So now I have two options.
Tell Philippe or don’t tell Philippe.
Really, it only leaves me with one option. Don’t tell Philippe.
I’ve heard him say, on multiple occasions, that he doesn’t like kids. He doesn’t want kids. He thinks people who have kids and have to take sick days to look after them are annoying. He gets bothered when people have family emergencies involving their kids or when they can’t get to work at eight and have to leave before four because their daycare sucks. He also has a ton of things going on in his life right now. The panic attacks. The nightmares. And he’s still grieving his father, or rather, learning how to do that because I don’t think he ever did it properly. He’s going to therapy now to deal with it, but a kid? It is the last thing he needs.
Philippe, so I know we don’t really even like each other, and beyond work and the occasional humping sessions, we hardly know each other at all, but are you ready to try and figure out how to raise a baby together? Because…surprise! I’m pregnant.
I wouldn’t say that, of course, but I’m pretty sure whatever I did say would go down about just as well as that. I think digesting the news would be like digesting a bunch of angry lobsters live and whole. Or barbed wire. Or anything sharp.
It would be bad. Really. Bad.
I have no idea how I’m going to tell Granny, but I already know I’m not going to tell Philippe. I’m going to have to quit my job. How am I going to find another one? I think you have to disclose if you’re pregnant or not, and I can’t get any kind of severance or unemployment pay if I quit. I know Philippe won’t want me to quit. He’ll try and talk me out of it, and I’m afraid he’ll know something is off. That I’ll let it slip. I’m going to have to just up and leave and not come back.
If I tell him, he’ll feel kind of responsible for raising a baby, and by kind of responsible, I mean financially. Maybe he’ll think he should do the token minimum and be in the kid’s life, but I don’t want that for my baby. So this was a surprise. So I’ve only truly known about it for a few minutes. So my cheeks are wet with tears, my whole body is trembling, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. But I still want this baby. The horror I felt the minute I saw two blue lines appear on the plastic stick was rivaled only by how much love I felt a second after—a heck of a lot of it.
I have no idea how I’ll raise a baby alone. I’m not ready. I had no plans for this. But I know I’ll make it work, whatever it takes. I never felt like I was number one or two or even three or four in my parent’s life. I know they love me. I know they must because they took care of me the best they could, but I also know they brushed me off whenever possible. Family vacations weren’t a thing because to them, vacation meant them going somewhere nice and me going to Granny’s. But going to Granny’s was the best time of my life. She was always there for me in ways they weren’t. She always got me, and she always made me know there was nothing I could do that would make her not love me. She was the mom my mom just never could be. Not that I’m not grateful to my parents or that I don’t love them. Because I do, and I know they love me too, but it just wasn’t the way Granny loved me. The way she loves me still. Or the way I love her. With her, I was always just accepted unconditionally. I felt like she was my kindred spirit or whatever. I was an old soul, and she was young at heart, and we just fit.
I want to love this baby the way she loved me. I don’t want my child to grow up knowing one of his or her parents doesn’t love him or her and didn’t really want him or her. I don’t want him or her to have a father who is just in it out of obligation. I don’t want him or her to feel like I often did growing up.
Like I was a mistake. Like my parents never meant to have me. I know I was a surprise too. They never had any more kids because they never wanted kids. They did try to explain it to me in nicer terms whenever I asked for a brother or sister. They said they were too busy with their jobs, and that they wanted to focus on their careers. It was better when I was older and could look after myself. They didn’t want to go back to diapers and sleepless nights. They were happy with our life as we were.