Never say never or my Bridget Jones moment

During the last two weeks I had: two and a half episodes of vertigo, three gross pills to stop it, and about four hundred suggestions, insinuations, or simply direct questions about my possible pregnancy. Some people were friends, some were concerned colleagues and some simply couldn't imagine an Orthodox woman in her child-bearing years not pregnant. Incidentally the last group was the most obnoxious and was the least entitled to know the answer. (Up until very recently I thought that only Orthodox, Mormon and celebrities are subjected to this kind of belly scrutiny; apparently Dawn from Because I Said So, who is somewhat of a celebrity, but definitely not Orthodox or Mormon, had experienced the same avalanche of pregnancy questions after posting about her vertigo episode.) And it matters not that I have been diagnosed with Meniere's Disease and made this fact public precisely to avoid these situations. Young? Married? Orthodox? Lightheaded and nauseous? You MUST be pregnant! Don't even try denying it because you can't fool the all-knowing ME!

At first I ignored the insinuations and pretended I didn't understand what people were hinting. Then I got annoyed, and towards the middle of the week every glance in my direction was met with the evil glare and a hysterical shriek, "No, I am NOT!" (Turns out some people were looking not for the signs of life, but at my unzipped fly, which I only discovered at the end of the day, probably because people were afraid to approach me. Oh well...) And then towards Wednesday night the suspicion crept into my mind. What if I actually am? After all I AM young and married. And nauseous. And light-headed. And recently had a UTI, gained three pounds, became moody, had a bad headache .... the lists went on and on and on. So I decided to be sure and take an early pregnancy test (EPT).

The minute that decision was made, I felt the call of nature. How convenient, I thought. So I ran to the bathroom, gave my toilet one longing look, turned my basket with hygiene products upside down, but couldn't find the test. Hmm, I was sure I had one and it was there. Then I ran to the medicine cabinet - not there either. I urgently had to use the bathroom, but couldn't find the darn test. I thought of doing the logical thing - taking the test in a couple of hours - but the voice in my head that sounded like Homer Simpson (don't ask, I don't know why, but ever since I OD'ed on donuts, my inner voice sounds like Homer) spit out a line from the EPT instructions, "Need concentrated urine, need concentrated urine." So with that mantra, I was running around like a maniac, stopping in awkward poses to prevent an accident and simultaneously trying to find the test that I was sure had to be somewhere in the house. When my inner voice changed to that of Agent Mulder and told me to keep looking because, "The test is out there", I realized that urine probably got to my brain and I myself was getting kind of "out there". At that point I gave up the search and breathed the sigh of relief. And then I got to the toilet - just kidding...

Next day during my lunch break, I went to the pharmacy and bought a new test. Every time I shop for EPT, I amuse myself while waiting in line to pay with the recollection of the chapter in The Bridget Jones Diary about Bridget's experience with EPT. Of course the heroine never reads the instructions and thinks that one line on the test means she is with a child until somebody tells her that it is actually two lines, not one. After a few seconds, my mind always wonders off to different topics such as how Bridget managed to take her first EPT while well in her thirties, or why she wouldn't read instructions, and how such a thing would never happen to me because I waste oodles of time on reading and rereading the stupid labels and instructions to everything. At that point it is usually time to pay.

I was very tempted to do the test right away, but forced myself to wait until most people left the office. So I went to the bathroom, and while trying to open the wrapper, I dropped the test on the floor. When I bent down in the stall to pick it up, I realized that the woman in the next stall happened to be the one who was surer than anyone else that I was preggers. Sheesh, can't a girl catch a break from Murphy and his law?

So finally, the deed was done and I was awaiting results. Very, very quickly two lines appeared on the stick. TWO LINES!!!!! OMG, I actually was pregnant! All those people were right! I already imagined holding the baby, I could almost smell his downy hair (it kind of smelled like Lysol, but then again I was in the bathroom), got all mellow with a stupid smile plastered on my face - 3 seconds is a long time for daydreaming. And then I snapped out of it and remembered that this particular test requires a line and a plus sign for a positive result, two lines = negative. And then I remembered something else: I went through the same "two lines" vs "plus sign" thing the last time I took a pregnancy test. Hello, Bridget!