2 — A FAILED MISS CONCEPTION —

It was a cold morning in December 2005. I woke up in our new house in Eagle Rock. We just bought the house in March and moved in April. I stretched my arms above my head to loosen the stiffness from the night’s rest. I noticed that my boobs were sore. I felt the same soreness as a teenager when my boobs were developing and started the itsy bitsy mount. I instinctively started grabbing my boobs and squeezing them like squeezing oranges to feel what was going on. They were a bit firmer than usual and each time I squeezed, there was a jolt of pain from the tenderness. I wonder if my period was coming and if it would be an especially heavy incoming flow this time hence the soreness. I better be prepared and make sure I had a stache of Tylenol 500mg on me or within reach at all times. It had been a while since I passed out because of my period. I don’t think my husband had ever witnessed me passing out. But I’ve warned him many times that if I were going to the bathroom while I had my period, after five minutes, if I didn’t come back, he would need to come and find me and the most likely place would be on the floor of the bathroom.

Not only were my breasts tender like my teenage years, but once in a while, if I moved a certain way or touched something with my chest, it was like the soreness of a volleyball bounced off my chest during JV volleyball team practice in high school. They also looked fuller like my boobs were growing. After the second or third day that I’ve noticed this phenomenon, I mentioned to my husband that “You know it’s kinda strange that my boobs are super tender like I was a teenager. They would hurt if I even put my arms above my head. So, watch out, it might be one of my blackout period coming.” He replied, “Ok. I will be ready.”

A day after I mentioned to my husband about my boobs, he called me on his drive home from work when I was at the grocery store shopping for dinner. He said, “So, you know your sore boobs that you mentioned…”

I acknowledge, “Yeah. What about them.”

My husband continued, “So, I was just talking to my friend who is an ER doctor and I mentioned your sore boobs.”

I cut him off, “Urgh, why did you mention to him about my sore boobs. It’s so trivial. It’s probably a hormone thing that my period…”

My husband cut me off, “You know what my doctor friend said?”

I amused him, “So, what did he say?”

“He said, “Congratulation, papa!””

I was silent on the other end for a long few seconds to absorb what he actually just said. Then burst out, “What?!?!? No way! That’s not possible!”

“Yes, way. That was what he said. He said you’re pregnant!”

I rebutted, “There’s no way I’m pregnant!” I thought to myself, wouldn’t I know if I were pregnant? I mean, this was just my period hormones, right? My boobs were sore sometimes when I get my period.

“Oh! So, you don’t believe him. You know he’s a doctor. He would know.”

I mean, we just started a conversation about kids. We had been married now for just about two years. I wasn’t sure I could get pregnant. We weren’t sure if we wanted to have kids. We just started discussing the idea of having kids. Kids were just a variable in our equation that we hadn’t yet figured out where this variable would fit in our equation.

“Hello! Are you there?!?” My husband’s voice snapped me out of my head.

“I’m here. I’m here.”

“Well??!?” He asked, trying to figure out what I was thinking about the possibility that I was pregnant.

“Well, I still don’t believe it. And just to prove that I’m not pregnant, I will walk over to the medicine aisle right now and pick up a pregnancy test.”

“Oh. Ok. So you really don’t think you’re pregnant, huh?”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Let’s bet on it then.” My husband suggested.

“Yes. I’m so sure of it. Let’s bet on it!”

“What are we betting for?” My husband wanted to know what he would win from this bet.

“We’re betting that I’m not pregnant.” I was a cheap immigrant. I want to bet be at the same time I don’t want to put down anything that I might lose. In my mind, I was thinking to him, “And if you win, you will get a baby!”

He knew me well enough by now that there was no point in pushing for the betting stakes. “Fine. Just get the test.”

“I will get the test to prove to you that I’m not pregnant.” I was so very sure that in my mind, the possibility of me not being pregnant was like 99% and me actually pregnant was less than 1%.

I went over the medicine aisle to the pregnancy test section. OMG. There were so many options. Which one should I pick up? In the movies, they made it so simple and easy. You would just pull out the stick from the box, peed on it, and wait for + or -. I was overwhelmed by the options, so I went for the generic, no-name brand, the cheapest test I could find. Before I walked away from the pregnancy section, I thought, should I get a second test just to be sure, but I thought against it because I was quite sure I was not pregnant, so what was the point of wasting money on a second test.

I came home with a bag of groceries and the pregnancy test deep in the bag among produce, protein and dairy. My husband was home already, so he checked, “So, did you really pick up a pregnancy test?”

“Of course, I did!” I wanted to emphasize my game face and tone. Oh yes, this bet is on! And I’m so ready to prove you and your doctor friend wrong!

My husband rushed me, “So, let’s go. You should go and test.”

I was too practical and said, “Well, I have to put away the groceries first. We got perishables here.”

My husband anxiously responded, “I could put the groceries away. You should just get the test done.”

I found the pleasure in delaying this whole process and dragging it out longer. Or was it me subconsciously not wanting to do the test, “Well, the test is in the grocery bag. Probably at the bottom, so I would have to take all the groceries out away.”

My husband started to dig through the grocery bag to try to find it. “Where is it?”

“It’s probably deep down at the bottom. So, I really would need to put all the groceries away.”

We managed to put most of the groceries away and separated out what we were going to use to make dinner and the rest of the perishable in the fridge. The pregnancy test was at the bottom of the bag. It wasn’t a big item so it found it’s way to the bottom of the bag during transport.

My husband grabbed the pregnancy test buried at the bottom. He yanked it out of the bag and put it in my face just inches from my short nose. With a huge grin, “Go. Test it!”

I pushed the box away. “Not now. I’m hungry and we need to make dinner.”

My husband said, “I will make dinner. You go get the test done.”

I’m really enjoying dragging it out. “I should get it done after dinner this way you could actually enjoy your dinner. Because you know I’m right. In fact, we shouldn’t have wasted our money on the test in the first place.”

I continued, “I mean, what are the chances of me being pregnant. We just started to talk about kids. And we’ve been careful. We haven’t even really try.”

My husband shoved the pregnancy test into my hand and pushed me toward the direction of the bathroom. He urged, “Go. Pee.”

Now that he mentioned pee. I started to feel like I did need to pee, so I gave in, “Fine. I will do it now only because I really do need to pee.”

I went into the bathroom, closed the door and searched for the door’s lock. I wasn’t even sure where it was. We had an open-door bathroom policy because we only had one bathroom so we never locked the door. There, it was right under the doorknob. I had never touched it. It was the original fixture from the 1920s. Our house was built in 1921. It looked rusty. It probably didn’t work anyway so I scrapped the idea of locking the door. He also might be suspicious of why I locked the door. This test was no big deal. But it would be weird if he walked in while I was in the middle of peeing onto the stick and I might be startled and dropped the stick into the toilet bowl. Oh god! Then the test would be ruined. What if it got all screwy because of whatever was in the toilet bowl. All the germs and bacteria waiting all day. They must be hungry or prime and ready to attack a pregnancy stick and screw up the result. I better flush the toilet first to get rid of whatever was in there to be safe. So I flushed.

“Are you done with the test already? That was quick.” My husband exclaimed.

Oh damn! The flush! He heard the flush and thought that I was done peeing and flush. I should have thought it through first before reacting on impulse about some imaginary bacteria and crap in the toilet bowl.

“No! I’m not done yet. I haven’t even started yet.” I bellowed.

“Then why did you flush?” He asked. A valid question. Shit! What should I say?

“Um… I was just testing the flush and clearing the water.” I meant it and it was the truth.

“Are you ok in there?!” Now my husband’s voice was right outside the door of the bathroom. Is he peeking in?

I went to the door peering through the glass and curtain, looking for signs of his eyeballs somewhere through the curtain or at the edge of the curtain. I didn’t see anything but could make out his dark shadow casting onto the cotton curtain behind the thin glass pane that separated our bathroom and our dining space. His large silhouette indicated that he was standing with one ear close to the glass.

I backed away from the glass door quickly and answered. “I’m fine. Um… just reading the instructions.” I’m sure he would buy that. I grab the box, opened it and rustled with the paper loudly so he could hear that I was fuzzing with the instructions.

Silence from the other side but he still hadn’t moved. Was he planning on coming in or standing there the whole time? It would be creepy if I was peeing on the stick and he stood there the whole time. My fear of him busting is at 90% real now. I needed to get him away from the door.

“How is dinner coming along, honey?” I asked. As his shadow retreated, I smiled.

“It’s coming along.” And his voice trailed off toward the direction of the kitchen.

I looked down at the instruction in my hands; it was upside down. Ok. Refocus! Back on task. I turned the paper right-side-up and flipped it around looking for illustrations. It’s easier to follow drawings than read through instructions. The illustrations were apparently not helpful. It had two drawings. One of a woman holding the stick in her hand and the other was a close-up of her hand with the stick. They just skipped over all the steps to get the result. I was annoyed that I actually had to read the instruction. They weren’t numbered. They were just bullet points but, that was certainly better than a thick paragraph. Instructions in one hand the pregnancy test on the other. I looked at the pregnancy stick and thought that it would be super self-explanatory. I had seen this done in the movies many times. But now that I had it in my hand, it wasn’t as easy to figure out. Where do I pee onto? Do I pee onto the whole stick? Does that mean I have to pee onto my hand while I was holding onto the stick? Is the whole stick sensitive to pee? I went from looking at the pregnancy stick back to the instruction. I really should read it.

I breezed through the instructions. It said to pee into the cap. What cap? I looked in the box to see if I missed the cap. Nothing. I turned the box upsidedown and shook it to be sure. Nothing fell out. I looked at the pregnancy test again and tucked it at the end. One of the sides slid out and there it was… “The cap!” It was a tiny cap about the size of a pen cap and actually smaller because it wasn’t even that deep. Are you kidding me?!?!? I have to pee into this tiny little thing? It hardly would hold any pee. Fine! I resigned to the fact that I would need to pee all over my hand to make sure to get pee into this tiny little cap. By now, I really really need to pee badly so there would be a lot of pee onto my hand. Should I hold it with my right hand or left hand? I decided onto my left because I wouldn’t use my left hand to eat or do things as much so I won’t be spreading as much of my pee trail and footprint around. And yes, I would wash my hand thoroughly after. Should I catch it midstream or towards the end so I won’t pee as much onto my hand? I glanced at the instructions again. There was no mention of which part of the pee stream I should catch. I decided on slightly after mid-stream to ensure enough pee would go into the cap and I won’t pee as much onto myself.

I sat down onto the toilet seat and spread my legs wide enough so I could dangle my left hand into the bowl to catch my pee. I waited until I got a significant amount of pee out before placing my left hand with the cap into the stream. It was warm really warm pee coming out. I was surprised by how warm the pee was. I caught more than enough for the cap and the pee kept on spilling out of the cap so I moved the cap away and finish the rest of my pee into the bowl while constantly checking to make sure that the cap was still full.

I fitted the pregnancy stick on to the cap. And looked at the displayed. I waited and waited for the + or — sign. The display turned pink. What does that even mean? I’m having a girl? Why did it turn pink? I was super confused. I glanced back at the instructions again. What kind of cheap ass pregnancy test did I buy? It didn’t indicate + or — . I thought all pregnancy tests would automatically be a simple + or — for the result. I looked for the result key. Blue was negative and not pregnant and pink was positive and pregnant. I paused for a few seconds to process the result. Hm… pink, pregnant. This couldn’t be. Maybe this test was wrong because I was too cheap and bought the cheapest test. And of course, the test wouldn’t be accurate. Now I had remorse for not buying a second test. I should have picked up a second test anyway.

I took some toilet paper to clean the pregnancy test stick and fresh new toilet paper to place the test on. I went to wash my hands thoroughly. Extra extra time to wash my hands and then flushed.

“Honey! Are you done with the test?” my husband inquired.