Out On a Limb(13)

“Every time?”

Shit, right. “Well, one time… no.” Before Halloween, I had a perfect record. Then Bo. The guy I’ve tried to push out of my thoughts since.

“One time about five to six weeks ago?” Doctor Salim asks, her patience momentarily lapsing.

“About that, yes,” I reply, snarkier than intended. “Shit, sorry,” I whisper into my palms, covering my face. “I got knocked up by a pirate…” I say, my voice muffled by my hands.

“Sorry, what?” The doctor’s tone alerts me to the very unusual thing I just said.

I peek through my fingers at her. “It was Halloween. He was dressed as a pirate.”

“Oh.” She sighs. “Were you intimate with anyone else that same month or shortly thereafter?”

“No, just him.”

“The pirate?”

“Aye,” I whimper softly.

She gives me a this is not the time look that I’ve only previously gotten from my mother. “Well, you have the good fortune of knowing exactly when conception was, which sets your due date at about…” She picks up a circular cardboard device from her desk and rotates between dates. “July twenty-fourth.”

“Okay.” I nod, my eyes finding a spot on the wall to steady me. A small piece of chipped paint becomes my focal point as the walls swell and tilt around me.

July twenty-fourth. That’s a fairly inconspicuous day. What do I normally do on July twenty-fourth?

My summers are usually spent lifeguarding on the beach at the local campsite, Westcliff Point. Last year, I worked extra shifts at the café to pay for a trip to visit Mom in Florida at the end of the summer. We ate dinner outside every night while I was there to the sounds of whistling through palm leaves and aggressively vocal frogs. Her skin looked like leather, and my concern for her sunbathing habits grew. But nothing significant happened. Nothing this significant has ever happened.

I can’t be a lifeguard when I’m nine months pregnant.

I can’t visit my mom with a newborn.

What can someone do at nine months pregnant other than… wait?

“The good news is that at this stage of your pregnancy, you have every option available to you. We have some time to decide how to best move forward.”

“Okay” is the only word I seem to have available to me.

“Is there someone you could call to help you process this news? A friend? The, er, father, perhaps?”

“Yeah,” I murmur, pulling out my phone to text Sarah. Not that I’d call him now if I had it, but not having Bo’s number suddenly feels humbling to say the least.

“Why don’t we set up another appointment in a week’s time? If you make your decision before then, just call and we can go from there. If not, we can discuss your options some more.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, my eyes caught on the small scale in the corner of the room under a collection of pamphlets and advertisements with pictures of chubby babies on the front.

“I’m also going to schedule an ultrasound for a few weeks from now, since they book up fast. If you’re no longer pregnant, we’ll cancel it, of course. But that way, you can have your first-trimester scan as we recommend.”

“Ultrasound, right.” I imagine it, the little black and grey blob on a screen. The sound of a heartbeat, like the ones you hear on television. Except now it’d be the inhabitant of my womb on some tech’s monitor. The probe pressed against my belly.

I lift my left hand from my lap and press it against the corduroy overalls covering my stomach. There’s no discernible change in its shape, size, or hardness whatsoever. Yet everything has changed.

My phone chimes with a text. It’s Sarah, letting me know she’s already on her way. No hesitation and no questions asked. Just like our mothers taught us. Go first; ask questions later, they always said.

I think of our moms in that tiny apartment together almost thirty years ago. They were so young—so much younger than I am—when they had Sarah and me. We would all sit for hours on our old, crusty maroon couch, flipping through photo albums as they told us stories. Countless books filled with pictures of our moms dressed in horrific nineties fashion, their bellies growing in each photo under busy-patterned pastel sweaters. I think of the pale green colour they painted the nursery Sarah and I shared. The ceiling they lined with wallpaper cartoon ducks. The way they had to do all of it on their own and still made it special for us.

Unlike them, I’m at a stage of life where many of my friends have chosen to get pregnant. I’ve gone to three baby showers this year alone. And, secretly, I’ve hoped for a baby of my own. A someday wish. A once-I-have-my-shit-together dream.

But truthfully, I can’t help but wonder… is anyone ever ready for a kid?

Even with that shred of comfort, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as judged as I do right now. Not by Doctor Salim, of course, but by the world outside. I can almost sense it—the millions of invisible eyes set on me.

You can’t go a day without hearing the choice of pregnancy being debated, broadcasted, and fought over in some way or another. Still, I never considered how it would feel to sit front and centre. It’s as if I’ll find reporters outside, trying to predict what I mean to do next. Protestors and politicians waiting in the wings to decipher whether I’m morally right or wrong. Too many opinions for this small corner office.