Bulletproof (3 page)

When Monday rolled around, it felt like that elephant was sitting right on top of me. The anxiety of it was stifling. It was all I could think about: I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. It took a lot of will power to make it through the motions of a normal day, making my way through the hallways amid all the usual sights and sounds of lockers shutting, friends hollering and bells ringing us in and out of class. Because the entire time, I knew something was off. And as crazy as it seemed, as much as it pained me to think about it, I knew what that something was. And I knew my shut-your-eyes, plug-your-ears strategy couldn’t go on forever. It was time to face what my instincts were telling me and get myself a damn pregnancy test.

At the time, for some reason, I thought a person had to be eighteen to buy a pregnancy test. That wasn’t true, for the record, but that shows you how well prepared I was for the situation I was in. Anyway, lucky for me, I remembered that I’d seen an unopened box of pregnancy tests under the bathroom sink at home. I had no idea why there were there, but thank God. I couldn’t wait another minute to face the music, and I wasn’t in a state to figure out how to get one of my own.

It was only two-thirty when I finished school and got home to take care of business. I approached the whole task in robot mode. It was almost an out of body experience. No one knew I was taking a pregnancy test, or even suspected I was thinking about it. It was just me, alone, in the bathroom, with a little plastic stick that was about to turn my crazy gut feeling into an inescapable fact.

When the test was positive, it wasn’t a big moment for me. It was just a formality, reality, confirming what had been obvious to me since I’d stepped out of the shower two days before. The test might as well have said, “Yep.” So once that moment of anticlimax was over, I walked slowly out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into my bedroom to call Ryan. He was at work early that day, a good forty-five minutes away.

“Hello?” Ryan answered.

I knew he couldn’t talk long, so I’d have to be clear and to the point. “It says it,” I said.

There was a pause. “Hello?” Ryan said again.

“It says it,” I repeated, only vaguely realizing that he hadn’t been in my head for the last few days.

“What are you talking about?”

“I took a pregnancy test and it says I’m pregnant.”

Whatever his response was, it was lost on me. For all my outward calm, I was a lot more dazed than I realized. The call was short. But I asked if I could come and see him at work, and he said yes.

Shifting into a quiet stealth-panic mode, I told my mom I was going to the mall with my friends. That was a completely unnecessary fib. She wouldn’t have interrogated me or forbid me to go say hi to my boyfriend. But in my mind, I wasn’t taking any chances. So I told her I’d be back soon, and I walked out the door without even waiting for her to respond.

Even more than taking the pregnancy test, the drive to Ryan’s workplace felt completely unreal to me. It was almost like I was watching myself go through it. My emotions had run off somewhere to escape the reality that was taking shape. I don’t even remember feeling anything, or thinking anything. I didn’t cry. I didn’t say much. I was just in complete, actual shock.

So was Ryan. He asked me the normal questions. Why didn’t I tell him I was taking a pregnancy test? Was I sure? The look on his face was the definition of confusion. He just stared at me with big round eyes and tried to process what I was saying. It seemed hard for him to understand that something so big could happen without any kind of warning. After all, we’d only been together for about six months. We’d only been having sex for two. How could something like this come at us so fast? We were both reeling in disbelief, so it was quite an awkward conversation. And to top it off, he was still at work and could only stay outside for five or ten minutes before he had to get back on the job.

Finally we hugged and both tried to say the right things. We said our I love you’s and told each other that we were going to be okay, that it would all be fine. It was obvious that every reassuring word coming out of our mouths was meant for ourselves as much as the other person. We may have prided ourselves on being low-drama types, but everyone has a threshold. No matter how chill you are, the words “I’m pregnant” can have a pretty powerful affect on your nerves. It went without saying that we were both freaking out inside.

That night, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, I stayed up late in the den with the TV on and wondered what to do next. I did not want to tell anyone. My first reaction, even though I knew it didn’t make realistic sense, was that it wasn’t anyone else’s business. But obviously I couldn’t tell
no one
. That wouldn’t really work.

I couldn’t tell any of my friends something this serious. Not when I hadn’t even wrapped my own head around it. They were my best friends and everything, but even then I was old enough to know that if you tell one fifteen-year-old a secret, she’s going to have to pass it on to someone or it will drive her crazy. I didn’t want it to get out of hand like that. Adding rumors and gossip to the mix could instantly turn the situation into a nightmare.

Finally, I decided to tell my brother Matt. Not only because he was one of my best friends, but because I knew he’d give me a real, valuable reaction that wasn’t sugar-coated or overly negative. I felt confident that he’d listen to me and give me advice on what to do next, without getting angry at me or judging me. So I texted him from the den, woke him up, and told him I needed to talk to him. He didn’t want to get up, but I told him it couldn’t wait.

My brother and I sat there for about five minutes in silence while he waited for me to say whatever I had on my mind. But when he couldn’t take it anymore, he asked, “What is it?”

I put my hand over my mouth like it would help filter the truth, and then I came clean. “I’m pregnant.”

“I knew you were gonna say that,” he replied, without missing a beat.

“How did you know?” I groaned. Great, I thought. So I have “PREGNANT” written on my forehead now.

“As soon as you said you needed to talk, I just knew it,” he said. “Did you take a test?”

“Yeah. I took one.”

“You need to take another one, just to be sure.” And just like that, he stood up and told me we were going to the drugstore. Our dad noticed us leaving and texted us once we were out the door — we told him we were going out for a snack.

My brother went into the drugstore with me. We approached the checkout counter with three tests, and the woman working behind the counter told us they were more accurate when taken in the morning. We thanked her and headed back home.

“Try to get some sleep,” he told me. “Take these in the morning before school, and come and tell me what they say.”

I don’t think I got any sleep that night. In the morning, I passed every one of those tests with flying colors. Meaning they all said I was pregnant.

I went to my brother’s room. The door was ajar, so I knocked softly and pushed it open. “Are you awake?”

My brother was sitting up in bed and looked at me like,
Are you kidding?
“Do you actually think I’ve been asleep?” he asked.

“All the tests said I’m pregnant,” I said. I felt nothing. I was still in shock.

“It’s gonna be okay,” my brother said, perfectly calm and reassuring.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna tell them.”

“Mom and Dad went through this themselves,” he said. “They’ll freak out, but they’ve been here before. It’ll be okay and you know I’ll always be here for you.”

I hoped he was right. For the moment, all I could do was grab my stuff and head for school. Keeping my brother’s support and confidence in mind helped me keep it together that day, especially once the shock wore off and my mind turned into an echo chamber of, “What the hell am I going to do?”

The first step I knew I wanted to take was going to the doctor. Even though I’d taken enough tests at that point to be sure I was pregnant, it still seemed smart to get an official confirmation from the doctor, just to be absolutely certain before I dropped the bomb with my parents. I also thought that if I could find a doctor, make an appointment, and get things figured out before I approached them, it would take some of the initial stress and burden off of their shoulders. Maybe they’d think, “Well, if she’s done this all on her own, maybe she understands the seriousness of the situation and her responsibilities.”

The trouble was I didn’t know how to go about it. I was only sixteen, and I’d never even been to a gynecologist. Luckily, Matt had a friend who was pregnant at the time, and he asked me if he could tell her what was going on so she could give me some advice. Within the week, I’d called her doctor and made an appointment for two weeks away. But as soon as I hung up the phone, I thought, “Oh, no. I’m still a minor. What if they don’t let me in without a parent?” When I called back to ask, they told me I could come in alone as long as I had my insurance information. I told them that was great, but really I was thinking, “Great. One more thing I don’t know where to start with.”

It was crazy. I hadn’t even told my parents I was pregnant yet. I hadn’t even been in a doctor’s office. But already things were coming at me that were totally beyond my experience and understanding as a teenager. I got my insurance card from my mom by telling her I needed it for a job application. She found that odd, but she handed it over anyway.

When the appointment rolled around and I sat down in the waiting room with Ryan to fill out the paperwork, I had a fresh batch of problems. I’d never filled out my own medical paperwork before. The forms asked for information I had no clue about, along with my mom’s social security number, since she was the insurance holder. I slunk back to the receptionist with the clipboard and told her I had no idea what anything meant. She walked me through it and helped me fill it out, and then it was time to see the doctor.

I’d been scared everyone was going to judge me at the doctor’s office. I expected it to be really awkward.
You’re sixteen, you’re pregnant, you’re screwed!
But it wasn’t the case at all. The nurse who brought back my test result was as chipper as could be.

“You’re definitely pregnant!” she told me with a big smile.

The doctor congratulated us right away, then asked us if our parents were looking forward to being grandparents.

Ryan and I looked at each other. “We haven’t told them yet,” I said.

The doctor didn’t seem to pick up on my apprehension “They’re going to be so excited!”

“Well,” I said, forcing a laugh. “Do you want to tell them for me?” Everyone was so friendly and excited, it was almost bugging me. I still hadn’t figured out how to wrap my head around the situation all the way, so I didn’t know how I felt yet. But I definitely wasn’t feeling as festive as they were acting.

Then the doctor did an ultrasound, and time sort of stopped.

Ryan and I had no idea it was going to happen. But when we saw that little peanut on the screen and recognized the heartbeat, something incredible came over the room. The atmosphere in the room changed completely. Everything quieted down for that one peaceful, precious moment.

In that moment, everything became real.

Just like that, I felt all of the denial and bullshit dissolve from around my mind. In the middle of that scary, shocking time, that feeling of awe and amazement helped me put my feet on the ground. I thought, “You’re pregnant. Here you go. This is your new life.”

CHAPTER 4:

MY STORY STARTED DECADES AGO

my story started decades ago,

but life as i know it...

began when yours did.

a few days away from a few years,

i’m getting through what i got myself into.

all because of you, being beside me all the way.

all i had to offer you was my heart,

and from day one, that’s all you ever wanted.

you are my heart.

this journey of growing up...

everything i learn i’ll teach you,

as you are teaching me.

the chance to have a future,

i’ll give to you.

because that’s what you gave to me.

if i’m gifted a long life with you,

as your mother and friend.

my promise to you,

i will always love you more.

and when i’m gone,

if you learn anything from me...

i hope it’s that you love yourself,

as much as i loved you.

CHAPTER 5:

SHOCKWAVES

My parents have been together since they were fifteen years old. My mom was sixteen when she got pregnant with my brother. But their story isn’t a cautionary tale. They got married and stuck together, and they’ve been together now for almost thirty years. No matter how difficult things were, they worked as a team and managed to stay in love with each other all the while. No relationship is easy, but even when they fought, there was respect between them. You could always tell they still thought of each other as those two young people who fell in love back in high school.

I’ve always been close with my mom, and we were able to talk about anything. But that didn’t mean we did talk about everything. Somehow, we never got around to talking about pregnancy and sex. To be perfectly honest, I think she just figured she didn’t have to. It just so happens that my brother and I aren’t half as rambunctious as our parents were when they were our age. When my mom and dad were teenagers, they were pretty wild. They ran with a rough crowd and partied hard. Not that they were total delinquents. Both of them had great parents and good morals. But my grandparents worked a lot, so there was plenty of time for a couple of fun-loving teenagers to get up to no good.

Compared to Mom and Dad, my brother and I were model citizens. And that was thanks to them. They always gave us enough freedom to be our own people, but they also kept an eye on what we were doing and who we were hanging out with. They raised us to be smart and act right, and it seemed to be panning out just fine. They certainly had no idea I was having sex.