Our Greatest Adventure

Chapter 1: 13 Weeks & Counting

There are only so many ways to deny you're pregnant.

Within the first trimester it's easy to pretend a missed period is only a sign of stress, and morning sickness is the day old Chinese food you had for dinner. With little physical evidence to support the idea of pregnancy the excuses why you aren't pregnant are endless. Your body is the same as it always is, and you think maybe I can wait one more month before I assume the worst.

By the time you've taken the dreaded pregnancy test you've fallen so far into denial that you convince yourself the positive must be false. Even after you've taken a million more tests at the pleading of your best friend, you begin to blame Walgreen's for their faulty pregnancy tests.

Eventually though, you have to face that dark reality that your failed relationship has produced something you had never even considered an option.

Like every other young, unmarried woman, uninterested in having children I assumed it wouldn't happen to me. When it came to birth control I was religious about it. It slid down my throat a 6 in the morning along with my vitamins. Even on Saturdays when I got to sleep in, my alarm dutifully woke me up at 5:55am, just so I could take it.

Making sure I was protected had become an obsession at an early age; I never wanted to be a teenage mother. Knowing how strict I was with my birth control, it made no sense to see those pink lines pop up on the pregnancy test, and it definitely freaked me out when doctor confirmed my fears.

It took a long time for the shock to wear off, and to be honest I don't know if it will ever wear off. Being a mother was not something I had planned for, or ever saw in my future. I lived with a myriad of insecurities, and riddled with anxieties that made me selfish. There was no way I could ever be a decent mother.

With little experience with children, and limited knowledge of how my life was about to change I needed to start accepting my reality. I'd begun the process of acceptance by acknowledging I was pregnant and continued by telling my brother, and my best friend. Those were the easiest steps, but telling him, the father of my unborn child, was going to be more challenging.

It seemed almost serendipitous I would become pregnant with our child on one of our last good days. We'd been weathering the storm of a long distance relationship, and just keeping our heads above water then. In love but never feeling like it was enough, I ended it only a week after I had conceived. Imagine that.

Living on separate coasts made it easy to pretend I'd gotten pregnant on my own, that there was no second party. But each day that past that I didn't tell Jai, was another day the guilt ate away at me. He deserved to know he would have a child in a few months time, even if he chose not to have anything to do with it.

In my head I had practiced the perfect way to announce the news to my ex. I'd written it on post-it notes during the work day, and practiced them at night. But the moment I saw him walk through the doors of the cafe, calm and collected my confidence faltered.

He smiled at me from across the room, like we were old friends. In a quick moment, I realized I was about to alter his life forever. No one should have that kind of power.

It had only been a few months since I had last seen him, but he had changed so much since then. His 6 foot plus frame was bulkier, broader and his angular face was hidden beneath a bushy beard. He seemed more relaxed despite coming off a round of press, and heading into another.

"It's been awhile," He said, pulling me in for a bear hug.

The feeling was all to familiar, the way his body fit against mine and his warm, cinnamon smell. A scent that had finally moved out of my sheets after three whole months. It was almost too overwhelming, and I pulled myself away with a smile.