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Attempting to plant my feet on the floor, I realize I’m not rocking at all. I’m not on some boat, which could have been in the dreams I came out of but don’t remember. But I do feel seasick, like I’m tumbling head over foot in the water and not able to calm the rising bile in my throat.
Nope, definitely on dry land and just about to …
Nausea sweeps into my mouth and stomach so swiftly that I bolt from the mattress, running to the bathroom in the hall since I’ve been sleeping in the second bedroom and not the master of my grandmother’s condo. My knees hit the cold tile just seconds before I vomit, water and the remnants of my dinner last night splashing into the toilet bowl.
The rolling sensation passes immediately and I plop down on my ass, groaning as the acidic taste permeates my mouth.
“Oh, shit.” White-hot sweat swamps my brow in the next second.
Could I just be manifesting some of the heartbreak of our fight into physical symptoms? Is that what happens when you scream at someone you truly love? I’ve never been lovesick, but this definitely qualifies. Maybe this is why people say breakups suck so much.
Then again, that seesaw in my stomach doesn’t seem to have dissipated after I just got sick. I still feel queasy as I sit here.
Wait …
I’m thirty-five years old. I’ve been to the gynecologist and even gone through the informational appointments about egg freezing as I got to my geriatric pregnancy age so that I’d be able to have kids if I met the right person. They told me my hormone test showed that my egg count was low; and the ultrasound I had confirmed that and also showed my uterus isn’t an ideal shape to become pregnant easily if I wanted to try naturally. The odds were stacked against me in all the categories, and yet …
I am pregnant. With every wave of nausea, I know I’m pregnant.
This isn’t getting sick with the heartbreak flu or from a glass too many at the bar last night. This feels different.
At this moment, I know I’m pregnant.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
I mean, I need to get a test to confirm. It’s not like I have one laying around, thinking that this was almost impossible at this point. But I’d bet any amount of money that stick will have two lines on it. Having read so many online forums and watched so many shows that included pregnancies, women always say they had some other sort of intuition.
Right here and now, I know in my head, heart, and very sickly stomach that I’m growing a baby.
Liam’s baby. Oh God.
It’s not like Liam and I had been careful. I’d been off birth control for a while since I wasn’t sexually active for a long time, but I thought nothing of it, considering my advanced maternal age and all the information the doctors had given me. Part of me had become resigned to never becoming a parent because of how little romantic interest I’d had in anyone. Being a single mom loomed somewhere in the distance, put on the back burner until a few years down the line, when I didn’t think I’d have anything more than that one option.
We’re the cautionary tale, the idiots who hadn’t used protection, and I am somehow surprised I am now with child? A small part of me probably knew we were treading on thin ice, but I was so entrenched in not talking about what we were doing that it hadn’t occurred to me.
A baby at my age, with the improbability given to me by doctors, seemed far-fetched. I’d let the dream go, and I guess my intellectualism as well.
Fingertips hit my lips, and I realize I’m feeling a smile there. For as messed up as my current predicament with Liam is, for as up in the air as my whole life seems right now, I can’t feel anything except radiant happiness.
A mother. I’m going to have the chance to be a mother. Something I’ve dreamed of my entire life is finally, improbably, surprisingly, coming true.
Even though we fought, even though I have no idea if he still wants to be with me, I can be confident that this baby was conceived in love. This baby will be so loved.
The back of my scalp hits the cool tile of my grandmother’s bathroom wall, and I let a tear slide down. Crying seems almost natural at this point, but because of where I am and how I discovered this, it almost feels like Grandma Lucy is a part of it. She would have been so happy for me, that I know.
I know I need to move, to get up and brush my teeth after puking and then go buy a test to make one hundred percent certain that I’m pregnant.
Pregnant with Liam Ashton’s baby.
Then, I’ll have to go back with my tail between my legs after I insulted his very character. After I tried to ruin us with all my fears, doubts, and insecurities.
In an instant, my life changed. It’s funny how that happens; one second, you’re one person on this one path, and the next, you’re completely different, headed down a road you never planned to be on.
Cupping my stomach as I rise, I rub the T-shirt there and hope the tiny life can feel the immense love I already have for it.
Leave it to the universe to stick it to you hours after you blow everything up. I’m not ready to confront everything head-on. My mind is still reeling from last night, the way we yelled at each other and how he didn’t come after me.
For once, I wanted something to cherish all on my own. Which is why I went to the store, peed on the stick alone after getting home, and ordered the baby’s first onesie online shortly thereafter.
