Since believing in Santa again, I can honestly say that I have been calmer.

Stupid, isn't it?

Walking along the sidewalk in London on Thursday, I past a house dripping with icicle lights and puffy inflated Santa Clauses in various poses, and it made me laugh out loud and wear a grin all the way to the office. I downloaded Christmas music to my iPod-Harry Connick Jr.'s Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Cole's Frosty the Snowman. The first Band-Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas (since I can't stand the modern smarmy remake). Aled Jones' Pie Jesu and Bocelli's Ave Maria (the song I always wanted to walk down the aisle to, but never did). I light the air and my heart up with Christmas music, and I feel all the better for it.

Angus comes home Friday night and I scoop him up in my arms and never want to let him go. We have our champagne bath and tell each other stories from our stressful week. I am so glad to see him-I have been so stressed out and blue, my ulcer gripping my stomach and the bleeding seeping into the toilet. We have a massive picnic of bread and French cheese and then race up the stairs to welcome each other back to the bedroom, which we continue to do all weekend.

We go to a Christening for Angus' friend's new daughter. The event is in a church in Tunbridge Wells and will be stocked with the usual crowd of Angus' friends that we see at the family barbecues, events which have ceased being stressful for me as people begin to relax around me. I actually like almost all of the people in that crowd. As I told Angus, I have no illusions that I am replacing his ex, nor that his friends have any loyalty to me or even like me as much as they like her. I simply enjoy the fact that people can talk with and joke with me. I may still be labeled the Homewrecker, but at least I am human, and approachable.

But this time, I was nervous. Very nervous. Not because the event was filled with people from Angus' life, but because of the very event itself-an event that had one central theme, one goal.

It was about a baby.

And for a person who had just had the week I had, it was a rough time.

Since I started having regular periods in puberty, I never once missed a period. Ever. Well, except for the times I was going through IVF, but then you are pumped up on enough synthetic hormones to feed an Olympic team, and I don't really count that. My period is as reliable as the tide, it is never late and never skipped. In fact, I generally run on a 25-26 day cycle, a cycle I can set my calendar to.

But this time I was late.

Very late.

My period simply wasn't coming.

You can imagine what a psycho like me thought. I thought-this is a sign. There is something for hope in this. There must be a reason why I am late, my plumbing is utterly reliable. And as the days passed, my hope grew. Deep in my heart I knew I couldn't be pregnant, but what if? Just what if? I checked the web-sometimes the surgery "unties" and women become pregnant. Could that have happened to me, despite what the surgeons in Sweden said about my fallopian tubes being obliterated? Could Santa Clause have come early and brought me the single thing I want most? I hadn't even written him a letter, but did he know that I wanted to have a family with the one man that I want to spend the rest of my life with? Could this be a miracle baby, a little cell named Noel?

And as I kept going through day after day of no period, I decided there was only one course of action.

I had to take a pregnancy test, to stop thinking about it one way or another.

In Waterloo Station I go into Boots and peruse the tests, tests I had taken before with Egg and Bacon, tests I took again to try to conceive the next baby (whom I named Twiglet). I was there in the aisle, not sure what I was feeling, when I heard people beside me. A man and a woman stood there, looking at the pregnancy tests and me, looking very smug.

She was enormous with pregnancy.

"Look Ted!" She cried happily. "Pregnancy tests! Think we should get one?"

"I don't know, darling." he replied. "Think you might be pregnant?"

I felt my face flush with shame. Was I on some horrible reality show? Why were they acting like that?

"I think I'm pregnant." the pregnant woman cawed again. "But maybe I should take one just in case." She reaches out and touches a Clearblue Easy test, and the sound of her fingers on the wrapping falls into my ears and grates my nerves so painfully it makes me want to wrench her fingertips away.

Another woman turned the corner, dressed head to toe in a grey business suit and with a briefcase, head down, racing to the same pregnancy test section but, hearing this drama, she turned and fled. I wonder about her. I wonder if she is pregnant, I wonder if she wants to be.

I grab the nearest pregnancy test and want to scream at the couple. You think it's funny? You think this is a joke? You think it's ok to do this to people, you have nothing better to do than run a comedy routine in Boots, while women have hopes and dreams being made and broken in this one section only? You fucking bitch, you should get down on your hands and fucking knees and thank the higher powers that be daily that you are going to have a baby. There are others of us that would sell our souls to have a child, and here you are thinking you have the right to torment other women over your gift!

In the end, I simply rush to the register with the test and some Biore (even possibly pregnant women need clean pores) and then catch my train. I debate taking the test on the train but then I decide I don't want to associate the trains with a loss, in case the test is negative. I don't want to ride the train into London thinking: Is this the train I found out I was being an idiot in? from here on. I get home, unwrap the test, and take it.

It's with little surprise that within one minute, I get a resounding negative. I wrap the stick up and take it outside to throw away, away from my sight, and then dial-in to a conference call and try to stop thinking about it.

I talk to Angus on Saturday night about it all, about how nervous I am about the Christening.

"If it's so stressful," he says, stirring curry on the stovetop, "then don't go."

My eyes well with tears. "It's not that." I say, and a sob comes up from some depth I didn't know was there. My eyes gush and so does my nose, but as I grab a paper towel I see that it's blood running from my nose in a perfect gush on the pale orange tile. I clean it up and continue to cry. I choke out the story of the woman in Boots, of how much I want to be a mother, of how important this is to me. Not going to this event doesn't make the longing go away. I don't know what will, but I'm willing to try anything.

Angus puts his spatula down and hugs me, curling my up against his chest. He's been so stressed and depressed about other factors in our life, I want nothing more than to make him feel better, to make him feel loved, to make him feel happy. I don't want to add my baby woes to his burden, only there are some packages that are too heavy for me to carry alone. I love this man so much that there is nothing I wouldn't do for him, and all I want is for someone to be able to reach inside of me and disconnect the baby wiring, to make this all go away.

And on Sunday, while dressing up and getting ready to go to the Christening with my lovely boy, it happens. One hour before we are due to leave the house my period starts with perfect clarity, mocking me and damaging me in parts I didn't know were exposed. I stuff a purse full of tampons and get ready for the day, a day which goes very well actually and the baby is simply gorgeous, as was my Angus in his suit and tie.

It's official-I am now bleeding out of every major orifice, a fact which has been examined by a doctor this morning as I await the test results, due Thursday.

At least I still have my belief in Santa Clause. Since a baby is obviously off the list (maybe I wasn't good enough this year), I will just ask for mental health. And I will ask for him to help my Angus with some of his stress, since I hate seeing him so upset.

I'm not that depressed, even if that's the tone of this post.

I'm just not sure how to proceed.

I am removing comments from this post, since I am sick and tired of the Jesus lectures and will ban the next person who feels the need to bring that one on. I also feel really fragile when it comes to babies and just need to work on that one in our home first. I post about it since I need to talk about it.

-H.

PS-Santa has already stopped by and dropped off a lovely gift which will be used once blob week is over. Many thanks to my anonymous Santa Clause, who brought a smile to my face.

PPS-and thank you to Scorpy, who made my Saturday with her gift. You're a Sweetie, and a shot glass will be headed your way shortly.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1735 words, total size 9 kb.