I really do love this tile, I thought to myself. I can’t remember where it’s from. Somewhere in Europe. Spain? France?
I was distracting myself with inner dialogue as I admired the cold floor from my parent’s toilet.
If the housing market ever crashes, and Adam and I buy a house back in San Diego, I’d love to have a tile with a Spanish flare like this. Not tile imported from Europe, obviously, but a rugged and quaint casita look.
I absorbed the calm of the Wisconsin winter morning. The sleepy sun that could very well not wake all damn day. The lifeless branches outside the window whispered for me to stay inside. A cloak of silence fell on the rest of the house that would only last another hour or so, which was enough time to somewhat diffuse my sense of urgency at that moment.
I kind of miss the seasons here, I thought, but not this one. Maybe I could appreciate it more if it wasn’t also absolutely freezing in this fucking bathroom.
I peered down at the test to see one prominent visible line.
This is going to be like a goddamn COVID test! My eyes will play tricks on me contemplating the presence of a second line…
A second line did appear, but it was faint, and it wasn’t getting any darker.
Is it just me, or is this a dubious test? My thoughts rambled. Don’t they have tests with just a simple “yes” or “no?” It really always has been frigid in this bathroom.
There I sat, on my parent’s brisk toilet the day after Christmas, unwrapping a second pregnancy test for good measure.
Exactly how I imagined holidays in my mid-thirties.
How wild would this be? Adam and I aren’t even 48 hours into our engagement and a frickin’ baby?! So much for an engagement party with the build-your-own tequila station I dreamt of last night…
My mind wandered to a few months prior, when all this had started…
I remember thinking there would be some pivotal moment like publishing a successful book or climbing El Cap or feeling content with a thriving business. Something that would trigger me to say: “A-ha! I’m ready now.” Alas, like most of my epiphanic expectations (aka my expectations in general), this was not the case. The moment instead came late last summer in the form of rhetorical questions like “what exactly am I waiting for?” and “when was I hoping this would happen?” Uncoincidentally, the man I knew to be my life partner had just wrapped up a lengthy conversation by saying that he was ready. It was that same evening I realized I was nearly a year from what medical professionals call “advanced pregnancy age.”
I had accomplished what I had said was necessary for me prior to any chance of reproducing. I had also been absolutely certain for a few years that I wanted children, which hadn’t been the case for a period of time when I was traveling… when I thought it wise to strongly consider what a life could look like without them. I was also certain that I no longer had any desire to consistently live a nomadic life of travel. Aware that 2022 would put me at what the medical community claims to be a high-risk pregnancy, I presumed that whether that was a consideration of mine or not at the time, any consideration of that as a factor would only grow. With all of this in mind, I strongly considered the timing of starting a family of my own more than ever before. The conversation with Adam was coming to a close after discussing our commitment and dedication to each other, along with whether we each agreed with the institution of marriage, and where we each sat with those individual prerequisites for starting a family! He closed his thoughts on the matter with an unsurprisingly matter-of-fact statement:
“I want you to know that I’m ready, so just let me know when you are.”
The simplicity almost warranted a giggle. I looked at him lovingly—a hilariously witty, frustratingly pragmatic, 38-year-old surfer and climber, educator and innovator, successful entrepreneur, and my unconditional supporter.
When I read that statement to him, he chuckled and said, ‘Yeah, don’t forget that last one, Moll. I’m on your side!’
I knew I would spend my life with him, but I also knew that timing was a critical factor for me when it came to monumental life decisions. I paused, then grinned, and nodded.
“Okay. I will let you know.”
That’s how it started. Conversations here and there, an open mind, growing consideration and contemplation. It all happened so fast.
How long was it before I told my family we wanted a baby? I think it was only a few weeks! Yes, it was the first week of October…
I had been in Wisconsin for work, staying at my parent’s house and thought I’d tell my siblings about the conversation with Adam, and that I wanted to move forward. I had graduated from contemplative to confidently giddy. Before I knew it, my sister Maggie and I were giggling in my parent’s downstairs bathroom.
You know the one.
We were practically jumping up and down. My other sibling, Mackenzie, had a similar reaction. I then sat by my mom at the fireplace later that day and had an incredibly difficult time not sharing with her as well. I was texting Maggie this while she sat upstairs. It was a matter of minutes before I broke the news to my mom. I just had to, and I had never seen Mom smile quite like she did at that moment.
“I’m going to let you tell your dad,” she said with that same bright expression.
Guess I’m telling Dad, too! I had thought.
Before I knew it, my mom, Maggie, and I were all sitting in the living room talking about the debacle of the hypothetical baby’s last name…
“Well, I wouldn’t change my name, marriage or not,” I said proudly.
“So, if you’re not married, would it be a Halfman or a Borek?” Mom asked while I imagined grappling with the unconventional idea of intentionally having children out of wedlock.
“I’m sure it’d be a Borek,” I replied.
“Yeah. That makes sense.” Maggie nodded in agreement.
“Oh, I don’t think so…” Mom shook her head as she reacted to our opinions. “If you’re not married, it should be a Halfman.”
Well, that escalated quickly, I remember thinking to myself while giggling and shooting a grin to Maggie.
I curled my toes in my socks on the bathroom tile as I checked the timer on my phone and saw the gradual appearance of another faint line on the second pregnancy test. I started researching these tests on Mayo Clinic’s website (my go-to source as a former Midwesterner). I learned that the test detects the pregnancy hormone HCG. Therefore, the only way to have a second line show up at all, faint or not, is if the pregnancy hormone is present. It sounds simple, right? Not so much. If the line is faint, that could mean I had been pregnant, and there is still HCG in my system, which apparently isn’t uncommon. Or on the positive side (pun intended), I could be very early into pregnancy.
Well, how the hell is anyone supposed to be excited when they see a faint line, knowing that they are either expecting or just had a miscarriage?!
My mind was flooded with flashback imagery of the profuse amounts of tequila and Prosecco I had consumed the last two days. Plus other pregnancy no-nos like prosciutto, rare prime rib, ham… the list goes on.
I’m not lumping cured meats and shots of tequila together as one in the same, but there was a compounding effect. And was that Irish Cheddar pasteurized?
Holidays in Wisconsin call for a lot of boozin’ (actually all scenarios in Wisconsin do), and given the fact that I had gotten engaged just two days earlier on Christmas Eve while surrounded by my entire family, we indulged.
My thoughts soon escalated to the possibility that maybe I had been pregnant but wasn’t anymore because of these indulgences.
Is neurosis a pregnancy symptom? That’s so like me, trying to blame it on the hormones… hormones so few they barely show on a test solely designed to find them!
Despite neither test result screaming “pregnant!” as I had anticipated, I knew I was. I knew it as if I had awakened from a deep sleep at 4 a.m. that morning by a rumbling intuition, unable to fall back asleep given an unrelenting curiosity. Something was happening in my body, as though my period wasn’t just a day late, but that it wasn’t coming at all.
That had happened. I did sneak out of bed beside my partner and from my parent’s house (as I had done so many times twenty years earlier) to head to the pharmacy and wait outside for fifteen minutes until they opened, in the parking lot with the post-Christmas holiday shoppers.
Yes, at the drugstore. My judgments were thriving; what bitchin’ deal can they possibly be getting at Walgreens?
This is what I had been wanting, but I hadn’t foreseen it happening so quickly. Sure, the doctor said it should only take a few months, but I anticipated it wouldn’t be that easy. At least, I wanted to be prepared for it not to be. So many couples struggle to conceive, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I also can’t ignore the fact that, though the doctor says it’s a mild case at this juncture, I do have PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), the most common cause of infertility in women. It’s not like we were trying either. We were just seeing what happened, two months into prenatal vitamins and no preventative measures. That’s it.
Which was enough for Adam to later think he had super swimmers.
If there was an award for most pathetic poker face, my mom and I would have to split the grand prize. Yet, somehow, I managed to go about my day without letting on that anything was up, except of course for being a bit on edge while I nuked leftover prime rib til it was practically leather, having read that rare meat is a no-no while pregnant. Alycia, the other love of my life, chuckled when I shared this story.
“That would have been all I needed to see to know you were pregnant, Moll… you eating well-done meat. Did you have tears in your eyes?”
In truth, my eyes were welling as I waited beside the microwave, grieving all of the leftovers I couldn’t consume.
I didn’t want to get Adam’s hopes up if, in fact, I wasn’t pregnant, or was no longer. My intuition told me I was, but with something like this, I felt I needed more than that. In hindsight, I think it would have been best to just say it and deal with whatever happened after that. But at the time, I figured I would take another test in a day or so. As it turned out, I was only able to wait until the following morning, when the test showed a slightly darker line, detecting more HCG. That along with my intuition was confirmation enough for me. There was a rush of excitement and conflicting emotion, lifestyle grievances and the monumental reality this little urine-soaked stick just bestowed on me…
I guess I’m not having a Mimosa today.
My nerves multiplied, and I felt my heart fluttering and tummy damn near tingling.
It was time to tell Adam.
End of Pt1
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