I was pacing and shaking my head and smoking and sitting down and pacing again. There are no words to describe the feelings that washed over me - no, smacked into me - as I held that little stick of plastic in my hand. Two lines? I don't know if you've ever done a pregnancy test but the instructions seem simple before you actually think the result might be positive, then there appears to be no way it could be interpreted. After the fifth reading I was pretty certain it was positive. False positives happen right? Apparently not very often and definitely not to me.
I had felt a little run down for a few days and it had just been the easter weekend. I decided to take the day off work and get more sleep but as I was 20 days late I figured it would be reasonably sensible to do a quick check and pee on a stick. We all know, we ALL KNOW, that you pee on a stick, the result is negative, you come on, you feel better. You learn that at about 16. WE ALL KNOW it. So I borrowed some money from my flat mate and got a test. I thought I'd do it quick before watching some sci fi nonsense on my computer.
Once the result was in, I paced and smoked and shook my head and swore and paced. The rest of the day is a blur. I know I spoke to my sister, my best friend and my normal sounding-board Angela. But the only clear memory that comes through from the hours after finding out I was "infected" as I stupidly called it then, was the aversion to the word abortion. I had no reason to have a child. I was single, had known the father for not much more than a month and actually only seen him for a week, had barely any money - as was proven by having to scrounge enough to take a test - and was pretty focused on having fun. A child was not part of the sketchy plan. And yet. The idea of being a parent was scary but the idea of not becoming one was already awful.
And so everything started to change.
