I was bone tired and didn’t feel like having doctors poke or prod at me. It was even easier to not go the next morning. And the next. If I didn’t see any changes in myself, the fact that I was carrying a child was easy to ignore. The fact that I actually was pregnant hit me hard after I missed my third period since the fateful test. I was having more and more trouble wearing my skirt for work, the buttons and zipper squeezing me. I’d taken to just leaving the button open and pulling my work blouse down over it. It wasn’t a true baby bump. It was more like I’d been stuffing my face full of fast food and never exercising. Nobody said anything, but I got a girdle all the same. It wasn’t something I wanted Mama knowing, especially since I’d taken the money she’d given me for the abortion and stashed it with the rest of the cash I’d been saving. At four months pregnant, I knew I was past the point of return. What had been a gut turned into a full-fledged baby bump. The future wasn’t my endgame; it was just getting past the challenges of my everyday existence.
