I Think I’ve Been Pregnant For Years

Uncertainty and anxiety fester. My mind’s racing over the potential duties and doodys I’d be responsible for as a parent. I don’t know how this could’ve happened; I never hot tub naked with others and I’m always vigilant to wipe off seats in all public toilets no matter what country I’m in.

I should just man up and take the pregnancy test but, alas, I can’t. A truth-shrapnel-
heavy bombshell could provide a definitive answer but could also eradicate what remains of the sweet delusional bliss I’ve been clinging to. I suppose I’m only deceiving myself, though. The writing’s been on the wall—any idiot could tell you that missing your period for this many months, my entire life in fact, likely means I’ve been totes preggers for at least a few years now.

The proof has accumulated steadily over time. Suspicions first began when my appetite surged to a level of routine gluttony. Gone were the days of being satiated by a paltry six-piece McNugget and medium fry. No, now a ravenous, adult-onset-diabetes-inducing hunger coursed throughout me. Orders of family-sized McNugget cartons and vats of McFlurry paired with near-violent, manager-directed diatribes to restore the Supersize option had become my new normal.

Blame boredom. Blame delicious salt. Blame Netflix. No matter your angle, I’m gorging for at least two now. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we we’re doing, much like a dumpy girl on Prom Night unsuccessfully parting with her virginity and subsequently eating her feelings, I’m getting filled one way or another.

My weight, much like the pregnancy evidence, soon began aggressively accruing. This non-sexual girth first appeared in my ankles. These once-slim beauties, my sexiest feature according to my nineteenth-century Englishmen friends, ballooned into varicose-vein-riddled stumps that branched off into a pair of equally-swollen feet like I was just another patron in a Midwestern strip mall.

Missing periods, being obnoxiously cankled, living in a constant state of food lust: the proof was in the Snack Packs. Not long after I’d exiled my skinny jeans and sexy underwear to the back of the closet, a sore-nipple epidemic broke out in my life. Maybe it was just that I was distracted with the potential looming pregnancy or maybe I just wasn’t as quick on my cankles now, but the fellow passengers on my morning commute took full advantage. Once upon a time I’d had the quickest pair of hands and the slipperiest pair of nips on the bus; but, lately, the culture of rampant titty-twisting has left me perpetually surrendering window seats in order to stop my nurples from becoming any more raw and purpled.

Mood swings have now crept their way into daily life. I caught an errant whiff of garlic-stuffed olives yesterday and couldn’t shake the craving. When I couldn’t find them in the grocery store I panicked, collapsing on the tile floor in a ball of tears.

Perspective completely gone, I latched onto a clerk, pleading that he find the olives for me, but he scurried away, probably rushing off to help a hotter, trimmer, not-possibly-pregnant person.

Magic Eight Ball, you were right; the signs all do point to yes.

Fine, I’ll be the man and do it; I’ll take the pregnancy test and finally know for sure if I’m carrying little Obi-Wan McFly in my tummy after all.