May 23rd, 2012
I had just found out Mimie thought she was pregnant. I ran out to the store to get her a pregnancy test to confirm what she already knew…
The pregnancy tester is white and about six inches long. The participant removes the capped end to use it, revealing the tip you pee on. There is a small window that has a square embedded into it. Once you pee on it, the urine hormones will reveal one or two lines. Get two lines, and you just hit the baby jackpot. One line, it's try, try again.
I give her some privacy after I hand her the stick and walk over to my side of the bed. I finally started to remove my police uniform after my long day.
Mimie walks out of the bathroom, leaving the tester on the ledge of the bathroom counter, fresh from just being used.
"How long does it take?" I asked as my feet got tangled in my pant leg due to my anxiety about anticipating the results.
"A minute or two, I would think," Mimie replied, staring at me as I stumbled forward, bracing myself on the bed. My right arm caught myself, breaking my fall. I use my left hand to try and get my last leg out.
After getting my pants off, I brace myself with my left arm joining the right for extra support as they are placed firmly on the bed.
My head hangs in between my shoulders like a pendulum, and I'm breathing hard after trying to remove my pants. I raise my head and look up at Mimie. My body bounced with my breaths.
I nervously laugh and say, "Let's check!"
Mimie walks into the bathroom, and I follow her. She stops and stares at the tester.
"I can't look", she says
The pregnancy test is balanced on the ledge. Mimie was about two feet from it, but I could sense her apprehensiveness in regards to even being in the bathroom with it. She grabbed it and passed it over her shoulder without even a gaze. I didn't mind looking at it. I tried to ease the tension.
"You did hand me the nonpee end, right?" I said, cringing my nose. She's not amused. I was staring at the back of her head, but her reflection in the mirror captured her face.
I examine the stick, "I can't make this thing out." I said out loud. I look closer at it, holding the plastic object about an inch from my nose as my eyes burn a hole through it.
"What do you mean you can't make it out. If there are two lines, I'm pregnant." She says, turning around to stare at me.
I continue to fixate my eyes on the lines, trying to determine if the faded second line is positive for pregnancy or not.
"Look at it, Mimie. It's faint; I can't read it." I handed her the tester, shaking my head.
Mimie examined it with as much intensity as I did. Her face said it all.
"Shit, I can't read it either," Mimie exclaimed.
I walk over to the bed and grab the instructions from the box. As I fumbled trying to unfold it, I dropped it to the bed and reached out to take the pregnancy tester out of Mimie's hand.
Once I unfold the "instructions inside," that is more tightly wound than Mimie and I. I hold it up in the air with my left hand. I then grab the tester and place her pee stick beside the manuals. I don't know what I was trying to get out of it by comparing the two; maybe I thought the bedroom light would shed more light on our dilemma.
But comparing it this way wasn't working.
"Just pee on the second stick, I guess." I was getting so frustrated.
I fish the other tester from the box, remove the package for her, and hand Mimie the other pregnancy stick.
"You're supposed to wait until the next day before you try again", Mimie said.
"I know, but the anticipation sucks," I said, staring at her, holding the clean pregnancy test in my hand. She grabbed it without hesitation, and we went to another round.
Another faded line.
We both know deep down that she is pregnant. She is in tune with her body and "just knows." But we would like to know for sure. She could hardly contain herself, and I knew she wouldn't rest easily unless we knew. Besides, who knew when we could get a doctor's appointment.
"Fuck it, I'm going back to Walgreens." We both are just too anxious.
"They have a digital tester that either says, 'Pregnant or Not Pregnant.' It's a pregnant stick for dummies."
Mimie agrees with me.
I get dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. I search for my sandals, and I head out the front door.
I get into my personal car and drive back to the store. I don't like to drive my patrol car off duty much; it's just a moving billboard when you're off duty.
Thoughts about what we went through back in 2006 and what we are going through now rush through my mind, "Are we putting too much pressure on ourselves by trying to get pregnant? Maybe we just need to heal first."
This pregnancy game is exhausting. I thought babymaking was easy. This isn't turning out to be the birds and the bees talk my parents gave me when I was a kid. It's more like the Beaver and the Dammed.
I walk into Walgreens to search for the digital pregnancy test.
I nod at the cashier as I walk through the automatic double doors. About where people were in her line, my appearance before her seemed déjà vu, and she did double take. After all, I was just there fifteen minutes ago. I give a friendly wave to her, and she's oblivious to my suavity.
I work my way around the people in line and head directly to aisle twelve, where the pregnancy tests, condoms, and other sexual needs are.
My enthusiasm changed to frustration as I weed through the many items on the well-stocked shelves.
We both have to be tired of this pregnancy run around. It just doesn't feel normal. The natural thing is to get married and have a baby, right? Simple enough. But every time we turn around, there's a brick wall trying to delay the process. Is this a sign?
I found the digital pregnancy tester and grabbed it off the hook, which was prominently displayed right under my nose. I read the box.
"Easy to use, easy to read, pregnant results in as early as 1 minute. Use any time of day."
Simple.
I hurriedly walked back to the girl at the cash register; she had her line down to two customers since they had opened another register. I finally get my turn to be served, but she doesn't give me a second look this time. She's too busy complaining to the other clerk about her job.
The clerk is a young girl in her late teens or early twenties. This job is clearly a pit stop for her until she reaches her dreams of cosmetology school. She doesn't care that I am standing before her. I just wish she'd hurry up and ring up my would-be purchase. I have bigger things to deal with.
"$8.57", she says.
I swipe my credit card in the little grey box on the counter. I know from my past visit that anything under twenty dollars does not require you to sign the sales receipt. I see the word "APPROVED" scroll across the screen; I grab the box and walk out the door; this time, I don't give her a second look.
Driving is therapeutic, and it soothes my anxiety. I'll learn to appreciate that as the years go by. For now, it doesn't help me on this short drive home from Walgreens with an eight-dollar and fifty-cent nonorganic object holding our fate in its nonexistent hands.
You don't expect things to be so hard in life. As a human being, you pride yourself on doing the right things. Mimie and I were no different.
We are just everyday people, living our lives the best we can by doing the right things that make all of us human. When you go through something as traumatic as losing such a precious gift like the girls, you feel like the dammed. We just wanted things to go right for us, so wrong that it seemed to do the opposite and bring the bad into our lives. Although people go through this every day, when it's happening to you, you feel like the only people on earth being challenged.
I was just spent when I got home the third time with our second pregnancy test.
My twelve-hour day had quickly moved to fourteen hours, if you counted when I had to get up and start my day.
I was hot and sweaty from being on the go since I got home. Poor Mimie sat in bed, not worried about whether she could or couldn't get pregnant. The bigger picture with her was, "What is wrong with me."
There was never anything wrong with Mimie's internal abilities to make a baby. But when you try and fail spectacularly in the loss of the twins with no answer as to why. You start to look at yourself.
It's easy to tell Mimie that it isn't her fault. But I can't convince someone that they aren't defective if they already perceive themselves that way.
She didn't think she wanted kids growing up. Most people don't. That theory was compounding her speculation that she wasn't meant to have any. She told me later in life, after the boys were born that even her sisters thought she "wasn't the motherly type."
Yet here she is, surprising everybody with the will to bear children. Although, it didn't surprise me. Mimie was a wonderful, warm, and caring person to her children. She loved them above all else.
On the other hand, I always knew I wanted kids since I was a kid. Mimie was so shocked at that. She would later tell me that I "was a weird kid for wanting kids," with a smile, of course.
I can't tell you why I wanted kids so badly; I'm not a psychologist. Maybe it's because my parents were divorced when I was two.
I do not think she wanted to be pregnant for me. I know deep down she wanted kids for herself. She felt it was only natural since our relationship was strong and we both had a lot of love to share. Making babies was supposed to be fun. But it seems only fun when you get pregnant on accident because the thought of getting pregnant when you didn't want them appeared absurd.
This process seemed easy when you took Health in school. It was supposed to be a natural process of life. After all, your parents have kids, namely you; how hard could it be?
I remember, as a child, finding out how babies were made.
Click here for Part III » Be Positive
Born Again by Christopher P. Fusaro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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