Veracity (n.) – Conformity to facts, accuracy
I held the pee sticks in my trembling hands and gave them a shake, as if like an Etch A Sketch they would fade the truth from my unbelieving eyes. The positive crosses on all of them remained. I slid to the floor, the cold tiles adding to the shock I was in. The air had been punched from my gut and my mouth had gone surprisingly dry considering the amount of water I’d just necked. I felt like I was gripping on to my emotions with my fingernails, trying to make sense of what this meant. Was this a normal reaction? Shouldn’t I be jumping for joy or bursting into tears at this miracle Ben and I had performed? Shouldn’t my maternal instinct kick in the moment I saw the bright pink cross in the small window? I just felt numb. No tears of joy or shock. No overriding emotion other than one of disbelief, as if these sticks I was holding were meant for someone else.
As my mind eventually woke up, it started to come together. It wasn’t just jet lag or alcohol making me grumpy and argue with Shelley. It must have been pregnancy hormones causing me to act so unstably.
I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant.
I needed to speak to someone. I couldn’t call my parents, not when my head was in this much of a state. Ben would no doubt still be fast asleep and half-cut from Jimmy’s stag do last night. How was I even going to break this to him? He’d been so adamant that children were off the table. I’d fallen out with Shelley so I couldn’t ring her for advice. The only other person who would understand this situation was Marie. I picked up my phone and willed my shaking fingers to tap open the FaceTime button. Thankfully, she answered within seconds. Her face filled my phone screen and made me smile sadly at seeing her sitting on her sofa in her house, thousands of miles away.
‘Hey!’ She beamed, adjusting the volume and propping her phone up against a mug. ‘How are you? I was wondering how you were all getting on. There’s not as many photos online for me to stalk you all for my liking.’ She smiled. ‘Georgia … what’s the matter?’ Her grin faded as she realised I’d started crying.
‘I’m … I’m …’ The words refused to budge from my chest as gasps of tears fell.
She shifted her position and grew more concerned that this wasn’t a friendly catch-up call.
‘Take a deep breath. What’s happened? Is it Ben? Is it Shelley?’ She knotted her eyebrows together.
I shook my head, burping down the acidic sting of bile hitting the back of my dry throat.
‘Erm, has anything happened to Jimmy?’ she guessed again.
Another shake of my head as I choked on the tears storming my eyes.
‘Are you sick?’
It was beginning to feel like she was trying to communicate with Lassie to find out whether little Jimmy-Bob had fallen down the mineshaft.
‘Georgia, just take a breath, you need to give me a clue at least …’
‘I’m pregnant,’ I eventually managed to spit out. The alien-sounding words tasted bitter on my tongue. I felt numb; it was as if someone else was saying them.
Marie’s eyes widened. ‘Seriously?’
I nodded, wiped the snot tickling the tip of my nose and leant over to show her the five positive pregnancy tests.
‘Oh my God! How do you feel?’
‘Like an idiot,’ I said, shaking my head, trying to get some control over my emotions.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked softly.
I sighed. ‘I mean that I should have been more prepared with keeping an eye on my periods, that I should have used titanium-strength condoms, that I shouldn’t be in a situation feeling such intense shock at finding out I’m going to have a baby at my age. I feel like the girls on Teen Mom have a better handle on things than I do right now.’
Marie smiled. ‘Of course it’s a shock, but that’s totally normal, Georgia! Do you not remember when I found out about Cole?’ She shuddered as I thought back to her surprise discovery after a one-night stand with his dad, Mike. ‘Wait. It is Ben’s, isn’t it?’ She narrowed her eyes.
‘Of course it’s Ben’s!’
Marie let out a dramatic sigh and wiped her forehead. ‘Well, that’s one less thing to worry about then. So, what’s he said about it all?’
I chewed on my fingernail. ‘I haven’t told him yet,’ I said quietly.
‘Is he not with you?’ She leaned forward as if trying to see around the camera lens.
I shook my head. ‘He went out on the stag do and stayed over with Jimmy. I was meant to be having a girls’ night in with Shelley but we sort of had a fight.’
‘A fight? You and Shelley? Why?’ Marie looked as if she wished she’d got some popcorn ready for this call.
‘I don’t really know.’ I sniffed loudly. ‘Weddings bring out the worst in people, I guess.’
‘Does she know about your news? Has she gone mental that you’ve sabotaged her big day with this announcement?’
‘No!’ I looked horrified. ‘One, I would never steal her thunder and two, I only did the test a few moments ago and I’ve not seen her since.’ Oh God, now I had that to add to my list of worries.
‘Well, you can’t tell her until after her big day, especially if she’s off with you at the moment.’
I nodded. ‘I know. Don’t worry. I’m not going to say a word. I still need to get my own head around the idea first.’
‘Do you need me to run through your options with you?’
I stared at her. ‘Options?’
‘Well,’ she sighed. ‘There are three …’
‘Three options?’
‘You abort it, you have it and give it up for adoption, or you keep it,’ she said calmly.
I stared at her. ‘I can’t even think about two of those; they are not options in the slightest.’
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, good. I just needed to see where you were at with it …’ It hadn’t even crossed my muddled mind that I would abort it or give it up. ‘Well there’s so much to do!’ She sat upright and counted things out on her fingers. ‘Folic acid! You need to start taking that as soon as possible. I’m sure you can get that in the pharmacies over there. You need to watch what you eat. No raw fish, no pâté, no caffeine, no soft cheese, no fresh mayonnaise. Oil!’ She seemed to jump each time a new thought came to her.
‘I can’t eat oil?’ Not that I regularly poured myself a shot of olive oil, but it just seemed tricky to police this one.
‘No, you need to use oil. Every. Single. Day. All over, and I mean all over your body if you want to minimise stretch marks. My stomach looks like a wild wolf has clawed at it since having Lily, and that was because I was slack on using the oil.’ She shook her head, berating herself. ‘Everyone also says you’re eating for two now but that’s bollocks. Ignore those people as they just want you to get fat. Obviously you know about not drinking.’
My stomach flipped so violently at the thought of having a glass of wine I thought I might need to end the call and throw up. ‘I don’t think that will be a problem,’ I said, hoping I wasn’t turning green.
‘Oh, you say that now. That is classic first trimester. As soon as those nauseous months pass, you’ll be craving a bottle of rosé like never before. Luckily, nine months go much faster than you can imagine.’ She focused her eyes to check I was taking all of this in. I wasn’t, but tried to pretend I was. My attention was still with rosé wine and how I never wanted to see a glass of that ever again.
‘But I’ve been drinking since coming over here. What if I’ve done some awful damage?’
Marie wafted her hand. ‘Don’t worry. Unless you’ve been doing hard-core drugs and raving every night, you’ll be fine. I was hardly the picture of good health when I found out about Cole either, remember?’ I nodded. ‘Apps,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘Apps?’
‘Yes, you can get all these pregnancy apps that give you loads of info about the things you should and shouldn’t do, depending on what stage you’re at.’
‘Oh, okay.’ I really should be making notes of all this.
‘Then you’ve got loads of other stuff to think about, and that’s before you even work out how to afford it. Babies may be tiny but they’re not cheap. There is so much to buy. I mean, I can share a lot of my things with you but there are certain items you’ll want to get new. The big stuff like the crib, the pram, the car seat, all need to be budgeted for. You’ll need to think about if you’re going to do breast or bottle or both. You’ll also need to think about the birth; whether you’re at home or the hospital, if you want a special type of labour.’
‘A pain-free one?’ I laughed weakly.
‘In your dreams.’ She snorted. ‘Now it’s in there, there’s only one way it’s coming out. Well, two ways, and neither is pleasant.’
This was all making my head swim. I knew she was trying to be supportive and share her wisdom from having two children, but it felt like I was being drowned with information I’d never even thought about before.
‘Names!’ She half screamed, raising her finger in the air. She was getting excited now. ‘You need to start thinking of what to call him or her, something unusual but not too strange. When we had Cole, no one had ever heard of that name before; now there are loads at the baby classes that I take Lily to. Ooh, you should think of how you want to announce it. You should get booked in for a maternity photo shoot, or you can set up this app to take a photo of your stomach every day from the same place and at the end of the nine months you get a video of how your body has changed. Or you could throw a party! I wish I’d been able to do this, as it’s all the rage over in America for women to hold gender parties where they reveal the baby’s sex. You are going to find out the gender, aren’t you?’
‘Jesus, I haven’t—’
She cut me off. ‘It’s up to you, of course, but some women say it helps with the bonding process. Oh, I nearly forgot – perineum cream! That’s essential. Your body is going to change so much and you need to do all you can to try and keep it as tight for as long as possible. Kegel exercises are going to be as intuitive as breathing from now on. Are you doing them now?’
I felt like I was being interrogated by the vagina police and quickly nodded, pulling over-the-top facial expressions to show how I was strengthening the inner walls of my lady bits. Was this actually happening?
‘I’m not joking, Georgia. You’ll thank me when it’s born and you can still wee and have sex like a normal person. I know this one woman who had an awful time because she never did her exercises and guess what …?’ She paused, dramatically widening her eyes.
‘What?’ I asked slowly.
‘She had to get a designer vagina done at the plastic surgeon’s. Couldn’t feel a thing when she, you know . . .’ Marie held up her pinkie finger as a hook and raised one eyebrow. ‘You’ll also have to deal with strangers coming up and touching your stomach.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s fucking annoying, but then you do get some perks out of being up the duff, like cutting in line, getting seats on public transport and being treated like royalty. Apparently, you can even get upgraded on some flights! That would be perfect for you!’
Flying. Travel. Fuck. I hadn’t even thought about how having a baby was going to affect my career. No more last-minute trips, long-haul flights or spur-of-the-moment holidays. I was about to lose all the freedom and independence that I felt I’d only just started to make the most of. I felt an ache for the things I hadn’t yet achieved, the things I had but would never get to do again, the end of my world as I knew it.
‘Oh my God, how am I going to still do my job! How am I going to tell Conrad and Kelli, let alone break this to Ben?’ I felt like I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
Marie clocked my anxiety levels rocketing dangerously high. ‘Georgia, take a deep breath. You will figure it all out. Right now, it’s probably really scary, but, I promise, you and Ben will work out how to manage. Every new parent feels exactly the same.’ She paused. ‘So, when are you telling him?’
My stomach dropped. ‘I have no idea.’ I could feel myself welling up again at how overwhelming this all was.
‘I know it feels like there is so much to take in, but every day you’re a day closer to meeting him or her, which means there isn’t a moment to waste.’
I swallowed back the bile in my throat. ‘I need to go. I think I might be sick.’
Before she could say another word, I hung up and vomited into the toilet.