“You know you don’t have to marry her just because she’s pregnant?” Those were the first words I heard my future mother-in-law utter over the car speaker after Jason told her I was knocked up.
It was 2008, and we’d been dating only six months. Two months prior, we’d gotten secretly engaged in St. Martin, but I considered it more of a pillow-talk promise I could easily extract myself from if he suddenly turned out to be a sociopath, or somebody who owned a bunch of aquariums. My getting pregnant was a surprise that seemed to derail everything.
Over Christmas, I vaguely remembered taking ecstasy, letting Jason finish inside me, then washing down a morning after pill with the next day’s breakfast. I gave no thought to the notion that I could actually be pregnant. I wasn’t even sure I could get pregnant. I was 28 years old and I’d never been on birth control. Granted, I never let guys finish inside me. But it was the holidays, and I guess I was just feeling festive.
I didn’t realize my womb was inhabited until New Year’s. Jason and I were skiing with friends in Vermont when I started experiencing what I assumed were the worst menstrual cramps of my life. My boobs were swollen torpedoes of estrogen, and every couple of seconds I’d check behind me to make sure I wasn’t turning my double black diamond red. After two more days of not switching into period underwear, I grew concerned and bought pregnancy test. Like buying a Lotto ticket or a rolled up drugstore scroll with my horoscope on it, I wasn’t expecting anything except a few seconds of entertainment followed by a tinge of resentment and the desire for my money back. Sitting on the toilet in a freezing cold bathroom, wearing nothing but thermal socks and a headband, I focused intently on the plastic wand holding my destiny. Less than a minute, a smug pink smiley face looked up at me, and I crumbled into my lap hyperventilating. Jason rushed in to see if I was OK.
“Well?” he asked.
“I can’t breathe. This can’t be happening. I’m gonna faint.” I hobbled out of the bathroom and threw myself prostrate on the floor hoping to instantly miscarry.
“Wow. OK. Well, we can handle this.” Jason picked me up and put me on the bed.
“I’m too young to be a parent, Jason! I’m a mere child myself!!” I thrashed around in a full-blown tantrum.
“You’re 28. Actually, you’re 28 and a half so basically you’re 29,” he said, thinking he was comforting me. “Let’s take a beat and think this through.”
“OK … But I don’t want a baby.” I said, now cloaked in a plaid comforter I assumed made me invisible.
I spent the rest of the trip skiing like I was a stunt man in a Warren Miller film. I darted in and out of trees without braking, tried to complete an entire run on one leg, and even attempted a jump I’d researched on YouTube known as a “Screamin’ Semen.” There wasn’t any point in holding back. As far as I was concerned, my life was over. Not only was I knocked up, I was only five months away from being 29, which was only 12 months away from being 30, which was basically dead. I figured I should at least die doing something interesting enough for Jason to talk about at dinner parties.
Three days later, I was still alive and Jason’s screamin’ semen was still burrowed inside me. We’d spent the last 72 hours — the same window I was supposed to be guaranteed by my bunk morning after pill — legitimately weighing our options. My initial instinct was to have an abortion. Most of my girlfriends had survived them without complications or remorse. It was, after all, the 21st century. I was an independent woman living in a country that for the moment still granted me the freedom to make my own choices with my body. The only thing holding me back was Jason. He wasn’t some random dude I’d rear-ended while pulling out of the Rite Aid parking lot. Sure, I’d slept with that guy, but I obviously wouldn’t have thought twice about not having his baby. Jason was different. I was in love with him. In my mind, having an abortion meant running the risk of ruining our relationship. I didn’t want to look back and feel resentment toward him for allowing me to destroy something that was a part of us, or vice versa. The more we talked, the more we realized we had to have the baby. Despite the timing being a little off, I wanted children eventually, and who better to do it with than the person I was already secretly engaged to?
Eventually, Jason’s mom came to terms with the fact that her son was going to have a child and probably marry someone that wasn’t her. My family, also initially concerned, warmed up to the idea once they realized Jason was rich.
We spent the next three months preparing for parenthood by moving in together, getting into couples’ therapy, and buying an SUV. The circumstances didn't allow us time to play games. We had to abandon our egos and just be vulnerable. We opened up about our own childhoods and forged pacts about the things we wanted to do differently. We read books and attended classes. We even borrowed a friend's kid one night for a trial run. But as my hormone levels continued to rise, so did my paranoia. Sometimes I’d look over in bed and imagine every worse case scenario. What if he was a serial killer? What if he was a child molester? What if he was somebody who goes to Burning Man?
“Let me out of the car! I don’t even know you! You’ve completely hijacked my life! I want my life back!” I screamed on our way to a routine doctor’s visit.
Set off by the fact that Jason’s flesh reeked of matzo brie, I tried to jump from the car.
“Sit down! Jenny, sit the fuck down now!” he said, trying to hold me in place by the hood of my sweatshirt.
Unlike most couples, we were having our first fight with the realization that we were to be tethered to each other for all of eternity. Something bigger than us was already in motion. We were having a child, and there was no backing out.
At the doctor’s office that day, we were given some shocking news. Our fetus was over us. He had deemed us unfit parents. His heart rate had slowed, and it was merely going to be a matter of time before I miscarried. The fear and anxiety, even the weird smell of Jason’s flesh, all of it faded to the background as we locked bodies and started crying. Everything that had been moving so fast suddenly came to a grinding halt. The only thing remaining was my intense love for Jason. The events bonded us in such a way that I knew we were meant to be forever. Less than a month later, we eloped.
People assumed we’d try to get pregnant again right away, but we didn’t. In fact, we waited over five years. We wanted to give our relationship time to grow and blossom. We also secretly wanted a few more years of feeling young, skinny, and like we could do ecstasy without accidentally murdering anyone.
I don’t know that I woke up one day and suddenly knew it was the right time to try again. In fact, I probably could have gone another five years had Jason not informed me that I was now 34 and a half, which was basically 35, which was basically 40.
Getting pregnant this time around wasn’t nearly as easy, partially because figuring out when you’re ovulating requires an understanding of second-grade math, and partially because the universe never cooperates when you try to control it. I spent a solid year casually fucking around with thermometers and period-tracking apps for my iPhone, when finally my sister insisted I try using a digital ovulation stick. Three months of dragging my heels and getting waylaid by online sample sales later, I bought one. Twenty-eight days after that, I was pregnant. Once again, I crumbled into my lap hyperventilating, but this time it was with excitement. I didn’t particularly feel any more prepared, any less afraid, or any more certain Jason wouldn’t eventually attend Burning Man. The only thing I knew with confidence was that I was ready to have my life hijacked. Which is all to say, we’re keeping it.
Jenny Mollen is the author of the upcoming book I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People. Follow her on Twitter.
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