Welcome to Preggo Land

Three things are guaranteed in life.
1. You will die.
2. As a girl, if you sleep in a tank top, when you wake up, one of your titties will be outside.
3. The pregnancy scare will make you religious.
 In our African culture, a child is a blessing until it’s born out of wedlock. So I will try and put into detail what goes through the minds of ladies when they have a pregnancy scare.
You know when they range the causes of cardiovascular complications, they should start with missing periods. Especially when you use one of those tracking apps, and it’s there screaming in some Armageddon looking color, PERIOD: 6DAYS LATE. You may be atheist or a heathen but you summon the Lord in all the Hebrew terms you can remember. Sijui Elohim, because you need a celestial warrior for this one. And Nissi and Shalom and Shammah and so on and so forth.  You take a blood oath to chastity if God agrees to take away this cup of suffering from you. It worked for Jesus, right? You rack your brain and call Cucu, confirming the side of the mountain you should face, the angle at which your hnds need to be raised at and specfics of the libation the ancestors require to keep the fruit of your fornicating womb in dormancy. Its called covering all the bases.

Then you have self-doubt and start to wonder,' what if I’m overthinking? It’s just my periods, right? Let me consult the internet.' HAHAHA!
Out of the minimum 5 sites you’ll search, you will get the following signs
Tender breasts.
At this point, your hand will reach out and give your boobs a squeeze and is that your bra pad or your baby food generator already up and running?
 Nausea.
You feel yesterday's rice rise up your throat as if on cue.
 Food cravings
You remember you ate mukimo wa njahi on Tuesday, a culinary special you last ate in Njeri wa Makorofia’s ruracio last year. And you strolled four restaurants to find it. (In real sense the other three were packed but your mind won’t work like that right now).
 Fatigue and mood swings
Suddenly you crave sleep even though it’s a weekend and you slept right up to midday. And you snapped at Wa Ciru for hanging her duvet above you when you’ve just put out your weekly underwear for some sun.
Now Dr. Google has confirmed indeed there’s a bun in the oven. Then you start to think of the future, because now you’re a mother and you’ve evolved from the person you were 5 seconds ago. Your browser history now has things like: How to make money from home; a guide for single moms. DIY shawls for your newborn. How to swaddle a baby without suffocating it. On a scale of one to letting my child down a river in a basket, how ready I’m I for motherhood?  Or how to sue a deadbeat father, because this is the 21st century and ‘we are pregnant’ is a marital and social status.
Then you go to those online baby shops on Facebook. And it suddenly hits you that pair of crotchet booties costs the same as a small pizza. Calculating the costs has you at the point where you want to sell your kidney, coz we both know your promo jobs won’t cut it.
I don’t know why in all this madness, no one ever thinks of taking the test first. In fact, it is the very last thing you do. So after a cold weekend in hell, you decide to get the kit. On the way to the chemist, the universe keeps giving you signs. You see that happy couple making Shrek faces at their bundle of joy and your mind acknowledges that the lady that sells trench coats on the other side of the road just opened a bail in mini size. It’s raining babies people.
You get to the chemist and the display is padded with pads and tampons. You look at them longingly, like a kid at a toy store. Then you remember the time you took your period pain for granted and you whisper a short please to God.
Then you buy the kit and take the test.
If you thought election candidates have anxiety, you have never seen lady waiting for the pee stick to line up.
Then the results come in. Let me tell you it’s one straight line but it could as well be a halo because God didn’t send down a helper for this one. He came down himself. Then you sing a hymn of praise, develop selective amnesia, pick up your phone and dial the person who got you in that conundrum in the first place.