Three Months

“No,” I say, almost a moan. Saying it didn’t change the little pink plus, but I try some more anyways. “No, no, no, no…”

I’ve been sick as a dog for weeks, throwing up every morning, immediately getting hungry again and then throwing up some more. That was my first clue — missing my period three times was the second. Panicked, I had bought the pregnancy test and paced around the house chugging lemonade and thinking about waterfalls until I was able to pee.

And now this. I lean down and put my head between my knees, trying to take even breaths. I’m going to have to tell Matt. I’m going to have to call my mom — no, Claire, I should calls Claire first — and Matt’s parents? Oh God, oh shit, no, I can’t tell them. I can’t tell anyone, I can’t tell anyone anything, not Claire, not Mom, not Matt… 

My head feels like it’s spinning. What if he leaves me? What if he can’t handle this? What if he just recoils and says, “Just get rid of it”? Do I want to get rid of it? How soon? Adoption or abortion?

My dog Rocky rubs against my leg consolingly while I reel, considering that. Adoption or abortion? That’s going to be rough either way. To have a baby, to carry it around for nine months, learning its rhythms and movements, then to have to give it away to strangers? My stomach twists painfully as I contemplate that. 

Then it twists painfully again, and I have to lean over the toilet I just peed in to throw up. Glamorous.

But what about abortion? Certainly a lot faster, less time to get attached — but I know myself too well, and I can too clearly see myself, years in the future, obsessing, regretting, calculating every possible outcome I would never get to see. I can’t have something unfinished like that or it’ll drive me crazy.

Adoption or abortion. Two really shitty choices. I stand up and brush my teeth, absentmindedly setting the pregnancy test on the sink. Insane how this tiny bit of piss-soaked plastic has wholly taken over my life.

Rocky jumps up, staring at the bathroom door, then lunges through it and barks ferociously at the front door. I hear Matt, calling, “I’m home!”, and I nearly choke on the toothpaste. He’s early.

I stash the pregnancy test in the medicine cabinet and wash my hands. “Jack? You here?” Matt calls again.

I yell back, “In the bathroom!” I flush the toilet and for the briefest moment I consider throwing away the pregnancy test and forgetting about it; but I shake my head and hurry out of the bathroom.

He’s on the couch playing Left4Dead, Rocky settled on this lap. Without looking up, he pats the cushion next to him then leans forward and grabs the other controller for me. “I started it in co-op already, you just gotta hit start.” It’s our evening routine.

I clear my throat uncomfortably. “Uh, actually, well, you see, here’s the thing, um — ” I ramble on in a similarly incoherent vein long enough that he pauses the game and looks up with genuine concern.

“Are you okay?”

I wave my arms around. “Yeah, yeah, of course — but, um, well, not really.” I sit carefully next to him. The severity of the situation seems to dawn on him, and he sets the controller on the coffee table and straightens up, making Rocky grunt and jump down.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m — well, I don’t know if you remember — I mean, of course you remember, but I don’t know if you’ve really thought about, er, that thing we did, about three months ago, after that horror movie marathon…” I trail off awkwardly, trying desperately to find a way to just say it. “I’m — We’re — ”

Thank fuck Matt isn’t a complete idiot who also sort of likes me. He goes pale, but he generously says it for me. “You’re… pregnant?”

I smile weakly and make a vague gesture, like, “That’s life!”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and screams a little bit. He takes it better than I did; I was yelling fuck at the top of my lungs for a good ten minutes when I found out.

He finally opens his eyes, and looks over at me, his uncertainty raw and uncensored. I feel inappropriately giddy for a moment, thinking how I love that he can’t hide anything from me.

“What… are we going to do?” He says slowly. “What’s the next step?”

“I was thinking that the main question is whether to — to keep it or not.”

He laughs shakily. “Wow, that’s — that’s hard.”

I feel relieved he agrees. I feel even more relieved he’s not running away. I feel so, completely, utterly, wholly relieved he’s still here, he’s still trying to work this out with me.

. . .

We talk for a week straight about what we’re going to do. During that week, I throw up three times and burst into tears over the internet refusing to cooperate with me, even when I climbed behind a cabinet to re-start the router, inhaling two whole dust bunnies in the process. We don’t end up really deciding anything, but we decide to at least set up an appointment with a doctor for a check-up.

A bemused nurse shows us into Dr. Giseppio’s office, then hands me a little orange cup.

“What’s this for?” I ask, missing the obvious.

“Pee in it, so we can test your hormones.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense.”

Matt, sitting across from me in one of the guest chairs, tries to stifle his laugh.

“Shut up, Matt.” 

The nurse instructed me to use the bathroom and come back to this office for the appointment with Dr. Giseppio, then excused himself to tend to another patient. Matt gives me a mock salute as I leave for the bathroom, and I roll my eyes.

When I come back, cup of pee in hand, Dr. Giseppio is already there having a conversation with Matt.

“So, let me get this right; your male, intersex partner is pregnant with your child?” I catch the doctor saying. I clear my throat, and the doctor jumps. “Oh, Mr. Perez, there you are! And you have the —? Ah, yes, I see you holding it, um, go ahead and just put that on the exam bed.”

I set the pee cup down and turn back to the doctor expectantly. She pulls on some gloves, then proceeds to check my glands, eyes, ears, heart, lungs… 

“All fine,” she says, smiling and pulling the gloves off. “I’ve already sent out a request for an ultrasound technician so we can see what’s going on in there.” She seems weirdly excited about it. “In the meantime, I’m just going to ask a few questions so we can figure out how far along you are. Do you have a regular period?”

“Yeah, but I skipped three months,” I reply uncomfortably. I see Matt trying not to squirm in his seat.

“Do you know the date of conception?”

“I think so, March, uh, twenty… third?”

“Twenty-fifth,” Matt corrects, folding his arms and looking resolutely away from the doctor.

“So you’re at about eleven weeks. Are you showing yet?”

“I — ” I hadn’t thought about that. I feel my stomach, and yep, there’s a subtle swell. “A little.”

“Have you gained weight?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t really keep track of that.”

“The nurse weighed you today at 162 pounds, does that sound about right?”

“I guess.”

“You’re usually around 155,” Matt chimes in. 

I stare at him. 

He answers again a little defensively. “I’ve told you this before, I’ve got a knack for guessing weight. That was my thing at the carnival.”

“Oh my god, the circus, I completely forgot about your thing at the fucking circus.”

“Carnival. My whole family was in it.”

Dr. Giseppio’s watching the exchange with an avid curiosity. She looks like she might ask something, but instead she says, “I’ll just go check on the technician,” and dashes out the door.

I tap my fingers on the exam bed. Matt hums something.

“Which carnival was it?”

“Randini Bros. My mom was the contortionist, and my dad worked with the lions backstage.”

“Oh yeah, I remember you telling about this.” He’s just so damn proud of that carnival, he can go off on long rambling tangents about it; the time the big top caught on fire, the time Bozo the Clown showed up as a guest performer, the time the tent was so packed people had to stand directly beneath the acrobats and hope they wouldn’t fall. He’s cute enough when he’s excited I let him get away with it.

Dr. Giseppio comes back with a bored-looking ultrasound technician pushing a cart full of machinery. “This is Dr. Chase, she’ll take care of you guys,” Dr. Giseppio says in a final-sounding way; however, instead of leaving then, Dr. Giseppio plops down on the chair next to Matt and folds her hands neatly. Matt shifts slightly away from her, then changes his mind and stands up to join me at the exam table where Dr. Chase is having me lay on my back and pull up my shirt.

“This’ll be cold,” Dr. Chase said before slapping a ludicrous amount of ultrasound goo on my stomach. It’s freezing. Matt takes my hand and squeezes it.

Dr. Chase messes with the monitor, then puts the sensor on my stomach and gently slides it in little circles. “There we go,” she says, as something comes up on the screen.

It’s a baby. That’s a motherfucking baby. That’s a picture of the baby that is currently growing in me, right now, and oh my god, this just got really real. I hear Matt’s breath catch.

Dr. Chase is completely unfazed. “Looks fine, no abnormalities, good heart beat, maybe twelve weeks along — do you want to know the sex?” she says, sounding completely disinterested, like she sees babies in men all the time.

I answer without thinking. “Sure.”

“Female. I’d put the due date at late December.” She makes a move like she’s about to turn the monitor off, but Dr. Giseppio clears her throat loudly. “Oh, right, do you guys want a picture?”

“Yes, yes please,” Matt says, seeming mesmerized by the little alien thing on the ultrasound monitor. Dr. Chase takes the picture, then turns it all off and hands me some tissues. She gives Matt the picture while I wipe my stomach off.

“Congratulations,” Dr. Chase says flatly, then she pushes the ultrasound cart out of the office.

I admit, I’m a little checked out when Matt makes arrangements with Dr. Giseppio for the next appointment; and I’m still checked out for the whole silent ride home. We’re both kind of in shock when we walk through the door, the house looking exactly the same; but when Matt puts the ultrasound picture on the fridge, everything seems completely different. I sit on the couch and pull my shirt back up, then touch my stomach, mesmerized by the little creature in me.

“Matt?”

“Yeah?” He’s staring at the picture on the fridge.

“Can we keep her?”

“Hell yeah.”