Le Sang Est Arrivé!
About six and half years ago, I called my friend, Irish. “Irish,” I said to her, “I’m late.”
“Oh, shit,” she said, more because she knew who I was sleeping with at the time and less because I was late. I was driving in my car down Woodward Avenue after rugby practice. She talked me through buying a pregnancy test at Walgreens. “Don’t go home and take it. Your mom will find it.” (Yes, I was living at home at the time.) “You can’t come here,” she said to me, “My parents are visiting.”
“Where do I go, Irish?” I wailed into the phone.
“To McDonalds. Take the test in the bathroom at McDonalds.”
And that I did. I clipped into McDonalds, sweaty and dirty still wearing my rugby boots, hovered over the toilet and peed on a little stick. No sooner than I had put the EPT down to rest on the edge of the sink, a knock came at the door. “Just a minute!” I called. I looked down at the stick. “Or two!” After those two minutes and an extra thirty seconds just to be safe, it was clear the test was negative. I buried the box and stick under brown paper towels and went to the bar, as all good rugby players do.
Fourteen years ago, I was ending my freshman year of college. (Fourteen years?!?) I was eighteen years old and finishing a year of complete partying and little schooling. I was tired and depressed. It’s really true that all play and no work makes Jill a very dull girl. I was also two weeks late for a period with a “boyfriend” that I broke up three weeks previous. We ran into each other at a party. He asked how I was doing and I started a drunken bawl. He quickly ushered me out of the crush (and, truth be told, away from his current girlfriend.) The next day, I puked into the toilet, sure I was pregnant, and that my vomiting had nothing to do with a raging hangover. Later that same morning, this ex-boyfriend drove me in silence to a clinic where I could get a free pregnancy test.
When we pulled into the lot, we sat still for a few moments.
“Do you want me to come in?” he asked. I fiddled with the medal of Our Lady I wore around my neck at that time. “No,” I murmured. I pulled at the door latch to release myself from his small, stifled car, and as I stood up, the holy medal of the Virgin Mary fell from my neck. I caught it before it hit my lap and wordlessly handed it to my ex. Inside the clinic, which was also an abortion clinic, women sat with boyfriends or husbands, shuffling their feet on the linoleum floor. I looked at them with sympathy—they all looked poor and tired to me, grey faces and streaky hair. They looked back at me, I thought at the time with sorrow, but I realize now they probably felt sorry for me too. I was the only woman in there without a partner. When I returned the waiting room to await my test results, a woman came through the door flanked by two prison guards, her hands cuffed to her waist. She smiled at me and looked down. When the nurse told me my test was negative, I started to cry. I associated negative with pregnant. On the drive back to my dorm room, this ex-boyfriend, only after hearing I wasn’t pregnant, told me how if I had been up the pole, he wouldn’t have run off. He would have married me. He said he talked about it with his fraternity brothers who thought he was crazy, but he’d would have done whatever I wanted. I whispered, “I just wanna go home.” He wanted me to congratulate him. I wouldn’t.
Since Friday night, I have been going to the bathroom inspecting the toilet paper. Sunday was the day I was to start birth control pills with Partner in order to coordinate our cycles. Our nurse at Dr. BusyBusyBusy’s office told me it was alright if I didn’t start my period until Monday or early Tuesday—We’d still be okay. But if it was later than that, our schedule was off. Only by a week, but when you’ve been waiting for a year, that extra week seems like a dog’s age.
All those years inspecting toilet paper, willing blood to come so it meant I wasn’t pregnant… And now this past week, inspecting with all the same trepidation, but with a totally different mind set. Before if my period was late, I thought it was surely because I was pregnant. This past week in my mind, my period was late because my cyst had grown exponentially and blocked something, or because I had a sudden growth of fibroids, or, or, or…
And then today—finally. I have never been so happy to bleed.
“Oh, shit,” she said, more because she knew who I was sleeping with at the time and less because I was late. I was driving in my car down Woodward Avenue after rugby practice. She talked me through buying a pregnancy test at Walgreens. “Don’t go home and take it. Your mom will find it.” (Yes, I was living at home at the time.) “You can’t come here,” she said to me, “My parents are visiting.”
“Where do I go, Irish?” I wailed into the phone.
“To McDonalds. Take the test in the bathroom at McDonalds.”
And that I did. I clipped into McDonalds, sweaty and dirty still wearing my rugby boots, hovered over the toilet and peed on a little stick. No sooner than I had put the EPT down to rest on the edge of the sink, a knock came at the door. “Just a minute!” I called. I looked down at the stick. “Or two!” After those two minutes and an extra thirty seconds just to be safe, it was clear the test was negative. I buried the box and stick under brown paper towels and went to the bar, as all good rugby players do.
Fourteen years ago, I was ending my freshman year of college. (Fourteen years?!?) I was eighteen years old and finishing a year of complete partying and little schooling. I was tired and depressed. It’s really true that all play and no work makes Jill a very dull girl. I was also two weeks late for a period with a “boyfriend” that I broke up three weeks previous. We ran into each other at a party. He asked how I was doing and I started a drunken bawl. He quickly ushered me out of the crush (and, truth be told, away from his current girlfriend.) The next day, I puked into the toilet, sure I was pregnant, and that my vomiting had nothing to do with a raging hangover. Later that same morning, this ex-boyfriend drove me in silence to a clinic where I could get a free pregnancy test.
When we pulled into the lot, we sat still for a few moments.
“Do you want me to come in?” he asked. I fiddled with the medal of Our Lady I wore around my neck at that time. “No,” I murmured. I pulled at the door latch to release myself from his small, stifled car, and as I stood up, the holy medal of the Virgin Mary fell from my neck. I caught it before it hit my lap and wordlessly handed it to my ex. Inside the clinic, which was also an abortion clinic, women sat with boyfriends or husbands, shuffling their feet on the linoleum floor. I looked at them with sympathy—they all looked poor and tired to me, grey faces and streaky hair. They looked back at me, I thought at the time with sorrow, but I realize now they probably felt sorry for me too. I was the only woman in there without a partner. When I returned the waiting room to await my test results, a woman came through the door flanked by two prison guards, her hands cuffed to her waist. She smiled at me and looked down. When the nurse told me my test was negative, I started to cry. I associated negative with pregnant. On the drive back to my dorm room, this ex-boyfriend, only after hearing I wasn’t pregnant, told me how if I had been up the pole, he wouldn’t have run off. He would have married me. He said he talked about it with his fraternity brothers who thought he was crazy, but he’d would have done whatever I wanted. I whispered, “I just wanna go home.” He wanted me to congratulate him. I wouldn’t.
Since Friday night, I have been going to the bathroom inspecting the toilet paper. Sunday was the day I was to start birth control pills with Partner in order to coordinate our cycles. Our nurse at Dr. BusyBusyBusy’s office told me it was alright if I didn’t start my period until Monday or early Tuesday—We’d still be okay. But if it was later than that, our schedule was off. Only by a week, but when you’ve been waiting for a year, that extra week seems like a dog’s age.
All those years inspecting toilet paper, willing blood to come so it meant I wasn’t pregnant… And now this past week, inspecting with all the same trepidation, but with a totally different mind set. Before if my period was late, I thought it was surely because I was pregnant. This past week in my mind, my period was late because my cyst had grown exponentially and blocked something, or because I had a sudden growth of fibroids, or, or, or…
And then today—finally. I have never been so happy to bleed.
posted by Katie at 5:15 PM
7 Comments:
Vive le sang!
Don't you love reminiscing about all the good negative HPTs in the past?
It's soo weird thinking how different my life was and how different I felt about the HPT's of the past. Positive and negative I don't think there have been two that had the same effect on me.
Oh and congratulations on your bleeding. I hope it's the beginning of the end for you.
yay for la sangre!
ahhhh... so glad!!
I hope that this works out for you. I agree that its hard waiting for natural body functions to happen. My husband and I tried to get pregnant for 3 years... NOTHING. Erick and I eventually gave up, and decided that we were not meant to have kids. About a week after that we were pregnant with Thea. In our case we can only get pregnant when actively trying not to. :) Go figure. My advice to you is to relax... it will come with time. Your baby to be is lucky to have a mom who is so ready for them.
~cj~
Hooray!
Last weekend I found out I wasn't pregnant in a McDonald's bathroom, which sucked. I found out the same thing in a far-away McDonald's bathroom when I was 17.
Funny, how McDonald's seems to be the harbringer of non-pregnancy.
Funny how things change, just stay away from Mcdonalds washrooms when the important testing comes around, sounds like they are a good place to go when you want negative results! As for my reading Lucky, if you didn't like Lovely Bones it probably won't do much for you. Hope all is going well! And I am one of those people whining about summer, it isn't the heat that I hate it is the gd humidity!
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