Seven years ago today I was sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t get a hold of my brother. And it was his birthday. His fourteenth birthday. I just wanted to wish him a happy day and tell him that I missed him. When I say that I was sobbing, I assure you that was an understatement. Rivers of tears poured from my eyes.
My friend, Munchkin’s birth father, assured me that I wasn’t going insane, I was just hormonal. Because I was on my period.
Except I wasn’t.
When he said that to me, I kind of laughed. My cycle was never really regular. It still isn’t. To this day, I don’t have the benefit of having a reliable 28-day cycle like they teach you about in health class. I range anywhere from 24 to 64 days. I once threw in a 18 day cycle, too, but don’t count that one as I deem it a fluke. But I never really knew when my period would be coming other than a few tell-tale, right-before-hand symptoms. I would cramp a bit in the few days before and my lower back would get very sore. My breasts, prior to having kids, would get tender. And I’d be tired.
You know, all the symptoms of pregnancy.
I spent the next week waiting for my period. It didn’t arrive. The symptoms of my alleged period worsened, however, and I found myself unable to wake up. I slept a majority of my non-working time. I couldn’t sit in front of the television in the evening without falling asleep. And if anyone even thought about brushing up against my breasts, I cringed in fear of pain. They were so tender. And bigger. Almost immediately.
I didn’t take that test for that whole week, the cramping and twinging in my uterus leading me to believe that my period would start at any moment. I slept and worked and willed my period to arrive.
It didn’t.
Every year on my brother’s birthday I’m reminded of that moment when the doubt set in, when the fears started, when the concept of possibilities began working its way into my subconscious. I sit here knowing that there’s no possibility of a pregnancy today and I feel so removed from that girl, seven years ago.
And so close to her at the same time.
I wish I could tell her that, seven years down the road, she’d be sitting on a comfortable brown couch, sneezing uncontrollably due to high pollen levels, watching the pregnancy announcements roll in on Facebook (which hadn’t yet been invented) and wishing more than anything that she could make the same announcement just one last time. Just one more time. Just…
I just wish I could hold her hand and tell her everything will be okay. As alone as I feel somedays now, nothing compares to that week of wondering, the taking of that test and the weeks and months that followed. I never want to relive that and I’d give anything if other women and mothers didn’t have to endure the same.