So, I went out to the grocery store last night, the one that’s open until midnight and bought a few things that I knew we needed.

Raisin bread, hot cocoa mix (it just got COLD around here!), apple juice, butter, yogurt. I walked past the pregnancy tests, surprised to see them out where you can just pick one up and pop it into your cart along with your bread and butter.

The thing that freaks me out about this whole “I think I may be pregnant but there’s just no way I could be” thing is that there really really is no way I could be.  I mean, you saw my list! C’mon! So I was getting really freaked out because I know there’s gotta be SOME explanation for the fact that my jeans are so tight… right at the waistline. A pregnancy would certainly explain that, along with my irritability, and my long, sleepy naps when I should be working (took a three-cat nap today with all three of my beasts and only got bitten a little; no blood drawn.)

When I was pregnant with each of my girls, the waistline itself was the very first thing to go.  Long before I even looked pregnant, I had that super uncomfortable feeling: MUST UNBUTTON THESE PANTS! This is caused by the uterus both growing in size, and by its rising upward as it grows. It grows larger, thanks to its occupant, and makes buttoning the pants impossible.

Buttoning my jeans is not impossible as of right now, but I have to admit, it’s getting harder. I don’t feel comfortable like I should. These jeans are the best damn jeans I’ve ever had! They fit me perfectly. Oh well, they used to fit me perfectly.

In my family history, I’ve got an obese dad, who has three obese sisters, every aunt and my dad too, has developed diabetes.  His dad was obese, and his mom too, though she shrank down quite a lot before she died. My cousins, children of my dad’s sisters, are mostly obese too, or apparently well on their way to getting that way.  I writing OBESE here because they aren’t fat. They aren’t pudgy, or chunky, or hefty, or well rounded. They’re not a little heavy, or full-figured. I’m talking about serious, serious body weight: my aunts are big, big, big. They wear muu-muu’s, these tents that rest over their enormous jiggly bodies.

I have no anti-fat feelings, other than concern for those people out there whose health is suffering adverse reactions to a diet and lifestyle that leads them to be more overweight than they are happy with. I don’t want to be like that.  I want my body, which has served me so well over these past thirty-somethin’ years, to stay approximately how it is: Nice and Fat. Not OBESE. Not thunderingly, jigglingly, turn sideways to enter the room, scary ginormous. I am pleasantly plump and have been for a fairly long time (aside from during pregnancies)— give or take maybe 20 pounds, which isn’t so bad on my fairly tall frame.

So I think part of my obsession was that if I were pregnant, that would be a perfectly acceptable explanation for feeling so much fatter than usual. And it would explain my moodiness, and my exhaustion.

I bought the test.

I brought it home. Stared at it.  I made applesauce from fresh apples, enjoying their simmering fresh scent through the house.

It’s so much easier, in life, to go with the flow of life. You don’t have to really make decisions when your hand is forced.  An unplanned third pregnancy: that would really shake things up around here. Any negative feelings I have about working? I’d shelf those and concentrate on creating a new individual human baby. Any stressful situations? I’d have to just let them go, because a baby takes precedence over everything.

Pregnancy is a stage of life where you have to, you’re expected to, even, focus inward. Your body is special, changing, and busy. You have to eat well, if not for your own sake, then for the health of a little tiny baby. Exercise may still be daunting and annoying, but you feel Oh So Virtuous doing it.

Imagine living life as though you were pregnant… just in case that turned out to be true. It’s an utterly wonderfully selfish way to live and something I must secretly long for.  I suppose that the motivation to eat well and exercise is higher when pregnant, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that level of motivation just for the sake of treating yourself well? Because you’re worth it?

I brought the test up to the bathroom at last, and opened it. Home pregnancy tests have improved since I was a teenager. Back then, the instructions required you to wait for first-thing-in-the-morning pee and it was like opening up a junior science chemistry kit.

This one was easy as could be. Open test, pee on it. Wait three minutes.

So I did all that – and it turns out that my worst fears are confirmed. I’m getting fat, bitchy and lazy and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being pregnant. Cuz I’m not. Obviously.

I guess I just have to get back to work, and stop being so self-indulgent: perhaps I should try a little self-restraint now that the damn halloween candy is gone — besides, I spent the $8 on a pregnancy test instead of buying up discount halloween candy. That’s a good start, neh?