (They signed me up to volunteer at the local animal shelter instead.)
Girls with big dreams and honest hearts always get into the most renowned conservation and climate study programs, don’t they?
Nope. Most of us gratefully attend a state school and work a part-time job so that we finally have just enough money to…
Move to New York, hoping to work at the Wildlife Fund of America to make a difference! Which is exactly what I’m doing now…
…as an administrative catch-all, plugging holes in every single department.
Ever since I heard about WFA, I’ve dreamed of becoming one of their esteemed policy analysts. I imagined myself crafting programs to protect endangered species, planning missions to shrinking habitats, wearing a low-cut dress and schmoozing billionaires into caring about marine iguanas. (Just joking about that last one—sort of.)
But alas. I was too desperate to finally get out of Michigan, so I didn’t stay to complete the necessary graduate degree there. But once I got to New York, I never felt like I had the extra funds or time to enroll in a program. So here I am. The only directly dream-related thing I do at work these days is something I don’t even get paid for. Each month I voluntarily pore over each funded project’s research notes and budget and synthesize it all into an org-wide newsletter so that all of us understand what everyone else is actually doing around here. If it weren’t for me, the Galapagos Penguin team wouldn’t even know the Pacific Salmon team existed.
And then I get back to my regularly scheduled programming.
Next on the docket for me today? Ordering toner cartridges and helping Barbara update her operating system.
The annex door slams shut behind me ominously and I hear my own words to Christina in my head. Had an appointment.
A lunchtime appointment.
At my freaking OB-GYN. Because two little lines decided to make some random night a few weeks ago the most important night of my life.
And here I am talking about creative sex and surprise pregnancy with my co-worker. Without letting on that I personally really overachieved at both.
I can’t think about how happy Marla apparently is to be on number four. Because at the moment, the concept of pregnancy exists only within the two square inches of my traitorous uterus. It is nothing more than a mere condition. There is nothing beyond that. The future can’t exist for me right now. Not yet.
When I sit at my desk and unwrap my sandwich, Micah stares at me through big hazel eyes. “No secret, shameful peanut butter today?”
“What can I say?” I tell him through a mouthful. “I live for surprises.”