The Test You Begged To Fail

It's the "positive" result most people would have heart attacks over.

It starts with that dreadful feeling of a missed period after an inappropriately timed unprotected action. You try to go on your routine ways but the thought haunts you. You delay the errand of buying a pregnancy test kit as long as your curiosity can withstand but then succumb to your neuroses a few hours later. You purchase the blue box as inconspicuously as possible but then the old holier-than-thou woman behind you on the counter notices and gives you the dirty eye. You come home feeling like your bag is armed with explosives. In the middle of the night, when everybody else is asleep, you brace yourself. You take a deep breath... and pee.

Minutes later, you find out that your life will never be the same again.

Of all the tests in your life, this is probably the only one you have prayed and begged to fail. But it seems like fate has a different plan for you or maybe the Powers That Be chose you as the reluctant center of their cruel game. Either way, the two red lines on that blasted stick stare back at you mockingly. Ha! This is what you get for pretending to be a star of a Nicholas Sparks novel turned movie, the urine-drenched lines taunt.

How could this happen? You're so young, with your whole life ahead of you and yet there's suddenly this parasite in your body feeding off of your blood, hopes and dreams. You still plan to do so much more with your supposedly carefree years. Spend the entire night drinking at Distillery until dawn breaks, go trekking at Mt. Pinatubo or island hopping in Anawangin, visit Boracay and flaunt that bikini so you can post lomofied version of the pictures to Facebook. How are you supposed to do all these when there's another human being that's supposed to come out of you nine months from now and demand things like milk, clothing and education for the rest of your life?

And how about your career? You're not yet successful. Or at least you don't feel like it. You don't feel like you've done anything substantial yet with your life especially since it's just starting to form into something meaningful. It's too early for you to settle down and be imprisoned in a life of diapers and responsibility. Add to that that just when you're starting to feel beautiful and attractive, it's either you'll have a episiotomized vagina or have a caesarian section scar to bear for the rest of your days. Oh, and the stretch marks, don't forget the stretch marks. 

And one last thing, your parents are going to kill you when they find out.

After the initial shock, you study your options. Do those herbal medicines in Quiapo work? Where the hell can you buy Cytotec that isn't fake these days? They say the black Cytotec works better, is that true? You scour the net and look for black market sellers. There are so many you don't even know where to start and yet all of them look untrustworthy. Your cousin knows a friend of a friend who had an abortion before, does she still have the guy's contact number?

You start to panic. You don't know what to do. The father of this thing inside you (which you like to refer simply as "blood clot" since it's still too tiny to be considered as a life form) is useless. He's ambivalent and says he will support whatever decision you make. It's a choice you have to bear on your own. 

You wish that this is all a dream and you'll wake up any minute now free from this nightmare. You bargain for a time machine that will take you even for just a second before you make the stupidest decision of your life. You're no Allie in The Notebook or Savannah in Dear John. Real life unprotected sex leads to real life babies. 

You think of the jeering stares and hushed gossip of your sudden predicament from the people who know you and start to opt for termination (so that everything may go back the way they were and you can pretend this catastrophe never happened) but then something feels wrong. A subconscious part of your brain fights off the thought of taking an unknown pill that could very well cause hemorrhage, a fatal trip to the E.R. and one less soul tethered to this earth even before it had the chance to live. 

Here it comes, the Safeguard-commercial conscience moment that wrenches your heart from the inside. It feels like the Virgin Mary Mother of God herself is standing transparently behind you, crying pools of blood in despair. You know deep in your gut that although it measures only roughly an inch right now, it will be so much more in a few months, more so in the years to come. A baby, a student, a journalist, a lawyer, an ambassador for a humanitarian council who knows?

The power of your body to create something, a life no less, out of nothing is unparalleled and feels extraordinary. Could you really give all that potential out for a cheap shot at momentary freedom and an illustrious chance at "success" (whatever that means)?

The fog in your brain clears up and the panic subsides. The drama-inclined may call it an epiphany, but you know it's just your heart talking to you.

You know what to do.

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*Images taken from Google Images and http://fahdphotography.tumblr.com/