The Pregnancy Center (Part 2)

Note: This article corresponds to the Momic chapter: “The Pregnancy Center (Part 2).” You can read it on Webtoon here.

Sitting in that chair in the pregnancy center, I was consumed in a sea of anxious thoughts. 

“What will I do?”

“Will I be able to graduate?” 

“How am I going to tell mom and dad?”

“Should I get an abortion?” 

“This can’t be happening..”

“I feel so ashamed.”

I was not at all prepared for what the volunteer said as they walked back into the room. 

“Congratulations.” 

In that moment all I felt was like I wanted to cry. It was the first time any other person had acknowledged I was pregnant, and it made me feel horrible. 

Congratulations for what? Getting pregnant at 21? Not being married? Going against my convictions? Having a baby with my boyfriend I had only just met in person for the first time 30 days earlier? 

I didn’t feel like I had done something worth a “congratulations.” 

I also felt angry. At myself. At the world.

I felt unlucky. I felt cheated that a moment that should have been joyous filled me with so much fear. Some part of me still didn’t even believe it was all real. 

The volunteer asked me if I would like to do my ultrasound, and I agreed. I knew I had to figure out if the pregnancy was viable and not ectopic, for my own safety. 

I was led to a back room with ultrasound equipment and a bathroom. Since I was so early on in my pregnancy, the ultrasound tech offered a transvaginal ultrasound to find the heartbeat. I consented. There wasn’t much else that could make my day worse anyways. 

When I saw my uterus light up on the screen I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but I quickly was alerted to a random blob that was apparently my baby. 

It didn’t look much like a baby. More like a smudge. But somehow that smudge on the screen had a detectable heartbeat. Weird. 

The silver lining in all of this was that there was only one blob on that screen. I’m a twin, and my dad is a triplet. Multiples run in my family. I was just relieved I hadn’t been blessed in that regard. 

I don’t know what I would have done if it was twins…