After I killed the first baby Alex & I made, I prayed to get pregnant all the time. I thought that if the prayer was answered, it would prove God didn’t hate me…that he wasn’t going to punish me forever for the choice I had made. But after several desperate years of clasped hand pleas for a baby, I remained empty. I carried nothing within but a garden of ashes, a field of soot. Each month, the red came first & the grief came in like a famine after. After a while, Alex & I accepted that we were raking a plot that would never grow anything and we stopped trying. There were chaste dry-mouthed widow kisses. Paternal pecks on my forehead. We repelled to separate sides of the bed. I’m not sure which of us let go first—probably me. I just couldn’t keep confirming what I already knew…that I was not forgiven. By Alex. Or God.
When I moved in with Mike, we weren’t especially careful. I assumed the cursedness would be birth control enough. For a year and a half, it was. Then one time, about a week after we slept together, I felt something shift into existence within me. I knew. After a couple weeks of trying to convince myself that my hopefulness was insanity, I took a test. I saw the pink cross, Bridget’s first hello. I sunk to my knees and said “thank you” out loud even though I was home alone. I remember thinking, “this is the only time in my life I have cried tears of joy–April 26” and then realizing it was Alex’s birthday. God again.
The next time was the same. I knew I was pregnant almost immediately after Mike & I had sex. I did a Google search on the computer to find a calculator that would tell me the earliest date I could take a pregnancy test-but forgot to scrub it from the history. A day later Mike found the Google search and asked me about it. I lied, telling him I was helping a friend. A couple weeks later when I looked down at the double pink lines, I was not surprised and I was not happy. Mike & I were already well on our way to Splitsville. In fact, the next time it was me that found a Google search that should have been erased. Mike did a search looking up how to know when it was time to leave someone if you had kids together. I was several months pregnant. During these times, there was no sign of His presence–but, oddly, I was most sure of God’s existence during that time because I knew I hated him. He existed for me because he had to.
Then I had my 2 beautiful children & I didn’t feel like I should ask him for anything more…
But now I find myself playing chicken with God again. Daring him to prove his existence by answering my prayers. Only this time, I am pleading the exact opposite of what I asked him before—I ask him to keep me from being pregnant. Unfortunately, after sleeping with J., I felt that same kind of knowingness that I felt with all my other babies, the one I denied life to included. (Although, this time it was more an immediate terrible feeling of “what did I just do?”) The signs, though, dear God, the signs. This week, I experienced brief, ridable waves of nausea. Little clenches in my stomach. I have also been wearing the lead boots of fatigue. Fuck. FUCK. While I’m not late yet, I am terrified as I wait to be.
To add to the shit piled up against me on the scale, Mike lost my bank card today. He then became upset with me for being anxious over said missing card THAT HE FUCKING LOST. I told him I had a right to be upset that my card was missing & the least he could do was apologize for losing it—and he told me hadn’t apologized because I hadn’t given him time to do so. He continued to express his frustration with me for being upset until I started crying bitterly & told him that it’s nice being trapped in a house with people that fucking hate you. He just stared at me, blankly & still offered no apology.
I went upstairs, dried my eyes while I waited on hold for 30 minutes & then canceled my bank card. I was told I should get one in the mail in 5-7 days. At this point, I realized I didn’t have any cash or checks on me…Which meant I had no way to buy a pregnancy test. I had to grovel to borrow Mike’s bank card, telling him I needed to pick some things up for work. Then I went to the store to buy a test. When I got to Wal-Mart, it was ground zero due to the virus. Shelves swiped clean by the arm of Greed. The hoarding hordes. A plague of American locusts. Then I finally found the tests and they were all locked up. I’ll be damned if my nearly 37 year old whore self has to find an employee to unlock a fucking pregnancy test so I can see if my life is about to get royally fucked up. So, social distancing be damned, I went to Rite Aid to purchase one there.
As I went up to the counter with my sole purchase, I felt something flare. Embarrassment. Shame. I’m too old to have a pregnancy scare—by my age, there is no excuse to be in this situation other than sheer whorishness or stupidity. I am both apparently, with those traits eclipsed only by my low self-esteem. So I pretended to be super perky & chipper to the cashier, as if I was hoping this test would confirm something wonderful, something long-desired. After all a plus sign is the mark of a positive, right? She asked if I wanted a bag. “No, thank you,” I chirped—defiantly carrying my test outside, the hot pink box brazenly showing under my arm, daring people to look at it. No unwanted, unplanned pregnancy here. This was totally in my fucking 5 year plan, folks.
But now I’m home. And the bravado is gone—even the false kind.
Dear God, please, please, please, don’t let me be pregnant. If I am? Do that magic trick you used to do when I was trying to get pregnant with Alex for all those years.
First: The snap of your mighty fingers.
Then: A tide pulling out to a forgetful sea. A rabbit disappearing into a top hat & never coming back. A gift being ripped from my hands & returned back to You.
Song Choice: The Part You Throw Away by Tom Waits
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