June1st

Goodmorning. I am Shana..and im a student, single mother and glorified badAss. (cue shades.) It seems fitting that I start our meeting at the crux. i am a well known dirty girl. ( Definition: New age woman prone to to addiction, rumours and one night stands.) I found out i was pregnant in 2009, sitting in my En suite on a Sunday morning, ironically as I was preparing for 10am Mass. (you know how us catholic girls can be…)  staring at my feet, wishing that the two ply would wipe away the HCG. Well, I was actually half staring at my feet, and half at the crystal ball like apparatus that I have just peed on. It has just doomed me to becoming an unwed mother. Oh, let me get you up to speed, I am 20, unemployed and dating an Islamic man/boy that irritates me. I am also an extroverted ex Crescent clinic patient prone to Ally Mac Beal fantasies, but we’ll get there.  You see, this wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to be famous by now. Yes, my plan was a cliché, but whose isn’t? My view is that everything has already been done anyway; the best we can hope for is to be carbon copies of really successful people. I’ve always pictured my name in lights, albeit Vegas, limousines, bodyguards, and telling people I’m from “the block”. Not once, did I picture having kids. I was about to own a mucous oozing, sand eating leach. I was about to experience gestation, gas, heartburn, vomiting, a possible C-section that I’ll have to do at a state hospital, and some intern was going to lose his sponge in my abdomen. Oh God. My Abdomen, and yes, this is worried me most, I was about to become fat.

“I’m leaving at quarter to…” my mother shouts from her room across the hallway. I can’t seem to look up. My head heavy, in its third trimester. Eventually I drag myself into the shower, hoping to drown in a freak domestic accident involving a farfetched scenario about intense water pressure paired with projectile faucets and overtly soapy floor. I suppose I didn't mind my parents finding out I was pregnant from my autopsy. It would certainly appear in whole new light. “If only she’d told us” I can hear my mother sob. “I would have loved another grandchild, if only she was alive” my imaginary father adds, consoling my mother as she sobs. Luther Van Dros playing in the background on the coroner’s Wireless. Fade to Black.  Unfortunately, this isn’t how the reveal goes down in real life. What irks me is that I feel as if they’re half expecting it. For you see, I am the black sheep, the “that child”. I’m the colossal-fuck-up sibling that causes most of the comic relief in many American sitcoms. I’m the fucking Marsha.

I know what you're thinking, how did i tell "him"?

“Hello?” Sperm donor X answers his phone.

“I’m pregnant”

“Ok. No problem, uhm, I a bit busy but….we can chat later.”

“Ok.”

“You ok?”

“Yeah”

“Ok cool. No problem. Cool.”

Because of my jaded past, I feared that no one was going to be surprised. I am somewhat disappointed. What is the purpose of my dramatic lifestyle, if not to shock people? I just feel that after being victimized and embarrassed, I would have atleast enjoyed the element of surprise as consolation.  We all deserve our 15 minutes of publicized shame.

So, what do I blame my continuous lapse in judgment on? Neglect is a good one. Or sexual abuse, any abuse really. Poverty always gets people out of things. But alas, I am not that lucky. I am a fortunate, upper middle class product of suburbia. I have a Degree in Film and Music and have gone through countless Life Orientation Lessons, so I am over qualified in the art of contraception. Imagine this conversation.

Dad: “why didn’t you use the pill or the injection?”

Me: “it makes me fat dad”

Dad: “and condoms?”

Me: “I prefer skin to skin, it feels better. I don’t orgasm with condoms”.

Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to go down well. What I would give for a pedophile uncle right now.  I have no excuse. So, I guess after all of this, you must be aching to know my back-story, right? I suppose I did drop n Hiroshima-esque bombshell.

I promise that next time we will get properly acquinted. what's better than telling your secrets to complete strangers?

Till then...

S