positive/four weeks

If the line is faint on a pregnancy test, and it's hard to tell if you're really seeing what you think you're seeing, you hold it out at arm's length and look again. If at that distance, you can still see the line, then congratulations! You're knocked up.

This was my second pregnancy test in two days. The night before, even right in front of my face, it was just too light to tell for sure. But now, as I looked at that innocuous plastic strip from where I had placed it across the living room, and the pale blue x winked merrily back at me, like "hey girl! Guess what's going on in your uterus!", all I could think was: girls show these to their families. They pee on them, and then they show them to their mothers. 

I threw the stick in the garbage, because that is where things you've peed on belong. Ok, ladies? It's not cute to nestle them in a tissue-lined box and surprise your loved ones with them. There's got to be a better way to announce your pregnancy. 

Presumably, that way is also better than the way I did it, which was to call my husband at work and say "Well, fuck, this one was pretty conclusive." When he got home, we celebrated by laying in paralyzed horror on the floor of our basement. I think the tv was on. We were trying not to think about it, but every time one of us remembered we'd let out a moan. Here is the transcript of that night's conversation:

Joe/Maureen: (indiscriminate groaning sigh)

Maureen/Joe: What?

Joe/Maureen: Our life is over/We're so stupid/This is a nightmare

Maureen/Joe: I know.

(Repeat often, at varying intervals, all goddamn night long)

Have you ever done something so humiliating or idiotic that when you remember it a few days later it still gives you a hot, embarrassment cramp in your stomach? Like your stomach is cringing because it's ashamed of how dumb you are? That is exactly the feeling you get when you're trying not to think about your unplanned, accidental pregnancy. You can will yourself to be distracted for a bit, but when you let your mind wander it will invariably remind you that you have severely screwed yourself over, and then you will be forced to let out a very pathetic noise. Science fact.

So that's that. I'm pregnant. And now the clock is ticking-has been, in fact, for four weeks now-and I have a very short time to figure out exactly how I feel about it. 

I know it's self-indulgent and narcissistic to start a blog, especially when it doesn't really serve a purpose other than to share my thoughts and feelings, but this is a good way to organize them. I also think I'll appreciate having an account of this pretty tumultuous time in my life. But more than that, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. 

The internet can be a great resource, but it can also be a way to fuel one irrational fear with others. Books about pregnancy are filled with the information you crave, but they also tend to assume that above all, the dream of  becoming a mother has secretly consumed you since puberty. So this blog is for those of us who don't feel like that, at least not yet. It's a safe place to be honest, and selfish, and irreverent about pregnancy-either your own or someone else's.

So if you're still with me, thank you. We'll figure it out, probably.*

*This might be the best parenting slogan of all time.