Every year around the time that summer turns in to this dark, cold and bleak view outside my window, I convince myself that I am dying of cancer. Most years I am certain it's ovarian cancer because ovarian cancer is considered the "silent killer" which suits my lack of symptoms. This year, after a bad day with an overly tight sports bra, I talked myself in to believing I had boob cancer. I googled "sore boobs" and webMD didn't have any answers for me. If I pointed to the chest area of the symptom guide, it kept assuming that the pain I was experiencing was "chest pain" and telling me to go to the emergency room immediately. I was tempted to actually go. Technically I was having chest pains. But since everything I read was just making me feel inferior to a heart attack, I gave up. But the Internet did not. The Internet decided, without really telling me about it, that I was pregnant. But instead of just coming right out and telling me, it started to drop hints instead. First there was the Old Navy banner advertising maternity clothes. Then there was Target pamphlet that arrived in the mail with coupons for Prenatal vitamins. It went on like this for long enough that I seriously began to wonder if perhaps I was pregnant. I mean yes, my husband had a vasectomy two years ago but he never did go back in after the procedure to check if it worked. And yes I have one of those five year birth control devices but those things don't always work either. And maybe, even though it took us three years to conceive our first child, maybe since then we've developed the kind of reproductive organs that can kick start human life from a simple look. And maybe, even though I was very clearly pregnant when I was pregnant, maybe this time I'm not going to show and I'm going to have one of those secret pregnancies that doesn't reveal itself until I'm sitting on a toilet giving birth one night. And maybe all those months of morning sickness and lethargy during my last two pregnancies have been replaced with a general sense of well being and an energy level that is border line normal. I can't see why not. It's dark outside and I'm stuck inside the house and for the life of me I can't see why I shouldn't take a pregnancy test. So I do. I have these things in my cupboard since my last pregnancy, unable to throw away a $10 top-of-the-range pee stick and now I'm glad I didn't. So I pee on it like I did three years ago and then I wait, which is not my strong suit but I do as I'm told. But, much to my amazement, the line does not show a plus or a pink line or a "pregnant" or whatever the fanciest pee stick is supposed to do and it is then that I start to see how little my chances of being pregnant really are. My boobs were only sore for one day after all. I did just have a period that ended like yesterday. And then as I am starting to feel embarrassed by the chain of events that find me in my bathroom imagining a pregnancy, I catch sight of the expiration date on the pregnancy test and note that the pee stick has passed its expiration date. So, what I'm saying is that maybe I'm pregnant, that's all. But I guess we'll never really know.
Does this shirt make me look pregnant?