I sat on the toilet bowl, holding one end of the pregnancy test stick, the little blue-and-white bugger that was all so familiar and imposing.
It took nary a second for the two red lines to emerge.
Feeling imaginably like a teenager who just got knocked up, I spent the next few moments trying to recalculate my next steps in life.
My husband and I already had two boisterous boys in kindergarten at the time. We had recently renovated our home to fit a family of four. I finally had time to work at full speed and lead an active lifestyle.
When I broke the news that afternoon, my tears weren’t of joy but of fear and confusion. And of guilt that at that point, we were unable to see the pregnancy as what it simply was: a blessing.
As a 38-year old then, I was not looking forward to hosting another foetus in my well-used womb. Or dealing with dirty diapers, milky spit-up and breastfeeding years after I’d bidden these things adieu.
My husband was skirting around the A-word, but it was clear that he wanted to put that option on the table. After an hour of honest back-and-forth, the decision still came down to me. “I cannot dictate what you do with your body,” he said.