Sick For Lack of Sickness

I am back to being beside myself, after several days of relative calm. And I mean calm — I didn’t even take a pregnancy test Wednesday or Thursday night! No need. I felt certain, confident, and, well, symptom-y. Not morning sick or anything, but tired, thirsty, and, most especially, moody. I think my most comforting moment came yesterday morning when I was glancing through a “Best Friends” Magazine (published by the animal sanctuary in Utah) and became instantly hysterical over a page featuring needing-to-be-adopted rabbits. When I looked up at Mike, tears streaming down my face, and said, through sobs, “Can’t we bring a bunny home…plea-hee-hee-ease?” there was a part of me, observing from the side, who whispered to herself “um, can you say hormones?”

But this morning I have lost all my confidence. I took another test last night. Still positive, and I must say the strip turned pink faster. Nevertheless. I am convinced that there is something wrong. This is for two reasons. First, because I have told way too many people that I’m pregnant, thereby putting into play the “You-will-be-punished-by-God-for-your-arrogance” clause, which ensures that people who talk before the first trimester are destined to lose their babies. My second reason for being filled with despair is, oddly, a co-worker.

It turns out that a girl I work with got pregnant, in her case naturally, a week before I did. When I called in bursting with the good news about my test results, then, the general response was “That’s great! Did you hear about Heather?” Of course I was happy for her, but also, selfishly, found the whole situation to be somewhat vexing. This was supposed to be my moment. Now not only did I have to share it, but with someone who was pregnant, as she hastened to remind me when I saw her, a week longer than me.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is that this extra week gives her the ability (and right, it seems) to treat me as a “co-conspirator,” of sorts — “ooh, don’t you feel tired? Ooh, don’t you have headaches?” Which would be fine if we were friends, but we’re not. As if that’s not bad enough, she also offers me all sorts of old-timer advice about how I “will be feeling.” And that feeling is, in a word, sick. Heather is nauseated, pale, and and miserable. And likes to complain about it quite vociferously. She walks around the store moaning, wrapped in a pink shawl, looking like a wan but slightly self-satisfied Russian peasant. I, of course, feel nothing of the sort. I am not sick at all. My stomach feels fine. Ergo, I have decided, I am not pregnant, or if I am, it’s not “the right way.”

It’s not making for good relations between me and Heather. When, yesterday, she came up to me in the diamond island and said, her voice weak and broken, ” do you know where in the mall I can get ginger candy?” I almost snapped back, “No, because I’m not sick! And I know you are! Stop rubbing it in, babushka girl!

Of course I restrained myself, and simply told her that I was not a fan.

But this is going to be a long nine months! Although, maybe it won’t, because maybe I’ll get my test results back on Monday and it’ll turn out that my poor cells haven’t divided the way they were supposed to. Then it’ll be a long nine months, indeed, of me watching Heather get increasingly sick, and fat, and happy while I mourn my loss and brace myself for renewed attempts.

Not to mention the press release we’ll have to send out to inform the 12,000 people we’ve told that the pregnancy, sorry, didn’t take.

Oh, I’m a wreck. I can’t even do morning sickness right. Monday can’t come soon enough.