“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for any sort of morning-after pill. Not that I’m sure I would be comfortable doing that anyway. I am turning thirty soon,” I reminded her. “It’s not like I’m sixteen or anything.”
“So you want to be pregnant?”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying . . . okay, I don’t know what I’m saying. But don’t you think the chances are very, very, very slim that I am?”
“I don’t know. Sure.”
“Come on. At least pretend with me that it’s a long shot. No pun intended.”
“Okay. You are not pregnant,” said Dana, in a monotone. “But you know, I’m not sure how comfortable those slingbacks will be when your ankles start to swell. Maybe you should give them to me in case you are pregnant.”
“You are not—under any circumstances—getting those shoes,” I told her. “Even if my ankles do swell. Does that happen?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, there’s $350 down the drain.”
“Yeah, and just wait to see what pregnancy does to your ass.”
JANUARY 31
Being pregnant is already totally ruining my life. I stayed in tonight—a Friday night—to play Ovulation Calculator on the Internet. I realized instantly that ovulation calculators are addictive. They’re like crack. Not that I’ve ever done crack, but I’ve never done an ovulation calculator either. I can’t get enough of them. Once I remembered shoe shopping with Dana and then going to the drugstore to buy tampons, I felt I was well on my way to figuring out if I was ovulating the night of the party.
Type “ovulation calculator” into any search engine on the Internet and a number of sites pop up on your computer screen. They all ask you to enter the First Day of your Last Period (FDLP) and ask how long your cycle is, and then, poof, your most fertile days of the month will pop up within three seconds. I typed in January 13, holding my breath.
I do not want to be a drama queen, but, according to the twenty-three ovulation calculators I tried, my most fertile days of the month were January 24 to January 28. The fiancé and I “did it”—or, to be more precise, he “did it” in me—on either January 25 or January 26, depending on whether you consider 3 a.m. the night of one or the morning of the other. In either case, I was, apparently, at my most fertile. Did you know that sperm can live up to seventy-two hours in your body? Meaning that even if we didn’t do it exactly when I was ovulating, the sperm could have lived on until I was.
All this raises the question, what were the chances that the fiancé and I would have our engagement party on the exact same night that I was at my most fertile? Was it fate? Is “It’s fate!” a good, solid argument to use on your fiancé, who lives in a different city, to convince him that having a child is the right thing to do? My fiancé does not believe in fate, which is why I’m pretty sure the whole “It’s fate” argument won’t get me very far. I hate arguing with lawyers—it’s that much more difficult. I believe in fate, but I also believe in fortune tellers and that everyone in the world should like me. My fiancé is always telling me that I “live in a dream world” and that in “the real world,” not everyone has to like me. I always argue back that living in a dream world is better than living in the real world, which, I suppose, is where most consultants, stockbrokers, and lawyers live. Most of my friends— artists, television personalities, and writers—live in the dreamy place I inhabit. The “real world” is for people who pay their bills on time. I’m glad I don’t live there, even with creditors after me. Maybe, just maybe, in both our worlds the fiancé’s sperm wasn’t working that night. In the dream world, there’s always hope. Though I am sure I am pregnant.
FEBRUARY 1
I keep picturing this itty-bitty little drunken sperm dancing around in my belly. Is it possible for a sperm to be too drunk to make it up into my egg? Is it possible for a sperm to be too drunk to know what it’s doing? I mean, the fiancé and I were certainly too drunk to know what we were doing. I keep picturing the sperm dancing around, smoking a butt, partying it up the night of our engagement party, and then waking up the next morning with a hangover, just like us. If people get hangovers, then certainly sperm must. “No, I’m too hungover to do my thing today,” the sperm would say to itself. “I’m going to pass out now. This gal will just have to get knocked up some other time.” Could that have happened?
I really should have paid attention during those Grade 6 sex education classes. I know nothing— absolutely nothing—about the female reproductive system. Now I’m thinking maybe I should send an anonymous e-mail to the human resources department at my office, suggesting sex education classes for adults instead of the yoga and Weight Watchers classes I’m always getting e-mails about, which take place on the third floor in one of the boardrooms once a week. I had no idea about Most Fertile Times of the Month. I had no idea that the First Day of your Last Period was so important. I just thought periods were a bitch, something women had to go through once a month, giving us the opportunity to start arguments with our boyfriends. I didn’t realize periods happened for a reason.
I could barely get any work done all week. Knowing something is going on in my body makes it hard to concentrate on writing stories about Why Bangs Are Back, and Internet Dating, and Cooking Classes for Singles.
I have done the ovulation calculator 283 times so far. No matter how many times I play with it— typing in the 12th, 13th, or 14th of the month—I was still at my most fertile the night the fiancé and I had unprotected sex, the night I uncharacteristically moaned, in the throes of passion, “Come on, I just want to feel you in me. Just stay in me.” It just figures.
FEBRUARY 3
The fiancé just called me at work, interrupting my investigative work on the most expensive martini in town, to ask me a question that caught me completely off guard.
“When was the first day of your last period?” he asked, after (at least) saying “Hello.”
Christ. Does absolutely everyone in the world know about the FDLP?
“What? I’m sorry. What did you just ask me? Please tell me you didn’t ask me what I think you just asked me.” My fiancé and I do not have this type of relationship. We have a closed-door type of relationship. Meaning we do not walk around naked in front of each other. If I’m feeling really wild, I’ll have sex with the lights on, but always under the sheets. I do not tell the fiancé about my waxing appointments. It’s too personal. It’s better, I think, that he just assumes I come all hairless and smooth. In the five years we’ve been dating, I have never gone to the washroom in front of him and he has never gone to the washroom in front of me. I do not even like him watching me blow-dry my hair. I want him to think I come perfect. For his part, he even shuts the door when he clips his toenails. Which is why I love him. I would like our relationship to remain somewhat mysterious. Which is why I don’t really want to discuss my period with him. Ever. But if we must, shouldn’t we really start off by talking about something a little less private, like what kind of deodorant I use, then work our way up to period talk?
“I said, when was your last period?” the fiancé asked again.
“I’m not sure,” I responded. I didn’t want him to know that I did know, all too well. I wanted to play it breezy. It wouldn’t sound so breezy if I answered, immediately, “Around January 14th,” as if it were the only thing on my mind. Which it is. But I didn’t want him to know that.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? Don’t you keep track of these things?” The fiancé was not, apparently, even attempting to be breezy for my sake. He sounded kind of jumpy. He had sounded less panicky, in fact, when he had asked me to marry him.
How was I going to answer this potential land mine of a question?
“Well, babe. When was the last time I cried uncontrollably about nothing? Do you remember? Because that’s probably when I got my period last,” I said.
“You do that once a week,” he huffed. So he does pay attention. Good boy.
“Do not,” I
responded.
“Do too,” he responded.
“Well, do you remember the date you first told me you loved me?” I asked him.
“Not now, Beck. I’m not in the mood,” he sighed into the phone.
I will not get into a fight with the fiancé over my period. But, for the record, I do think that remembering when you first told the woman you are spending the rest of your life with that you love her is way more important than remembering when the First Day of your Last Period was. Periods happen once a month. Falling in love, if you’re lucky, happens but a few times in your entire life.
“Okay, fine,” I told him. “I think it was around the 13th or 14th.”
“Thank you! Was that so hard?” he asked.
“Why do you want to know so badly, anyway?”
“Oh, no reason. Just curious. I’m going to book you a ticket to come see me soon. I’ll call you tonight. I have to get back to work.”
Shit. The fiancé knows about the ovulation calculators. Why else would he be so hell-bent on knowing when the First Day of my Last Period was? I bet that right now he’s typing the date into his computer. Fuck. How is it possible that he knows about ovulation calculators? What kind of man knows about that? I’m going to kill whoever told him about them. I really, truly am.
FEBRUARY 4
It is almost impossible to get pregnant. It’s amazing any woman gets pregnant at all. It is a miracle. Normal fertile couples, I learned doing “research”—it’s amazing how much one can learn spending hours typing “early pregnancy symptoms” and “how to get pregnant” into search engines—have only a 25 percent chance of getting pregnant each month. There are dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of chat rooms for women who experience fertility problems. Most doctors don’t even consider looking into possible fertility problems until a year of trying to get pregnant has gone by unsuccessfully. So if I am pregnant, I must be the most fertile woman in the world. Or the fiancé must have supersperm. I had no idea that 14 million sperm are released with every ejaculation. And only a couple hundred survive from that, and then only one has to penetrate the egg. What are the chances that one itty-bitty sperm, one 1,000th of an inch long, managed to strike my egg at just the right angle, at just the right time? Make that, what are the chances that one itty-bitty drunk sperm, one 1,000th of an inch long, managed to strike my drunk egg at just the right angle, at just the right time? I could barely walk upright when we got home that night. How could the sperm possibly manage to swim straight? I could, if I’m pregnant, be a poster child for a condom manufacturer. My face could be plastered on bus shelter advertisements for birth control pills. I could go around visiting high school students, telling them the importance of protection. One time? Nah, the chances I’m pregnant are next to nil. I can’t even get my VCR to work and I’ve had it for ten years. How is it possible that in ten minutes, without actually knowing how anything in my body works, I could be pregnant? It makes no sense.
FEBRUARY 5
SPERM STUFF I MUST SOMEHOW WORK
INTO CONVERSATION WITH THE FIANCÉ
“Hey, we should go out for dinner at that new steak restaurant everyone is talking about. Do you know that in some cultures, people eat bulls’ testicles? Speaking of which, we’ve never talked about your testicles. Anything you want to tell me? Are they in good working order?”
“Have you noticed that super-tight jeans are coming back in style? I just read that in Vogue. Have you ever worn super-tight jeans? Ever?”
“We’re both pretty stressed out. Maybe we should go away for a spa weekend somewhere nice. Have you been to a spa lately? Have you visited any hot tubs, saunas, or whirlpools lately?”
“Can you please pass me the salt? Say, how many cups of coffee do you drink a day?”
“So how’s that working out coming along? What exactly do you do at the gym? More specifically, how often do you ride a bike?”
This is all so I can figure out if the fiancé’s sperm are healthy. I have never seen him in super-tight jeans, which I’ve always really appreciated, up until right about now. Because he hasn’t ever worn tight jeans, he’s also to blame for being so damn fertile. Right?
There are also things women can do to increase their fertility. For example, relaxing. Luckily, I’m bad at relaxing. Relaxation—or the attempt at relaxation—stresses me out. Some of the websites suggest that I get to know my basal body temperature. I don’t know what basal body temperature is, nor do I own a thermometer. I always thought that basal was an herb.
FEBRUARY 6
8:30 p.m.
I need a pack of cigarettes. I need a gallon of wine to go with my pack of cigarettes. So I’m heading to Triumph, a trendy local haunt, to meet Heather and Shannon, two of my closest friends, whom I haven’t seen since the night of my engagement party, a.k.a. the night I got pregnant.
The nausea I was experiencing for a week after my engagement party—the nausea that I thought was morning sickness—has subsided, so maybe it was just a very brutal hangover. I will not tell Heather and Shannon anything, though I kind of want to—for shock value.
We all work in the incestuous industry known as The Media. Heather works as a publicist and has recently ventured out into the world of party planning. She has an on-again-off-again boyfriend. Shannon hosts her own design show on one of those obscure digital cable channels you wonder who watches. She does not have a boyfriend. Shannon and Heather are my “fun” friends. Often when I’m around them, I feel like I’m back in high school, hanging with the cool kids. They are always dressed head to toe in designer clothing, and they always know the hip places to go and the right drinks to order. The three of us always stay out late. Because we work in the same industry, which, like any industry, is a very small world, news of my pregnancy woes would get around too fast. Of course, Heather and Shannon would promise me they would never breathe a word to anyone, but I know they would go straight home and call other people to tell them, making those people “promise” not to tell anyone. And, of course, those people would “promise” and then tell other people.
I also worry that if I tell them, I’ll be ousted from the little “club” we have formed. Pregnant women are not so fabulous, after all. They can’t drink. They can’t smoke. They can’t stay out late hitting on men to get free drinks. Shannon has had a few long-time boyfriends. Her relationships have always ended because Shannon makes no secret that she is thirty-three years old and wants to get married and make babies. Unfortunately for her, the guys she is always attracted to do not want to get married and make babies. They’d rather be DJs and have threesomes with wannabe models. Heather, with the on-again-off-again boyfriend, always wants what she doesn’t have. When her relationship is “on,” she wonders if it would be better to be single. When her relationship isn’t working out and she’s single, she always wants a boyfriend. I’m the balancing friend. Being in a long-distance relationship, I’m useful when they need a single friend around to go out and meet men with. I’m also useful when they want the perspective or advice of someone in a serious relationship. No, it’s better not to tell them anything. It’s best to pretend nothing is going on in my life at all.
Midnight
I left Shannon and Heather at the bar. They were still going strong. I managed to get out, having had one glass of wine and a couple of cigarettes. After all, I figure, I don’t know anything for sure and I don’t want them to think anything is out of the ordinary. While I was around Heather and Shannon, I managed to almost forget about maybe being pregnant. We talked about what we always talk about when we get together: relationships, boys, relationships, and boys. Do women ever talk about anything else? They both kept asking me when I thought I would be getting married. “Come on!” said Heather. “I’ve never been a bridesmaid before. I want to be a bridesmaid. You have to get married so I can be a bridesmaid.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t even think about a wedding now. That engagement party took everything out of me. It feels like I have already pla
nned a wedding,” I told them.
Professing a headache, I left. They were both on their fourth glass of wine. In the taxi home, I thought about the conversation I had had with Ronnie earlier in the day, when I had broken the news that I had been at my most fertile the night the fiancé . . . in me.
“You have to do a home pregnancy test,” Ronnie told me. In just over a week I will be able to do this. It’s amazing that they can put a man on the moon and put phones on airplanes and package sliced meat so it stays fresh for weeks, but no genius scientist out there can come up with a home pregnancy test you can do immediately after you’ve had unprotected sex. I know—I’ve done the research.
I really did almost feel back to my old self tonight, until I was getting ready for bed and saw something peeking out from under it. It was The Dress. I had forgotten about it after my drunken romp in the sack. I, of course, did what any woman would do when spotting The Dress that had possibly ruined her life. I kicked it farther underneath the bed, where it could be forgotten about for a long while longer. Like I said, I’m never wearing The Dress again anyway. Ever. It’s a dangerous, dangerous dress.
FEBRUARY 7
At least the fiancé and I have started to have more normal, longer-than-three-minute conversations once again. He’s booked me a ticket to come see him in one week, on Valentine’s Day. I’m very much looking forward to the visit. I miss him. I feel like we have to have sex to save our relationship—ironic, since sex is what has possibly ruined our relationship in the first place. I think it’s a good sign that he wants to see me on Valentine’s Day. You can’t ditch a girl on Valentine’s Day, can you?
Knocked Up Page 3