Biological Child

​October 9, 2019

Jamie and I wanted a biological child.

We dreamed about it together. 

In fact, before we were married we decided to try to get pregnant immediately after our “I do’s.” He said there was no time to waste we should start our family immediately. 

Two weeks after our wedding, I missed my cycle. With excitement he exclaims, “Go pee on a stick!”

We drive to Walgreens to pick up a box of pregnancy tests. We come home. I pee. We wait. 

It does not show any lines, not one single line to say negative and definitely no double lines to say positive. The test is a dud. 

We wait an hour before I can produce another test. I set the timer on my phone for five minutes. We wait. 

From the moment we decided to make a family together we had been mulling over names. We made countless suggestions of characters from our favorite songs, books, and movie heroes. We picked out what we agreed to be the perfect ones, a moniker unusual enough to be different but not weird and we made sure to also include familial representations. 

We daydreamed about him or her, the traits we wanted from each other. I wanted our son to have Jamie’s blue-green eyes with the gold ring around the pupil, his lack of allergies, his quick wit, sharp tongue, mischievous smirk, and the twinkle in his eye. The same twinkle passed down from his Daddy to him – the one that lets me know he’s up to no good and the getting is going to be good. He did not want our children to have my sensitive soul, but instead to be thick skinned; I agree.

He assures me he would instill in our child a sense of fairness and justice. “But,” he warned “he’ll probably be sent home from school for standing up for himself.” ‘Standing up for himself’ is code for fighting. Jamie has never been one to stand down from a bully. “If it’s a her, she’ll pack a devastating hook too.”

Jamie talked about our son’s future appearance. With his Dad’s build and my Dad’s build, we would create a linebacker. We’d spend the next twenty or more years at Little League games. 

I would remind Jamie, little girls wrap their Daddy’s around their little fingers and they can also play in Little Leagues. 

“BUZZZZZ!!!” The longest five minutes has passed. He gets up to check the results. 

From our master bathroom he mumbles one syllable, “nah.”

I can tell from his tone and inflection he is disappointed. He admits, “I never wanted a child before I met you. Now, I wanted this to be positive.”

“Something’s wrong,” I mutter.

He glides towards me. He puts his arms around my waste, “Go to the Dr. Get checked out. Put your mind at ease. You could be stressed out. That won’t help us.” He reassured me that everything is okay. 

Besides, he was right, I was worried. The day before we had spent an evening in the emergency room after he cut himself in a cooking accident.

 

The next day, Tuesday, I call for an appointment. I explain to the lady scheduling my appointment, “I’ve missed my cycle. I took a pregnancy test. It showed negative.” 

Two days later I go in to the office, on June 13. I had never been to the OBGYN specifically to pee in a cup. It had always been to play “Fat or Pregnant” where I was always just fat. Well, actually, I’d specifically go in for a yearly exam or a follow-up and just-so-happen to always be fat. 

I wait in the exam room. To my surprise I am completely dressed in my own clothes, not in an open gown surrounded only by freezing air. 

The nurse walks in, her head bowed, her eyes lowered to the floor. Her voice is somber as she says, “I’m sorry. I have bad news, Miss Conway. You aren’t pregnant.”

I can’t help but to burst into laughter, “I know. I figured. I took a test at home. It showed I’m not pregnant. I needed to come in because I missed my cycle with a negative pregnancy test.” 

Her spirit lifts as she explains, “I never know if a woman in your position will be devastated or if her pregnancy test at home showed a false positive. The people answering the phones to set the appointments don’t put that information in the tickets.” 

“It sounds like they ought to.”

The nurse agrees and tells me to hold-tight she’ll send someone in to discuss pregnancy with me. 

Within a few minutes the nurse practitioner, Meredith, comes in. She says, “Everything looks good in your chart.”

Meredith explains I’d be an older Mom and there are some potential complications, such as becoming pregnant and the estimated percentage of having a mentally handicapped baby. She tells me that I might not have these potential issues if I were younger and in this same predicament of trying to get pregnant. She explains women usually have healthy babies until around 45 years of age but then the chances of birth defects increase significantly. 

She goes into great detail explaining how I should track ovulation and that I need to test myself daily for the next month. She tells me to  immediately begin prenatal vitamins and take multiple pregnancy tests for the next two weeks, just incase it was too early for the test to read. Then, after two weeks, I should begin the prescribed medicine that will jumpstart my cycle again. She hands me photocopied flyers, more-so instruction sheets, and a sample pack of prenatal vitamins with added folic acid. 

I walk out to the car, happily, to text the information to Jamie. It’s not daunting. We can do this. It should be easy – people that don’t even want to reproduce do it every day.