Stupid Pink Line

I hated that stupid pink horizontal pink line. It was the second morning I saw it. I was hoping that if I kept trying I would get a different result. But I already knew what my body was telling me. I was pregnant. I laughed. I was not exactly having a Bing Crosby magical Christmas.

While the other neighborhood Moms were shopping for holiday treats and decorations, I was out at the medical clinic getting tested for STDs. Not exactly the stuff Christmas songs are made of. You see, that is one of the fun things you get to do after you have unprotected sex with a man you don’t know. I did not exactly know Mark’s sexual history. But based on his behavior with me, I had to assume he has placed his penis in various vaginas around the country.

So the experience was like playing a negative lottery. Did I have herpes? Syphilis? Or how about the granddaddy of the STDs – HIV? Was I going to die?

To answer these fun questions, I got to go to a medical clinic to get tested. That is always a fun conversation to have with the receptionist -

“Yes, I would like to make an appointment to get tested for various STDs. No, I don’t know the sexual history of the man I had unprotected sex with. And Merry Christmas to you too!”

Luckily, I avoided the STD lottery. I was disease free. However, my wrist was not so fortunate. It turned out it had a hairline fracture, so I was in a put in a green cast. I choose green because I figured it was a festive color.

All I had to do was avoid pregnancy, and I would have been home free. But somehow I just knew Mark’s sperm would bash their way into my egg. Like father, like sperm.

After the initial shock, I actually had a sense of peace about everything. I figured that no one would have to know. My husband would be the real father. Did the source of the sperm really matter that much? Maybe it did, but I had no other options.

Abortion was not an option because of my beliefs. And what good would it do to tell Jeff about Mark? Would it really do anyone any good for me to bring a baby into a broken home? And I suppose it was theoretically possible the baby was biologically my husband’s. It is true that we did not have unprotected sex during the time frame, but condoms are not 100% reliable. So my best guess is that we had a defective condom and a sperm sneaked through. I told myself that story so many times that I actually began to believe it. Still I was worried to announce my pregnancy to Jeff.

“How did that happen?” asked Jeff.

“Don’t know. Must have been a defective condom. It happens.” I said.

There was a pregnant pause (sorry about the pun) as Jeff considered it.

“Wow! I am so excited!” he said.

Whew. I dodged a bullet. I felt some guilt. But then I became excited. This would be our baby.

On September 4, 2007 I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Unfortunately, Mark was still in the picture. And that is the subject of another post.